You don’t need to agree with me! There is a dispassionate sapping of confidence in a project called Nigeria. Daily events in our national life reinforce the belief that Nigeria has lost focus, the house has fallen. From post-independence corruption in the public and private sector, political maneuvering, ethnic cleansing that passed out as civil war, rascality of the military boys, record-high human rights violations and unemployment rate, institutionalized electoral robbery, militancy, criminality to terrorism, Nigeria profusely oozes fatigue. Worst still, Nigeria is a proverbial schizophrenic who goes after rats while his house is on fire. This is clear in the recent decision of federal government to contribute troops to march the forces of al-Qaeda in the Maghreb even when as military fatigue has seen mere Boko Haram sniffed the life of a Nigerian general in a full glare of military personnel.
At various times in different places, military installations and personnel have come under heavy attack. The almighty America has not been spared too when Pentagon went on its knees on the altar of Allah to recite beads with Osama and his lieutenants. The capturing of Osama Bin Laden near military barracks after years of endless search rubbished Pakistani intelligence. Beating security is normal; what is not normal is that security is beaten in circumstance incongruous with military rationality. The tricks employed vitiate responsibility of otherwise guilty guards. Nigeria has allowed attacks that were preventable security-wise by either loss of attention or sheer compromise. First, a general was felled down in the full glare of military personnel; and now? A church bombed in a military cantonment!
It was a doomsday scenario in Kaduna on Sunday November 25, 2012, as scoundrels in uniform rammed into Saint Andrew Protestant Military Church, a church located at military cantonment in Jaji, near Kaduna town at about 12.15 pm, killing many worshippers. Shortly after the blast, another bomb exploded at about 12.20 at Saint Peters Catholic Church in the area, which sources within the barracks put the figure of the dead at 13 with 30 injured, admitting that, “more people might have been killed by the two suicide bombers.” The cantonment houses military establishments like Armed Forces Command and Staff College (AFCSC), Nigerian Army School of Infantry (NASI), Infantry Corps Command College (ICCC) and Nigerian Army Peace Keeping Centre (NAPKC).
It is instinctual to seek to understand how two suicide bombers gained entry into military cantonment amidst water-tight security that should be a norm in any military establishment more so a cantonment of such honors. If the eyewitness account is anything to go by, the attack was not just preventable but was gratuitously permitted. According to a source at the security point leading to the barracks, the bombers refused to subject themselves to security checks, saying, “we are in a haste, we are in haste, we are already late,” and they were allowed quick access into the barracks by the security guards.
According to the eyewitness account of junior rank soldiers close to scene of the incident: “we saw a driver asking people the way to Saint Peters Catholic Church, and whether the church has closed for the day, and as soon as he was told that the church has closed for the day, he made U-turn and headed towards the next church, Saint Andrew Protestant Church.
Besides the fact this is barracks, the manner in which was beaten leaves one helplessly thinking that it was a ground conspiracy. Not even an untrained security guard in my village could have passed any visitor on such flimsy excuse to our farmlands in the village much more to a barrack of honor. Every criminal values time because to a criminal is to be on target. The excuse itself was attractive enough for a lax guard to wake up to consciousness. The irony is that the same guards who feigned such ignorance might have subjected innocent worshippers to thorough security check.
There are reasons to suspect the guards as accomplices. Being Muslims offers more grounds to suspect them. Which Muslim guards would have permitted such laxity where a pro-western imam is leading a normal Friday prayer in the same cantonment?
No doubt, Muslim has both written and unwritten agenda to wipe Christianity. And the situation in the north provides veritable ground to actualize that agenda. Explicitly, Boko Haram claims to be fighting government; but implicitly it is a jihad against Christians. Boko Haram has levels of membership. Some go on mission while others support mission. What people do with IED, the officials carry with pen and sledge hammers.
Nigeria security and intelligence harbours many Boko Haram disciples. The case of kabiru Sokoto is still fresh. But more worrisome is the sect’s attack on Special Anti Robbery Squad (SARS) head office, Abuja, to free detained members amidst many security outfits around the place on Monday 26, 2012. One is wont to ask how did they attackers gained entry to Abuja with such weapons that overpowered the police without anybody detecting? This is ridiculous and shows that the insurgency enjoys sympathy of many Muslims, each contributing according capacity or office.
For instance, as Boko Haram reduced worshippers to ashes at Jaji, a Muslim commander called off a protestant bazaar that was to take place at Nkwegu Cantonment and instead called for inter-denominational church service which meant postponing Corpus Christi procession to evening time. One wonders the rationale behind this infamous order with twin damages to Christian. Why should the commander claim in umpire in a match he has been called to officiate since he is a Muslim. Can the same man call off Friday Juma’at service or even replace it with inter religious service? You cannot force a group to a worship you are not part of. Yet, nobody protested the order. Tell me a Christian cantonment commander who can stop Friday juma’at service anywhere in Nigeria more so in the north.
Boko Haram is more than bombing churches, public institutions, and military installations; it is at once a religious intimidation. What attacks could not secure in the South, intimidation seeks to achieve. And this is what every Christian must resist wherever it seeks to manifest.
