THE WORLD AND THE NEW CALIPHATE:

The CIA have confirmed the fact that up to
30,000 soldiers are now fighting for ISIS, ISIL and
the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Given this
sobering news, it is a matter of tremendous relief
and indeed joy that President Barack Obama has
announced that it is the intention of the United
States to ‘’degrade and destroy’’ ISIL by
launching a series of deadly airstrikes and to play
a more vigorous and active role in the fight
against terror.
Our very own President Goodluck Jonathan and
the Nigerian Armed Forces have a lesson to learn
from this new-found American initiative and
resolve: it is time for us to take off the gloves
and to despatch our own local equivalent of ISIS
back to hell where they belong.
It is time for us to recognize the fact that were
are not just fighting against a group of barbaric,
primitive and ignorant peasants, cave men and
insurgents who lack compassion and human
decency but rather that we are involved in a full
scale civil war against a sophisticated, clever,
determined, well-funded, well-motivated, well-
armed and relentless enemy who have plenty of
resources and local support from elements within
the political class and who are hell-bent on killing
our people, raping our women, abducting our
children, dismembering our country and taking us
back to the 6th century.
Had it not been for the admirable efforts of
Colonel Sambo Dasuki, who was appointed
National Security Advisor after the demise of
General Patrick Azazi a couple of years back,
things would have been a lot worse and Abuja
would have still been under siege today. Had it
not been for the sheer dexterity and immense
courage of our intelligence agencies and Armed
Forces the towns of Bama, Konduga and a
number of other communities in the north-east
would still have been occupied by the Haramites
today and Maiduguri itself, the capital of Borno
State, may well have fallen by now.
I have nothing but praise, gratitude and
admiration for our uniformed men and women
that are fighting at the warfront and I pray for
them every day. Regardless of a few set backs
here and there they really have done us proud.
Yet things should never have got this bad in the
first place and Boko Haram ought to never have
been allowed to make the kind of inroads and
impact that they have made in the last four years.
Three years ago I warned about this threat and
offered similar counsel in a series of essays about
Boko Haram.
I also criticised what I considered to be the
Federal Government’s inadequate response to the
challenge at the time. Sadly, rather than listen,
the majority of Nigerian politicians, newspaper
columnists, government officials and professional
commentators, as usual, condemned me roundly,
said that I was an alarmist and complained that I
was being far too harsh on the enemy and far too
extreme in my counsel.
One particular individual even accused me of
being a ‘’bloodthirsty and callous maniac who
had no value for human life’’. Clearly they
misunderstood what Boko Haram stood for and
they had no understanding of the nature of the
beast that they were dealing with.
Today, almost 20,000 cold-blooded murders and
hundreds of abductions and kidnappings later, the
very same people that condemned me and
ostracised me three years ago for advocating that
the Jonathan administration ought to ”treat Boko
Haram like a festering and putrid cancer”, ‘’kill all
the Haramites and their secret friends, allies and
sponsors” and that ”they should blow up the
towns that were loyal to them or that harbored
them’’ are now commending my foresight.
They are also burying their heads in shame and
hiding under their beds whenever they hear the
words ‘’Boko Haram’’. Worse still those of them
that are southerners are urging their fellow
southerners that live in the north to leave the
north as quickly as possible and move back to
the south as a consequence of the scourge, as if
that would not play right into the hands of the
terrorists.
The truth is that the majority of Nigerians are
notoriously shortsighted people who are not only
undiscerning but who also always choose to
believe the best about the villains and the worst
about the good guys. Sadly this has played right
into the hands and the horrific narrative of the
beasts and terrorists that seek to decimate us
and consequently for the last three years they
have had a field day.
Yet, if it is any consolation, this has been so
throughout the world and not just in Nigeria. The
Jonathan administration were not the only ones
that were slow in their initial response to the
challenge presented by the islamists and they
were not the only ones that failed to fully
comprehend and appreciate the fact that the
terrorists needed to be utterly crushed right from
the outset.
