Boko Haram insurgency in the north, Ebola outbreak in the south; Nigeria is indeed facing its most difficult times since the Civil War nearly fifty years ago. Although the country is not existentially threatened as it was during that thirty months conflict, these crises together with several other relatively smaller but significant challenges have exposed the many frailties of the Nigerian project.
However, the exposure of those frailties can be a good thing for Nigeria as it presents the country, so rich in potential and resources that it’s called the Giant of Africa, an opportunity to claim its rightful spot in the summit of the leading nations of the world. Thus, these major crises, like the proverbial hurled stones, are the perfect bricks with which Nigeria should build its bright future.
The Boko Haram insurgency that has brutishly taken the lives of more than 5000 civilians and driven away more than 650,000 from their lands, highlights the desperate need for reform not just in the security sector but across all segments of the Nigerian society from the social to the economic sector, from political to intercultural and interreligious relationship.
The jihadists’ wanton destruction of lives and property should be a catalyst for a never-seen-before unity among all social, political and religious ranks in the country. Understanding Boko Haram for the ‘enemy of all’ that it is should galvanise all of Nigeria’s leaders regardless of differences to work together towards the sect’s demise. Such camaraderie across all regions and religions, ethnicities and cultures, which Nigeria has lacked from time immemorial, will excite some honest introspection for the cause and cure of the madness wrecking the north of the country.
Such reflection will no doubt find out that as much as defeating the Boko Haram insurgency requires an effective well armed and well fed and well disciplined military and security service, sustaining the Nigerian victory also needs closing the inequality gap, empowering the young through education and opportunities, drastically curbing corruption in high and low places and reducing ethno-religious and socio-cultural intolerance to the barest minimum. While the aforementioned challenges have been a significant part of Nigeria since its independence, never has the need to resolve them been so crucial.
Nigerian governments have often been accused of throwing money at problems like the Niger Delta Militancy in the oil rich South-South or wishing them away like the sense of federal neglect felt in the South-East, but the bloodletting in the north has refused to go away in similar fashion thus demanding responsible and effective leadership. In that sense, it could be said to be a “good thing” in that finally governments are being forced to wake up by this challenge that has refused to go away.
And wake up they are beginning to do, Nigeria’s Government and civil society have never been as sensitive to the structural problems of the country, even though a lot is still desired of their commitment to solving the problems. The recently held Sovereign National Conference despite its many criticisms, represents an attempt at having an overarching discourse involving all segments of the Nigerian society, something desperately needed in the country.
Just as the government’s commendable handling of the Ebola outbreak afforded a glimpse of the desired responsiveness, the public-private participation to boost power through the privatisation scheme and industries exampled by the Automotive Policy depicts a rising level of seriousness at tackling the economic banes. This national reawakening has in a way been inspired by the Boko Haram terrorism.
It is still early days however, the government has so far not still gotten a stranglehold of the insurgency in the north nor is its progress on the anti-corruption front remarkable. There are still mountains of socio-economic and institutional reforms to climb and rivers ethno-religious and political tensions to cross, but so far it can be said that the journey has begun.
Nations become great, they say, by overcoming great challenges; the Boko Haram insurgency is definitely Nigeria’s route to greatness, what is not known is whether the country and its leaders will have the courage and wisdom to see it through this painful path to the Promised Land.
