By Rotimi Fasan
THERE is one thing the latest Boko Haram attack at the Louis Edet House last week has made clear: That the terrorist group means business and is prepared to take on the Nigerian state head-on. For those who don’t know, Louis Edet House is the national headquarters of the Nigeria Police, the principal police department in the country, named for the first indigenous Inspector General of Police, Sir Louis Edet.

It was this same structure located within the same district as the residence of the President in Abuja that the fringe group with extreme religious beliefs called Boko Haram made the target of its latest attack. As I write this nearly 24 hours after the attack, no group has claimed responsibility for it. But preliminary report from the police points in the direction of Boko Haram.

What is more, Boko Haram is not seriously in the business of taking responsibility for its numerous attacks and there is nothing to suggest it would in this case. Taking responsibility might be too much of a Western detail for such a backwardly crude group without a coherent agenda. Yet the attack at Louis Edet follows the pattern the Boko Haram group is increasingly notorious for.

Members of the group have made Nigerian security personnel their special targets of attack. In this wise they’ve detonated explosives at military barracks, police stations and on roadsides plied by travelling security officers. And last Thursday’s attack had all the imprint of similar attacks perpetrated by Boko Haram in the past. One needs to flesh out a little detail the circumstances of the attack to appreciate the sheer dare and devilry involved.

According to reports from the scene, the explosives that went off were detonated by a suicide bomber driving a Mercedes that trailed the convoy or escort of the Inspector General of Police, Hafiz Ringim, as he reported for work that morning. The attempt by the vehicle driver to sneak its way through security as part of the IG’s escort was foiled as the vehicle was spotted and forced to stop at the car park inside the police station.

A police officer got inside the errant vehicle apparently to question the driver and within minutes of doing that the vehicle exploded, blowing the police man and the driver and yet unaccounted number of innocents into oblivion. Even though initial reports put the number of dead at six, it’s clear it would be more than that ultimately.

This point is brought home by the fact that over 70 vehicles were burnt, more than 30 of these beyond recognition. The scale of the attack is indeed big to say nothing of the method. There is no point pretending that the attackers wanted to take out the IG who himself, it seems, is becoming the proverbial cat with nine lives. Only weeks ago a disgruntled police officer was spotted trying to drop some local talisman around him.

The Boko Haram attack would have succeeded but for God. The mileage that would have given the terrorist group would have been unquantifiable. Their past targets have been junior security personnel. But had they succeeded in taking out the IG the way they had apparently wanted they would have damaged beyond measure the confidence of the police as of other security agencies, and sent home the chilling message that nobody was safe.

Indeed, making Ringim their target was intended to teach him some lesson for it was only days ago that the IG promised to hunt down members of the Boko Haram. Being the daredevils that they are, they took the initiative of bringing the battle to Mr. Ringim’s doorstep. The question now is: how prepared is President Goodluck Jonathan, to say nothing of Ringim, to take on the Boko Haram siege on the country?

I have argued here shortly after the President was sworn in that one of his major tasks is curbing the threat to national security posed by groups like Boko Haram. Since then there have been several attacks by the group, including the one in which many children were killed in the Northern town of Damboa last week.

Boko Haram has grown more confident and sophisticated in its attack, while the Nigerian State appears confused and lost as to the right way to respond. While promising to take on the terrorists in no specific way, the Federal Government has been offering to dialogue with and appease the Boko Haram people. Such carrot and stick approach is at best wrongheaded if not outright capitulation.

A group like this without any stated agenda beyond its mealy-mouthed claim of loathing anything of Western origin is not educated enough to appreciate the finer claims of neighbourly living. They are out for total chaos and anarchy, a return to the state similar to that of nature in which only, but only their own view of human existence prevails.

They have no respect for order, and this is made clear by the fact of their declared war on security personnel. Where there is neither law nor order what would be left? This is what Boko Haram wants and President Jonathan would do well to understand this rather than seeing the group as some kind of Islamic group that should be appeased.

Even Muslims are scared of the Boko Haram that seems a replica of a Taliban-like regime. There is every reason to believe that the group is affiliated to some outside terrorist group. Who knows what link exists between the Boko Haram and Al Qaeda? Indeed, was it entirely fortuitous that the attack at Louis Edet took place the very day Al Qaeda appointed an African of Egyptian descent, Ayman al Zawahiri, to replace Osama Bin Laden? Given the penchant of fringe groups like this for ceremonies, the attack on the Police Headquarters could have been a way to celebrate the ascent of an African on the terrorist ladder.

Insecurity is fast taking over the land; lives are being terminated by groups of persons, usually political thugs, who in ordinary terms should be in prison. Where but Nigeria would groups of mostly illiterate, substance abusers such as members of the National Union of Road Transport Workers take over and paralyse a whole city? In recent times Oyo State has been under the ministration of such groups.

Last week inhabitants of Ibadan were in panic after rumours went round that bombs had been planted in different parts of the state. Before you know it Ibadan would have been turned into another place for terrorists who settle score with explosives. With Boko Haram operating without let or hindrance copycat groups would soon spring up elsewhere. Now is the time to take on this army of chaos and put them out of business. President Goodluck Jonathan should be the leader he was elected to be.