Time to Be Commander-in-Chief, Jonathan

Vanguard

7 September 2011

Time to Be Commander-in-Chief, Jonathan

Rotimi Fasan

opinion

It's been two week's since the terror attack on the United Nation's building in Abuja that left over 20 people dead and many more with serious injuries. During these two weeks the extremist group, Boko Haram, has been front page news.

The year 2011 has witnessed dramatic increase in the activities of the fringe group that has murdered Nigerians of diverse religious, ethnic and professional backgrounds in their hundreds and destroyed properties worth billions of Naira.

From Maiduguri to Bauchi, Kaduna to Abuja, Boko Haram members have demonstrated a single-mindedness of purpose that is yet to be recognised to say nothing of its being matched by the Goodluck Jonathan administration. Each new attack by the group gets more brazen than the last; as with each such attack the confidence level of the group increases.

Hardly can the same be said of the authorities and the last attack at the UN building brings into sharp perspective the helplessness that appears to have entered official government response to the activities of the insurgent group, leading it to seek, rather belatedly since it knows its limitations in this regard, the expertise of foreign security agencies.

There appears a mixture of confusion and panic in Abuja's response and there's no greater sign of this than the hurried changes effected in the security arrangement around the President's residence. It's as if Aso Rock suddenly feels exposed and vulnerable to attacks from Boko Haram.