By Rotimi Fasan

THESE are desperate times for the Jonathan Administration and the government might do worse than seeking desperate solutions. Although the streets might be free of protesting Nigerians, the smoke from the bonfires made by them to register their opposition to the careless increase in the pump price of petrol is nowhere near being cleared.

Indeed, Abuja has had to resort to a heavy-handed approach to keep things from keeling over. The streets of Lagos are still being kept by soldiers and the State government and the opposition Action Congress of Nigeria are crying themselves hoarse demanding that the soldiers be returned to their barracks.

For the first time since he became president, Goodluck Jonathan is baring his fang to show he could bite if he has to. Except that he might have chosen the wrong people to bite now. It’s all part of the desperation that a desperate government has to take to assure itself it is still in control.

Perhaps, the government has little choice in the matter given the security situation in the country in which Boko Haram has no doubt made nonsense of our security agencies. The murderous group has been going about its business, daring the government to stop it if it could. Its members are always more than a step ahead of the security agencies, striking with deadly accuracy and without restraint. They practically advertise their agenda and go ahead to carry them out as planned.

In spite of police claims to be atop of the security situation, Boko Haram continues to prove that they could do exactly as they please. They kill at random and without any motive beyond inhuman bloodlust. They made the last Christmas a harvest of deaths for many Nigerians especially worshippers at St. Theresa’s Catholic Church in Madalla, Suleija.

It was a mindless slaughter on one of the holiest days on the Christian calendar. They’ve since harvested more deaths and are promising more. And in utter helplessness President Jonathan cried out that the group has all but taken over his government. But just when it looked like the drowsy police hierarchy was waking from its slumber and getting close to unravelling the people behind the Madalla massacre, up came the curious escape of their prime suspect, Kabiru Sokoto, pouring cold water over the entire investigation.

The escape of Kabiru Sokoto is proof of no other that Boko Haram enjoys the sympathies of people high in the society. Quite frankly such support is not limited to Boko Haram but available to anyone or group ready to lend themselves to any desperate measures.

We cannot forget too soon the vow by some to make the country ungovernable for this president after he won the last election despite attempts by those who thought power ought to have remained in the North following the death of President Umar Yar’Adua. They found a leader who failed to assert himself at the very moment he ought to have done so; he allowed some cowards to resuscitate a finished group that is now bent on dragging the country down the slippery slope of an ethnic or religious war, whichever could happen first.

The entire secret of the apparent invincibility of Boko Haram is now out in the open. I have said it now and again here that the group has been lionised unnecessarily; attributed powers it does not possess. It’s impossible that a so-called group of illiterate zealots would possess the increasingly sophisticated means that Boko Haram employs without the strong support of influential people.

One moment the group is killing in different parts of the North- East and the next it has moved its operational base to Kaduna and then Abuja where it bombed the central establishment of Nigeria’s security, nearly taking out the IG, Hafiz Ringim himself. Sending out messages on the internet and detonating bombs, products of so-called Western education it loathes, like a child who has just found a priced means of diversion, Boko Haram members go about their kind of business under the nose of our security agencies.

Surely, the incompetent handling of the investigation that led to the escape of Kabiru Sokoto was contrived. Even reports indicating he might have been arrested, in the first instance, in a facility of the Borno State government are pointers to the link of the suspect and the group he represents to influential members of society.

Sokoto’s Houdini-like escape, with handcuffs and all, was a planned work to cover the trail of those sponsoring Boko Haram. Demanding explanation from Hafiz Ringim and suspending Zakari Biu, Police Commissioner in charge of Investigation whose past history and role during the Abacha regime ought to have disqualified him from such responsibility if not the Police Force, may be necessary step. But that is not far enough. Abuja has to dig deep and should follow this trail further. It sure leads to more preys.

The calibre of people that have been linked with Boko Haram, politicians and security personnel, says something of how connected some Nigerian leaders are to the group. Even those that have been arrested and pencilled for investigation have all been granted some form of bail or another. It’s only here that terrorists are granted bail and made to visit their homes during a search. My conclusion to last week’s column in which I provided reason for the Jonathan administration’s failure to take on the so-called cabal in the oil sector seems appropriate to end this piece and I quote it here at some length:

This government plays too much of the ostrich. What it needs to do is take on the cabal that continues to make nonsense of attempts to make Nigerians enjoy better life. Expose the cabal and let Nigerians see those behind their misery.

But we all know things would never come to that level for the very people responsible for the criminal fleecing of Nigeria are the same ones sponsoring candidates into our legislative and executive arms of government. They are the big financiers of presidential and gubernatorial campaigns and donate the largest sums during political events.

They dictate who become our security chiefs and heads of our financial sectors. How can a commissioner of police arrest some goon in the pay of the moneybag who sponsored his appointment as the head of police? To cross them is to incur the wrath of the devil himself.

And it is in this sense that we must understand the cry by Jonathan which amounts to abdication really that his government is under the control of Boko Haram. Since he can’t fight his tormentors, the president has chosen to turn his fear on Nigerians. But as I once warned here, nobody wins a war against their own people.