Children of the New Forest

When I was but a mere schoolboy I was often haunted by The Children of the New Forest, a Victorian children’s novel by Frederick Maryatt. Set during the English civil war that began in 1647, it tells the story of the four orphaned children of Colonel Beverley, a cavalier officer who was killed and his home burnt down to ashes during the upheavals. The four children – Edward, Humphrey, Alice and Edith – had been presumed dead in the inferno. Luckily, they had managed to escape to the New Forest; rescued by a gamekeeper by the name of Jacob Armitage. Far from the aristocratic lifestyle they were used to, they had to learn to fend for themselves and to eke out a rustic existence under dire circumstances. After Armitage passed away, Edward, who was a mere child himself, took over looking after his siblings. Decades later, when I was a university lecturer in London, whenever we drove through the meadowlands of Hampshire and the New Forest, something always tugged at my heart.

Our Chibok girls were taken away in the middle of the night whilst their school was burnt down to ashes.  There has been much speculation that they are being kept in the Sambisa forest. The recent video of some of them appearing in Hijabs like penguins reciting Satanic anathemas was outrageous.  The talk about dialogue with the insurgents is nonsensical.  You can only negotiate with real people, not shadowy incubi. And you can only do so on the basis of rational reason, not on the sinking sands of unlimited war aims. 

What the insurgents want is no less than to bring down the government and unleash a reign of chaos across the land. I have always insisted that Boko Haram is the brainchild of our northern barons who always imagined Nigeria to be their patrimony.  It has become a Frankenstein monster that is threatening to devour everyone. If truth be told, the North has lost woefully more than everybody else in this whole sordid affair:  authority, capital, prestige and respect. Above all, trust. Those who live by the sword!

The presumed leader of the group, Abubakar Shekau, a native of the neighbouring republic of Niger, has come out with a video threatening to sell the girls. Rape. Slavery. Rapine. It is astonishing that a country like ours can be held hostage by foreign bandits, without the capacity to call their bluff. Meanwhile soldiers have mutinied against commanders that may in fact be secret agents for the insurgency. Some brave communities in Kalabalge have bloodied 200 of the bastards.  All communities must take the law into their own hands and their loved ones where the state is unable and/or unwilling to secure their lives and properties.  The sheer incompetence of this government beggars belief – only outweighed by the deceitful politics of al-Qaeda People’s Congress (APC). Between the devil and the deep blue sea. And our American ‘frenemies’.

Placing all this in context: In today’s Nigeria, state failure stares us in the face — in the ongoing Jihad; in the fractious character of our politics; in high scale corruption; in the staggering incidence of poverty; in the frightening levels of unemployment; in the parlous state of structures; in moral decay; in cultism and secret societies; in moral bankruptcy of the elites; in the iniquitous cartels that control business; in the culture of silence; in campus prostitution; in the Byzantinism of the public service; in random, nihilistic violence; in the arrogance of power; the culture of eliminiationism; the poisoning of inter-communal relations; in commodification of the Body of Christ by wolves in sheep’s clothing; in the maraboutisme of the mosques; in the commercialisation of love; in the breakdown of the family; in the dreadful absence of moral purpose; in the loss of faith in government; in the alarming erosion of trust; in the loss of hope in our collective future. 

And have you heard it, that what they are stealing now is more than in the days of IBB, Abacha, Alibaba and OBJ combined?

 The abduction of the Chibok girls is emblematic of the enormous challenges that the Nigerian state faces. Our resolve to find them will show the world whether we have a government worthy of the name.  If they cannot bring bank our girls, nobody in Aso Villa has any right to even contemplate re-election.

When I face exceptional moments of despair, I am wont to retreat to the quiet of my beloved library — to the solicitude of classical studies. And Beethoven. One of the immortals I am consorting with these days is the German strategist Carl von Clausewitz, who famously declared that war is the “continuation of political activity by other means”. Nigeria is at war. But no matter how grim the attacks, we can marshal the resolve to face the odds with manly courage.  King Xerxes of the Persians was perplexed that the Greek Athenians outnumbered 10 to 1 by their enemies, were prepared to perish rather than surrender. Free men who cherish life and freedom are prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice to preserve their hard-won liberties. This is what the Middle Belt and the rest of Nigeria are up against.

Politics has been defined as “the art of the possible”. We have to do everything possible to confront our dangers. I am reminded of the Arab historian Ibn Khaldun, who famously defined the state as that institution which has the monopoly of the right to commit crime.  The French call it la raison d’état.  It is justifiable to use criminal means to confront gangsters.  Those who believe neither in God nor in Humanity deserve neither mercy nor justice.

In Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, every Igbo village has an evil forest full of malevolent spirits. When the people of Mbanto donated an evil forest for the Christian missionaries to settle in, they were surprised that they did not perish. The virgin Children of the New Forest will come back home soon!

OBADIAH MAILAFIA