The death in a plane crash of the Chief of Army Staff and ten other military officers and flyers last Friday, forty-eight hours after we heard of the death of the country’s vilest terrorist leader, reminded me of the photo-story magazine Sadness and Joy that we enjoyed reading as students in the 1970s.
Director of World War Two Nazi German medical “experiments” Dr. Joseph Mengele was once described as the personification of evil. In living memory, Nigeria never produced an evil man quite like Abubakar Shekau, our own personification of evil. For a whole decade, Shekau’s taunting videos and audios struck terror in Nigerian hearts. His evilly elongated name, Abu Muhammad Abubakar ibn Muhammad al-Shekawi, drove nails into Nigerian chests. His eyes radiated evil. He chewed a narcotic stick as he spoke. He slung an AK-47 across his shoulder to mimic Osama ben Laden, and his bodyguards stood around him to mimic Abu Musab el-Zarqawi.
Shekau used dynamite to bomb bank vaults. He killed scores of bulamas and clerics all over Borno State. He sent goons as far afield as Kano and Zaria to kill prominent Muslim clerics. He exploded bombs in a church on Christmas Day. He burnt every church he came across. He exploded bombs in jam-packed mosques to kill worshippers. He bombed bus stations and markets. He killed Emir of Gwoza, tried to kill Shehu of Borno, Emir of Fika and two Emirs of Kano. He strapped suicide bomb vests to young girls and sneaked them into town squares. He overran towns and villages all over the North East, collected scores of young men, lined them up and shot them in the head.
Shekau slaughtered captured soldiers and vigilantes like rams. He raided schools, abducted hundreds of students, killed many and enslaved others. He made rape a tool of war. He destroyed every public utility he could find, including schools, hospitals, water and power stations. He taunted Nigerian, Chadian, Nigerien, French, British, American and Israeli leaders by name. He made three million people to become IDPs. He sentenced to death everyone who did not join his “jihad.” Within his own terrorist group, he brooked no dissent and executed any commander he thought was wavering in his loyalty. Which was very good, because in the end it alienated enough of his men to coalesce together and kill Shekau.
It was a marvel indeed that Shekau was not killed by a British Avro Lancaster bomber, a French Exocet missile, an American Stratofortress bomber, an Israeli F-15, a Russian air-to-surface missile, a recently acquired Nigerian Air Force Super Tucano, a South African mercenary helicopter gunship or even an old model Chadian gun truck. ISWAP faction’s intelligence and military assets proved to be far more capable in this regard than all the above forces combined.
Nigeria has produced many self-assured men and women, many rigid ideologues and many activists who believe they are right and everyone else is wrong. We have produced some rulers with a messianic streak, and we have produced some governors who listen to nobody, but Nigeria never produced anyone like Shekau who claimed he had a mandate from God to slaughter, maim, rape, displace and enslave.
The good thing about his overbearingly cultish style of leadership is that Shekau’s faction of Boko Haram is very unlikely to find a replacement. ISWAP, which overrun Shekau’s Sambisa Forest and Mandara Mountains redoubt, has the same aim of destroying the Nigerian state and establishing a Caliphate in its place. It wages the same war against the security forces, but has a much more tolerant attitude towards the civilian population. It also raided a school in Dapchi, made away with Leah Sharibu, serially captured oil explorers and humanitarian aid workers, but ISWAP apparently does not believe in mass murder of civilians. The war in the North East is not over, but the most evil face of Boko Haram terrorism is out of the picture.
Quickly followed by a moment of monumental sadness, the plane crash in Kaduna on Friday that claimed the lives of Army Chief General Ibrahim Attahiru and ten other soldiers and airmen, two of them also Generals. The suspected culprits are the weather in Kaduna that evening, pilot error, or some malfunction in the plane. Some people allege possible sabotage but that is unlikely, since the plane flew fairly safely from Abuja to just short of Kaduna airport. The plane’s recovered black box holds all the secrets.
Unlike his predecessor Lt Gen Buratai who reigned for six years, Attahiru had but only a few weeks to make his mark on the Army and the Boko Haram war. It was too short, but there are memorable videos of his visits to the war front, speaking to wives of officers, and his stern lecture to the National Assembly not to distract him with its probe of arms purchases, which happened before his tenure. Buhari Presidency suffered collateral damage in this accident. The C-in-C attended neither the funeral prayers nor the military burial. He only condoled with Attahiru’s wife on the phone, details of which were inadvisably made public, and SGF Boss Mustapha was 48 hours late in ordering national mourning and lowering of flags. Then there is the tricky step of appointing the next Army Chief, almost certain to be followed by howls of protest from some quarters.