The Obama administration and indeed the rest of
the civilised world made the same mistake when
confronted with similar terrorist organisations in
north Africa, the Middle East and east Africa in
the last three years. The result of that lack of
foresight is the fact that today ISIS, ISIL and the
Islamic State have now become a threat to the
entire free world.
In Africa groups like Boko Haram and Al Shabab
have drawn immense inspiration and courage
from the successes of ISIL and ISIS in Iraq and
Syria. ISIL is the greatest threat to world peace
today and they have committed more horrors and
indulged in more violence than any other islamist
terrorist organisation that has ever existed.
They are providing moral support for Al Qaeda in
the north African Maghreb, Al Shabab in East
Africa, Boko Haram in west Africa, Hamas in
Gaza, the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan,
the Chechnyan separatists in Russia, the Muslim
Brotherhood in Egypt, Islamic Jihad in Algeria,
Daesh in Lebanon, the Al Nusra Front in Syria and
all the other vermin that is crawling out from
under the woodwork in the name of violent Jihad
and in an attempt to create a new world
Caliphate.
Thousands of Christians, moderate Muslims and
people of other faiths have been slaughtered in
cold blood and abducted, raped and sold into
slavery by the Boko Haramites and their allies
and associates in northern Nigeria, the
Cameroons and Mali in the last 4 years alone.
This is a global war and we must ALL stand
together to create more awareness and to fight it.
I put much of the blame for the mess we are in
on the doorstep of President Obama. He has been
weak and naive on this matter right from the
start.
He refused to designate Boko Haram as a
terrorist organisation up until early this year even
though by the end of last year they had butchered
well over 15,000 Nigerians. This is inexplicable
and it is indefensible.
Even worse was his covert support for the rebels
in Syria which included ISIS, Al Nusra and all the
other islamist terrorists that were, and still are,
fighting the government of President Bashar Al
Assad. This policy was not only short-sighted
and counterproductive but it was also nothing
short of reprehensible.
Ditto the support that some of America’s closest
allies in the region including Saudi Arabia, Turkey
and all the other countries in the Middle East that
funded the so-called rebels that were fighting Al
Assad. Thankfully those rebels have not
succeeded up until today.
If they had done so we would have had an ISIL/Al
Nusra government in power in Damascus today
and I cannot imagine what could possibly be
worse than that for peace in the Middle East and
for peace with Israel.
On that score I say thank God for the Russians,
Hezbollah (yes Hezbollah) and Iran who saw that
the greater evil was ISIL and Al Nusra and who
supported Al Assad and stood with him against
them. America and her allies have to sit up, do
some real soul-searching and endeavor to stop
creating the unholy mess that the the rest of the
world has to later assist in cleaning up.
Let us face it, getting rid of men like Muammar
Ghadaffi, Saddam Hussein and Hosni Mubarak
was a big mistake. The Arab spring has turned
into a never-ending and horrific nightmare and
that nightmare appears to want to consume the
entire world in fratricidal butchery and never-
ending carnage.
Yes those men were ruthless and brutal dictators
but at least they were secularists who knew how
to deal with islamist terror and Al Qaeda and at
least they kept the peace in their respective
countries and regions.
No they were not democrats but neither are the
rulers of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab
Emirates, Kuwait, Jordan or any other ally of
America in the Middle East except for Israel.
What is going on today in Syria, Iraq, Libya and
Egypt today as a direct consequence of the
choices that America made and the
implementation of American foreign policy in
those countries over the last ten to fifteen years
is simply perverse and barbaric.
It is a tragedy of monumental proportions and it
really does have implications for the entire free
world and particularly for the Middle East, Africa,
Asia and Israel. One thing is clear: whether we
like to admit it or not the violent terrorists with
their barbaric vision of a new islamist world order
are here to stay.
We either do nothing, accept it and prepare for the
worst or we fight it with all that we have got. I
would prefer that we do the latter. Given the new-
found resolve of the Americans in their struggle
against ISIL and given the recent gains that the
Nigerian Armed Forces have made in the war with
Boko Haram it is clear that we are now moving in
the right direction. May God deliver us and may
He grant us the victory in this noble quest.