Boko Haram, the COAS and the Cycle of Death
Peregrino Brimah
People are confused. They ask how army chiefs can waste their men in the cycle of death. Why will a Christian army 
chief support a “Muslim” terror organization? Questions like these.
I will try here to explain the cycle of death.
The world is filled with very horrible people. There are people, westerners, easterners and between who run guns; they supply arms to conflict zones around the world to make a big buck. These wicked people are well aware of the deaths these guns cause but go ahead because this makes seriously big money. Developed nations are involved. The “almighty” United States is known for serially blocking UN resolutions to ban small arms supplies to conflict nations especially in Africa. Statistics has it that 90% of genocides, of terror deaths and regional violence are perpetrated not by state munitions but by small arms, mostly illegally supplied in the hands of militia and other criminals. Arms trade is the biggest business in the world.
Money is a key motivator and Nigerians are no better people than all the others in the world implicated in death delivering gun-running. Hausa are no more virtuous than Igbo, nor Yoruba than Tiv. We have corruption at all facets of the Nigerian society, within the civil force and the armed forces. Our soldiers burn buses and kill innocent children of our religious leaders; they burn newspapers and commit all other types of atrocities. These are the same soldiers that become the nation’s army chiefs. They are no angels. When the junior officers commit atrocities, we all know that they are not court-martialed; this implicates the army chiefs in all atrocities and evils committed by the junior officers. The buck stops at their table. And it is corrupt and wicked junior officers like this, under a corrupted system who someday become our army chiefs.
What this tells us is that unfortunately, the Nigerian military is as rotten today as all other facets of our society; top to bottom and bottom to top.
Boko Haram is a business. Many view it as some sort of evil emanation; however to those involved in the war against Boko Haram; perhaps we need to adjust our lenses and see what they may have gotten corrupted into. This terror without head and cogent agenda, makes big money, is a political franchise and is involved in all sorts of deals including drug trade in partnership with MEND as CIA has revealed.
Let’s imagine Shekau, who is heavily funded by some crazy man in Egypt or Nigeria, needs an Armored Personnel Carrier, APC. He send emissary to the Nigerian army chief and asks to buy one. He offers to have $10 million cash wired through his CBN connect direct into the army chief’s Swiss account. Will the army chief refuse to sell, knowing what our army has been recognized for these years? Do we think these army chiefs are better than the Abachas and Babangidas of our past? Tops, the army chief will warn him not to perpetrate any of his terror atrocities in his village or in the south of the nation.
We Nigerians sadly do not like ourselves; we are known to orchestrate evil on the next village, talk less several villages and states away. We have villages raiding and killing neighboring villages in the north and south over petty disputes, so why do we fool ourselves that the army chiefs will not be interested in making big money to support genocides somewhere up there in “that part of the country,” “that Gwoza sef,” as President Jonathan refers to it/the north? And after the tanks and APC’s are sold and systematically transferred to the hands of the terrorists, will their business partner army chiefs be eager to bomb the goods they just sold to their business partners? Of course not. We now begin to understand the survival of Boko Haram and its impunity from harm of the nation’s superior powered army with fighter jets and military copters. Deputy defense minister Musliu Obanikoro said Nigeria can eliminate Boko Haram in 24 hours if they wanted to. He did not lie.
Now, this explanation of how and why our army chiefs get into business-sponsorship of Boko Haram is just an intro. We also realize the army chiefs could have the type of animosity some of the lower of us have for each other and based on this, can even supply these armored vehicles and tanks to the terrorists to perpetrate their genocide for free. The world is a very wicked place and wickedness is not limited by tribe, race or religion.
In the cycle of death, we must not be fooled that the army cares about its own men dying. We see no brothers of the army chiefs dying. Money is the root of all evil and for the right amount of money; these men do not care if officers die. Really, they do not.
The final step in the cycle of death is the death to the northern resident. If these army chiefs are actually radical fanatics, they will be happy with the death of northern residents. We are assuming they hate the north and believe all people who are like them should have left the north or will be frightened enough to evacuate the north when they are done with them.
When we give excuse to the army chiefs that do they not kill Boko Haram members in large numbers and that this proves they are actually fighting the terrorists; do we consider that to them, as with the president, “those people are those people over there,” be they terrorists or villagers, there really is no connection and no relationship? The army today allows Boko Haram to abduct men and girls, the girls are married and the men are forcefully conscripted into the terrorist army at knife point. Our army chiefs know this and do not prevent the Boko Haram overthrow of northern farming villages and mass abductions. Now when the army kills Boko Haram en mass, they know they are simply exterminating the forcefully conscripted and unwilling sacrificed youth warriors for Boko Haram that should have been rescued had the army done its paid job. In the process, Boko Haram helps gather together the hated youth resident in the north and the army cuts them down, this cycle has continued for the five years of the Jonathan administration, leaving total numbers dead at well over a hundred thousand and millions destroyed. We see Jonathan dancing as they die in “that Gwoza sef.” It is genocide, a systematic one involving cooperation between the army chiefs implicated by Dr. Stephen Davis and the head of Boko Haram, a bloody wealthy businessman who does their bidding.
