When news broke a few days ago that the so-called repentant members of the insurgent Boko Haram stormed the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) and the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) checkpoints at Kasuwan Fara, a suburb of Maiduguri metropolis, chasing away the personnel on duty and setting ablaze all structures at the checkpoints, the question that came to mind was, did they truly repent of their bad behaviours or they are just wolves in sheep clothing?
We were also told that these “repentant” Boko Haram insurgents wore military uniform, and pounced on the police station to forcefully set free their eight colleagues arrested at the suburb over criminal activities bordering on dealing in hard drugs.
Now, help me understand something here. Any civilian who deliberately puts on a military uniform, attacks a police station to free criminal colleague; is that person not a criminal that is dangerous to society?
These rampaging insurgents, were they the ones recruited into the military after the abracadabra that followed their adoption into the Nigerian society as “repentant” criminals? Did they actually abandon their old ways deliberately, voluntarily or willy nilly?
When some of the states in the north were regaling everybody that they were rehabilitating insurgents and reintroducing them into the society, many Nigerians had raised the alarm that it could be dangerous.
Today, it would seem that the fears being expressed then are coming to pass. People are asking, into what spirit did they repent to? Criminal spirit or the spirit of God?
If they had repented into the spirit of God, voluntarily, they would not have continued to be a problem to the society, but because their repentance had a K-leg ab initio, they have not still abandoned their love for criminality.
They stormed a police station to force the release of their colleagues held for assorted criminal activities, they were repelled by the police personnel on duty; so, in their frustration they began to attack and burn down NDLEA and Customs checkpoints? Chai!
If you ask me, the security authorities must be very careful and begin to thoroughly investigate if these are still wolves in sheep skin. If they say they have truly repented, let them prove it by the life they live.
