by Eze Eluchie
The militant Islamist group, Jama'atu Ahlus-Sunna Lidda'Awati Wal Jihad, which roughly translates to: "People Committed to the Prophet's Teachings for Propagation and Jihad", is primarily motivated by a disenchantment of the secular system and the perceived need to superimpose extreme Islamist ideologies as the basis of governance of the Nigerian State, or at the very least, the governance of the extreme northern parts of the country, areas ordinarily presented by the various flawed census figures as populated predominantly by persons subscribing to the Muslim faith.
A core objective of this militant group as reflected in its alias, Boko Haram, a phrase in the local Hausa dialect, which means ‘western education is forbidden’, is an abhorrence for western education, foreign influences or anything perceived as non-Islamic. In furtherance of this core objective, BH, with spectacular vengeance and relish, has visited its campaign of violence and terror against the people and Government of Nigeria, with particular focus on decimating and disrupting our educational institutions.
From the 6th July 2013 attacks at the Government Secondary School Mamudo (Yobe State) where 42 students and staff were murdered, the 29th September 2013 slaughter of 40 students at the Cpllege of Agriculture, Gujba (Yobe State), the 25th February 2014 mass murder at the Federal Government College in Bunu Yadi (Yobe State), where over 30 students of the Secondary School were slaughtered, and the infamous ‘abduction’ of hundreds of female students of a Secondary School in Chibok (Bornu State), the desire of BH to disrupt, and if possible ensure the closure of schools, had been cardinal. As a mark of its ‘influence’ and ‘successes’, many schools have been closed in the extreme Northeastern section of Nigeria and the few schools that had kept their doors open, had witnessed a drastically diminished student attendance levels.
It certainly would have been a BH wish and dream to ensure the closure all educational institutions in Nigeria. The leadership of this outfit would have given a leg and an arm to have all schools in Nigeria closed.
Then came Ebola!
With just one well contained localized occurrence of the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) in Nigeria’s extreme Southwestern city of Lagos, Federal Education authorities, in an ill-thought and knee-jerk response to the EVD outbreak, played directly into BH’s hands by announcing an incredulous postponement of the resumption date of all Primary and Secondary Schools throughout Nigeria by an extra 4 weeks. In the same draconian swoop, Nigeria’s Federal authorities also urged all tertiary institutions in the country to remain shut for the foreseeable future! – Without firing a single shot or blowing up any more schools, bridges or limbs, BH had had its wishes granted! ‘Western Education’ had been halted in Nigeria!!
BH leadership must be celebrating their most unexpected victory, thankful they had been spared any further need to take risks blowing up stuff or engaging in shoot outs to scare people off from attending schools. All it will probably now take to ensure continued closure of all schools in Nigeria, ad infinitum, would be to intermittently, deliberately instigate well coordinated, ‘outbreaks’ of EVD in any part of the country! With terrorists willing to die as 'suicide-bombers', BH will not be in short supply of persons willing to sacrifice as vectors for EVD.
The folly in the Federal Governments directive to close all schools is highlighted by the fact that whilst the children and youth are denied education under the pretext of protecting them from exposure to EVD via the forced closure of their schools, their parents/guardians continue to risk exposure to EVD in their various places of employ (or unemployment), a disease which they will readily bring back home to their children/wards. Moreover, the Federal authorities seem to have totally discountenanced the fact that children are far safer in the school environment and structure of educational institutions than when left to their own antics (home-alone).
Rather than help BH attain its objectives of abhorrence of ‘western education’ and destruction/destabilization of the formal education structures, by the closure of educational institutions, the Nigerian Government should have strengthened the ability of our Education and Public Health authorities to continue to contain, mitigate and effectively address any further outbreak of EVD or any other infectious disease for that matter. It is difficult to begin to imagine that the Federal Government did not properly assess the implications of closure of schools for such a long period over a very isolated outbreak of a disease that has the potential of reoccurring elsewhere in the country. What happens if there are more outbreaks the week before schools are scheduled to resume? Another extension of the closure?
Now that BH is aware of the impact of infectious diseases towards attaining its core objectives, we really do have to be at the ready.
It must be emphatically stated that terrorists must neither triumph nor be seen to be triumphant. Each day our school system remains unnecessarily shut represents a capitulation to terror.
