By Rotimi Fasan

LIKE an evil odour, the fever of death caused by Boko haram is still grimly spreading across the country with death toll from its cowardly Christmas attack still rising. With its highly and increasingly sensitive murderous instinct, Boko haram may look like a group to be feared but really such fear is not much different from the type induced by a bull dog whose forbidding look is undercut by its lack of teeth.

What we must never forget is that despite its scare tactics Boko haram is, by the non-logic of its muddled ideology and operation, a conclave of cowards. It operates by stealth, in darkness and has no known face. Nobody has ever boldly come out to identify themselves as either members or leaders of the group. This very fact should have given government the tactic to use in annihilating the group.

The fact that it has no known face, address or ideology are sufficient reason for its non-existence and government ought to have treated it as such, taking out persons connected with it via methods buried in stealth and under-the-table stratagem.

But forever playing the fool, Abuja chose to role out the carpet and began a debate on how to call a faceless group to the negotiating table. Which is to say that government lionised Boko haram and gave it powers well beyond its means by its spineless call for negotiation with murderers who would never be satisfied no matter what is done to placate them.

Abuja’s failure to take the initiative, anticipate what the cowards who operate behind the veneer of this group can do, the depth to which they could descend, is the only reason they would walk to a church and hurl bombs at innocent people out to worship their God in the only way known to them.

They had no grouse with or against any group but there they were slaughtered like common animals, their vital organs spilled on the floor on one of the holiest events of their lives. Entire families, wiped out in one fell swoop, were known to have been among the victims of the madness that walked on all fours through Madalla, Damaturu and Jos on Christmas day. Nobody knows what this faceless group or those who operate in their names are again cooking for the New Year.

Of course, our government and security agencies that are now notorious for their indolence and lack of purpose would sit back as the rest of us civilians, ignorant people all, and wait to count or dispute figures of casualty from the next attack. Any wonder many Nigerians are expressing their lack of confidence in Abuja?

As things presently stand nobody knows how many Nigerians went with the Christmas day attacks. Our chronic lack of respect for statistics for usually devious purposes ensures this. It is doubtful if many of our religious places have accurate records of their members.

Some might even falsify figures, as we always do during election and census exercises, for reasons best known to them. In which case we may never know the entire truth of those killed in the attacks. Indeed, some of those killed might not have been members of the churches attacked. Some might have been visitors out of their regular places of abode but had gone out to worship in the places nearest to them.

Others might have been passersby with no connection whatsoever with the places of worship. But those who attacked them had been in so much haste; they had been too cowardly to discriminate between the innocent worshippers they targeted for attack and others who could have been members of the attackers own family or whatever they call the beastly group they belong. And the day after, what were the words from our leaders?

President Jonathan who has made it clear he is ready to enter the trenches with Nigerians rather than back down on removing ‘subsidy’ from oil could only mutter his usually commonplace remonstrance to Nigerians to forbear and support the government, ending with his long-unfulfilled promise to ‘fish out’ the perpetrators of the ‘dastardly’ attack on Christian worshippers.

Ah! Will our dear President for once try to say something less scripted, more inspiring and confidence-building? When can we begin to expect Nigeria’s first head of government with a PhD to be more decisive in taking on at once deaf, unthinking and, perhaps, non-human creatures? But no, President Jonathan doesn’t want to rock the boat.

Really, he appears unable to arrive at a creative way to handle the threat posed by faceless fringe groups- probably in the pay of some ambitious and confused politicians who imagine they could become president by causing more than enough trouble for an incumbent they consider weak- Jonathan appears lacking in both the will and idea of engaging groups like Boko haram. This tendency to be routine and uncreative in thinking is the hallmark of Nigerian leaders.

They don’t appear to think to say nothing of doing creative thinking. Their approach to governance is both perfunctory and demonstrates a serious lack of preparedness. They don’t know the first thing about what their constituents regard as important. They are locked in the past and can hardly hope for the future.

Nigerian leaders continue to mouth diverse reasons for the persistent scarcity of kerosene. It is ironic that the very commodity that the majority of Nigerians use in cooking is what is out of their reach. Any surprise when they rush into the forest to cut down precious trees they have no intention of replanting for cooking? Let’s not forget, too, that our fixation (actively encouraged by government officials) on kerosene reflects failure of strategic thinking.

What would it cost government to insist on the phased withdrawal of use of kerosene- this going hand in hand with promotion of use of gas now been flared with serious consequences for the environment? We have more gas deposit than even crude oil that we would kill one another for. But we allow our gas to be flared. What is government doing about this?

Why would a governor like Mr. Abiola Ajimobi of Oyo State imagine that he could provide high employment and build a modern, environmentally-friendly transport system on the mass purchase of tricycles where elsewhere people are talking of fast trains, trams and bus rapid transport etc? What really do our leaders do when they claim to plan or think? We surely can do better than this and should hope for big thinkers in the New Year. Have a great 2012!