Boko Haram threatens Nigerian elections

Two separate bombing attacks in Nigeria’s northeastern state of Borno have claimed 38 lives while Boko Haram leader has vowed to disrupt the country's upcoming elections. The first attack was carried out on Tuesday at about 1:00 pm local time (1200 GMT) at a checkpoint in Yamarkumi village, near the town of Biu, killing 36 people and injuring 20 others. “Most of the victims were child vendors and beggars that usually crowd the checkpoint,” a source at the Biu General Hospital said on condition of anonymity. Boko Haram has repeatedly assaulted Biu trying to seize the town, but its attacks have been repelled by troops and local vigilantes. In another attack some four hours later in neighboring Yobe state’s Potiskum, a bomber targeted in a popular chain restaurant, killing the manager and a steward and seriously injuring 13 staff and customers. In a video on released on Twitter hours after the attacks, Boko Haram's leader Abubakar Shekau threatened the upcoming elections. “This election will not be held even if we are dead.” The Takfiri terrorists have already forced a delay in the polls, initially set for February 14. Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission shifted the elections to March 28 while the country’s president, Goodluck Jonathan, announced last week that there would be no further postponement of the upcoming votes. Shekau also repeated threats against Chadian President Idriss Deby and Niger’s leaders, vowing that his militants would outlast an 8,700-strong multi-national force.

Boko Haram in Nigeria is a child of Nigerian history and the impunity of Northern Nigeria’s Military establishment. Armed conflict is part of Nigeria history. It is also a business which has enriched many.  People including generations unborn learn from history. The savaged brutality meted on civilians and civilian objects in Nigeria pre-exist Boko Haram. These acts of impunity were some of the methods deployed by successive military regimes, most of them from Northern Generals to accede and sustain power. The ongoing slaughter by Boko Haram follows the same pattern which in 1966 led to the Nigeria/Biafra War. The underlying cause of the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Southerners, mainly of the Ibo ethnic groups in the North was never comprehensively investigated, if at all.  There is no gainsaying that had the crimes been investigated, the result would have pointed to some powerful individuals within the Nigerian Military structure of Northern origin. For these, political power and control of the economy could only be attained through scapegoating communities whom they perceived as serious competitors.

The Nigerian/Biafra War was a curse on the conscience of the nation but a blessing to the Northern Military establishment. Many of these Generals made fortunes from the war and took the opportunity to entrench themselves in power. Olusegun Obasanjo like Good luck Jonathan came to power during that period as a beneficiary of the sad spoils of death. They were considered outsiders or trespassers to their god ordained power. For this reason, the country had to be made ungovernable to prove them and any person outside the North unfit to defend the constitutional order, national cohesion and republican values.  Under these dire circumstances, the Northern Military establishment, their feudal and religious confederacy would step in and take back power through democratic or other means. This is the rationale of the unfolding drama in the election taking place on 14 February 2015.