GUMI ON BOKO HARAM

Why the Boko Haram issue has two perspectives – the perspective you, the press, have been bombarding Nigerians with and the true perspective seen by the victims.  Let me tell you what the victims see in Boko Haram; We are  almost one full year of a state of emergency in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa. people gave the government benefit of doubt at the beginning.  

The National  Assembly sanctioned the state of emergency and that means that soldiers can liquidate or kill anybody without trial.  That automatically puts you out of the area if you are an outsider.

You cannot go and see for yourself what’s happening. Powers were given to them and also   huge sums of money. With these huge sums,  nobody would have taught that after this long period of fighting Boko Haram we will still be fighting them.  

Soldiers at the fronts  were being eliminated, outnumbered, and many civilians incarcerated.  The Army were just there arresting civilians and putting them in prison.  There is no military strategy to fight Boko Haram.

On the contrary some of these soldiers cry to me personally.  They come to us and tell us stories contrary to what you people hear.  Helicopter droppings, tinted glassed vehicles, sometimes with foreigners in them. 

Army officers telling me that sometimes they’ll pursue  them but would be given orders to stop, “don’t pursue”. You (the press) don’t know this but we know, and even recorded some. We know it’s a remote control war.  This stalemate is a remote control war.

There’s too much secrecy about handling of Boko Haram affairs.   Many people were arrested, put in jail and we’ve never seen the reports. There should be open trials.

When there were bombings in Boston Marathon, the press, police and national guards were working hand-in-hand, step by step and when they discovered pictures everybody stepped up the search until the culprits were caught. Everything was open. But in Nigeria everything about Boko Haram is kept secret.

Why not exposed them so that they speak and we know who their sponsors are.  There was a time Boko Haram targeted me. Explosives killed two of them when they were planting them. The military took their bodies away till today. They were not exposed for identification.

Who can believe  that with the kind of wealth that Nigeria has, our soldiers will be given few bullets to face Boko Haram. Nobody knows that this Boko Haram, from the few the army was able to kill, were mercenaries from Chad.  There are even some none-Muslims among them.  

A soldiers came to us here from Bita, which  is very close to the Zambisa forest.  He  said when they went freshly with ammunition they were able to repel the first attacks of Boko Haram. When the Boko Haram were withdrawing, he heard them say Victor, Amir, John, Mohammed e.t.c. Boko Haram are not only Muslims.