NDA attack - A minute's silence for Nigeria

The Africa-focused geopolitical research firm noted that civilians formed the bulk of the casualties, but military and other law enforcement agents are feeling the heat as well.

One minute of national silence, ordained by the Federal Government, at an agreed time, would have been the best response to Tuesday’s attack on the Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA), Kaduna. The sobriety would have been an admission that something died. A conclusion about what died could wait.

Responses from all shades of President Muhammadu Buhari’s Nigeria failed to appreciate the enormity of what happened or its nothingness.

Expectedly, Buhari’s followers, the patriots, those who hail the past as too decadent that anything, yes, anything Buhari does is bold relief, would find every conceivable reason to shield Buhari from his failings most prominently manifested in the daily, wanton killing of Nigerians.

Why would the attack on NDA be a surprise? Should our surprises about the military not have ended on 19 July 2021 when bandits shot down a Nigerian Air Force fighter jet? The military gleefully announced the downing of its fighter jet as if it had won the war against terrorists that bestride the land lugging sophisticated weapons deployed to banditry and war against Nigeria.

The surprise about the NDA attack is that Nigerians expected the laxity in protecting Nigerians to escape NDA because it is a military institution. NDA is Nigerian indeed, and indeed.

Did NDA rustle the bandits’ cattle? Nobody has given that explanation for the attack. We have been lectured endlessly that bandits value their cattle so much that they can sink Nigeria over a missing cattle.

Silence would have been a better option than statements that further demystify our military. An unrepaired fence, guards who could have slept off, and failed closed circuit television cameras have been blamed and absolved for the slap on Nigeria. You would think the discussion was about an Abuja fire incident at Ebeano Supermarket.

The attack was on Nigeria, not NDA, not the military as some imply in minimising the mess. The empty anger in “one attack too man” is evident. The matter is concluded.

Do not expect the military to invade the forest in pursuit of the attackers. Imitable Alhaji Lai Mohammed, Minister of Information, informed us when bandits kidnapped over 200 students in Niger State that Nigeria would violate international environmental laws if it marched on its forests chasing bandits. The law will not be broken for NDA.

A government that knows too much for its own good uses every opportunity to blame everyone, except itself, for its glaring failings. The opposition, the media, ordinary Nigerians, who are supposedly so jealous of Buhari’s achievements that they deny them, are responsible for the attack on NDA.

If killings in Plateau, more killings and illegal detentions in South East, Fulani herdsmen invasions of South West, South-South, Benue, kidnapping of students in the North West, war in the North East, are minor issues in the National Assembly, why would one expect the National Assembly to abbreviate its recess because of NDA?