Picture: Schools closed
The militant Islamist group, Jama'atu Ahlus-Sunna Lidda'Awati Wal Jihad, which roughly translates to: "People Committed to the Prophet's Teachings for Propagation and Jihad", is primarily motivated by a disenchantment of the secular system and the perceived need to superimpose extreme Islamist ideologies as the basis of governance of the Nigerian State, or at the very least, the governance of the extreme northern parts of the country, areas ordinarily presented by the various flawed census figures as populated predominantly by persons subscribing to the Muslim faith.
A core objective of this militant group as reflected in its alias, Boko Haram, a phrase in the local Hausa dialect, which means ‘western education is forbidden’, is an abhorrence for western education, foreign influences or anything perceived as non-Islamic. In furtherance of this core objective, BH, with spectacular vengeance and relish, has visited its campaign of violence and terror against the people and Government of Nigeria, with particular focus on decimating and disrupting our educational institutions.
From the 6th July 2013 attacks at the Government Secondary School Mamudo (Yobe State) where 42 students and staff were murdered, the 29th September 2013 slaughter of 40 students at the Cpllege of Agriculture, Gujba (Yobe State), the 25th February 2014 mass murder at the Federal Government College in Bunu Yadi (Yobe State), where over 30 students of the Secondary School were slaughtered, and the infamous ‘abduction’ of hundreds of female students of a Secondary School in Chibok (Bornu State), the desire of BH to disrupt, and if possible ensure the closure of schools, had been cardinal. As a mark of its ‘influence’ and ‘successes’, many schools have been closed in the extreme Northeastern section of Nigeria and the few schools that had kept their doors open, had witnessed a drastically diminished student attendance levels.
It certainly would have been a BH wish and dream to ensure the closure all educational institutions in Nigeria. The leadership of this outfit would have given a leg and an arm to have all schools in Nigeria closed.
Then came Ebola!
With just one well contained localized occurrence of the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) in Nigeria’s extreme Southwestern city of Lagos, Federal Education authorities, in an ill-thought and knee-jerk response to the EVD outbreak, played directly into BH’s hands by announcing an incredulous postponement of the resumption date of all Primary and Secondary Schools throughout Nigeria by an extra 4 weeks. In the same draconian swoop, Nigeria’s Federal authorities also urged all tertiary institutions in the country to remain shut for the foreseeable future! – Without firing a single shot or blowing up any more schools, bridges or limbs, BH had had its wishes granted! ‘Western Education’ had been halted in Nigeria!!
BH leadership must be celebrating their most unexpected victory, thankful they had been spared any further need to take risks blowing up stuff or engaging in shoot outs to scare people off from attending schools. All it will probably now take to ensure continued closure of all schools in Nigeria, ad infinitum, would be to intermittently, deliberately instigate well coordinated, ‘outbreaks’ of EVD in any part of the country! With terrorists willing to die as 'suicide-bombers', BH will not be in short supply of persons willing to sacrifice as vectors for EVD.
The folly in the Federal Governments directive to close all schools is highlighted by the fact that whilst the children and youth are denied education under the pretext of protecting them from exposure to EVD via the forced closure of their schools, their parents/guardians continue to risk exposure to EVD in their various places of employ (or unemployment), a disease which they will readily bring back home to their children/wards. Moreover, the Federal authorities seem to have totally discountenanced the fact that children are far safer in the school environment and structure of educational institutions than when left to their own antics (home-alone).
Rather than help BH attain its objectives of abhorrence of ‘western education’ and destruction/destabilization of the formal education structures, by the closure of educational institutions, the Nigerian Government should have strengthened the ability of our Education and Public Health authorities to continue to contain, mitigate and effectively address any further outbreak of EVD or any other infectious disease for that matter. It is difficult to begin to imagine that the Federal Government did not properly assess the implications of closure of schools for such a long period over a very isolated outbreak of a disease that has the potential of reoccurring elsewhere in the country. What happens if there are more outbreaks the week before schools are scheduled to resume? Another extension of the closure?
Now that BH is aware of the impact of infectious diseases towards attaining its core objectives, we really do have to be at the ready.
It must be emphatically stated that terrorists must neither triumph nor be seen to be triumphant. Each day our school system remains unnecessarily shut represents a capitulation to terror.
Picture: Schools closed
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