By Dele Sobowale

“A steady patriot of the world alone/ The friend of every country but his own. George Canning, 1770-1827.

From what one reads in the papers or on-line, or listens to on the electronic media, one might readily conclude that some “critics” of the Federal Government and the armed forces would wish that the country loses the war – just to be proved right that our men in uniform are incapable of winning this war.

They cite various hit-and-run skirmishes in which the Boko Haram had achieved success, mostly against unarmed civilians and kids in schools as evidence that we cannot fight and win.

Balderdash! I have bad news for those who think or wish Boko Haram will win as a result of these tactics – those who apparently love every other country more than Nigeria. No army, guerilla or regular, had ever won a war by killing or kidnapping civilians.

Victory for armed men, engaged in conflict, will always, be achieved by beating the other army. Boko Haram has not yet beaten, and will never, defeat our armed forces. Let me quickly explain.

“The only battle that counts is the last battle.” Richard Neustadt in POWER AND PRESIDENTS.

While only the Almighty knows when the war – and we are engaged in a war – will end, the final outcome is not in doubt. Boko Haram will be defeated – just like the Tamil Tigers and the other separatist movements which terrorized their nations for years. In actual fact, Boko Haram has already lost this war.

All that is left is the final battle. Because no patriotic armed forces of any nation had ever been able to defeat any insurgent group, receiving massive support from external forces, without years of “blood, sweat and tears”, no leader of any country had ever been able to forecast, to the day, when the war in his country will end.

But, they are forced by circumstances beyond their control, mainly, the pressure from their people, to provide reassurances about victories which will end the war soon.

When President Bush, threatening “shock and awe”, which he thought would bring the war in Iraq to a quick end, he never expected that more than eight years after he left office, and twelve years after he started it, the USA will still be fighting in Iraq.

The Boko Haran insurgents, who started this war, also must have miscalculated. Victory, which they expected would be achieved in a short time, had eluded them. Now, they are desperate. Out of desperation, they are now targeting mostly the civilian population.

All their recent attempts to attack military barracks had been aimed at rescuing their members captured by the Nigerian armed forces to prevent the captives from talking. Each had ended in humiliating defeat for them.

Rag-tag soldiers are never able to withstand professional soldiers in a pitched battle – unless they have overwhelming fire-power. Every loss represents a double blow to them. I will not explain that for now. But, they know what I mean.

To be quite candid, Boko Haram lost before the first shot was fired. If, indeed, their ultimate goal is to eradicate Western education from Nigeria, or even from the Northeast zone, it does not require the towering intelligence of a rocket scientist to know that, given any state of Nigeria for them to govern, they would soon realize the total isolation from the rest of the world that the state would suffer.

How would it conduct trans-national trade, sign  treaties, draft a constitution, issue currency, join the global ICT etc, etc? Obviously, we are fighting with armed morons – not a disciplined army. And, that is why they will ultimately lose.

They cannot even govern a local government without all the things education had made possible. People without commonsense can cause major disruptions, but, they can never govern. That is why we must not only support our government, but, we must allow them to patiently sort out the mess they inherited from as far back as 2007.

The closest analogy I can think of is that of a parent who unfortunately has a mentally-retarded kid who also has a violent temper. The parent can’t strangle him/her, out of annoyance, but still something must be done to stop him from harming others – or even killing himself. Who is the parent who can tell when that problem will be solved? Tell me.

However, we can help Boko Haram to prolong the war if we continue to heckle and demoralize our armed forces as well as the intelligence and security people who are fighting 24/7 to defeat these monsters. Let me point out some of the reasons why guerilla armies are difficult to engage by the conventional army all over the world – not just in Nigeria……

PLIGHT OF MINORITIES IN MULTI-ETHNIC STATES –2
“Politics without principles” Gandhi.
Question: What do the Okoroma, Nembe and Ogbia of Bayelsa State, the Bachama of Adamawa State, the Juguns of Benue State and the Orons of Akwa Ibom State have in common? Answer: they are all minority ethnic groups in those states which are dominated by one major ethnic group.

When Tivs, Igalas, Urhobo and Ijaws complain about the overbearing influence of the Hausa/Fulani, Igbo and Yoruba in the political affairs of Nigeria, they deliberately forget that in their own states one ethnic group dominates the others as much as the WAZOBIA group.

It will be far easier for ten camels to pass through the eye of a needle than for a Nembe to be governor of Ijaw-dominated Bayelsa State, a Jugun of Benue or Oron of AKS. We knew from Gandhi that politics without principles is destructive.

When in 2010 the nation was confronted with upholding zoning or merit, as the principle to be adopted for selection of candidates, most southerners opted for merit because of Jonathan. Now, back at home in 2014, we are clamouring for zoning….

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