Senator Iyabo Obasanjo has written a letter to Islamist sect
Boko Haram, in which she credits the sect as having “more sense,” than
the Federal Government.
She also accussed President Goodluck Jonathan’s aides as hindering the resolution of the crisis caused by Boko Haram.
Senator
Obasanjo also blasted the sect for abducting 230 school girls from
Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State saying that lack of
female companion is no excuse for the abduction and also betraying the
true essence of revolutionaries in directing their venom against the
lower class.
She also noted her suprise that less groups like Boko
Haram has not formed in the nation given the poverty and unemployment
level.
Letter below:
Dear Boko Haram,
“The
fact that you have taken arms against the Nigerian state is no
surprise. The question should be why haven’t more young people organised
themselves against the state? “Even the fact that your motto, ‘Against
Western Education’ is in a way reasonable given the fact that your
leader, martyred by the Nigerian state had university education and
found no reasonable employment but had to resort to thuggery for
politicians to survive, as the story goes. “He, like millions of
Nigerian young people and college graduates, seeing a blighted future
are doing anything to survive.
“They have become opportunistic
desperados, almost sub‑human as the stepping on and trampling on each
other to death at the Immigration employment debacle indicates.
‘Where you’re wrong’
“Where
I think you have gotten it wrong are in two areas, if you can pardon my
giving you some unsolicited advice. “First, your victims are becoming
more and more the people you should be attracting to your side. Take the
Nyanya bus massacre.
“The people that live in Nyanya are usually
the clerks, messengers and other lowly office workers that live out in
relative slums compared to the rest of Abuja and take public
transportation to work to receive monthly salaries they barely get by
on.
“Consult any written work of successful revolutionaries be it
French, Russian, Cuban or even the more recent uprooting of communism in
Eastern Europe, to succeed you need the people to be on your side.
Right now you are not achieving this. “You are targeting the group you
need most.
This does not make for a successful revolution but you
are making yourselves into nuisances to the people and in the end while
the state, including its military machine may not be able to conquer
you, your downfall will be alienating these potential allies, i.e. the
oppressed and down-trodden.
“Secondly, the abduction of girls. It
must be hard to stay in the bush as all male revolutionaries fending for
yourselves with no sexual gratification.
Cuban example
“But
again, reading up on past bush revolutionaries like the Cuban, for
example, indicates that they were able to convince some women to go
voluntarily with them into the bush. “Somehow, revolutionary zeal does
not include sexual abstinence and cooking and cleaning by yourselves.
“Reading
must be hard for you since you hate education but the past is a good
guide to the future and if you can’t read, you are done for in
organizing or succeeding in most endeavours as most things have been
done before and reading up on how it was done can only serve as good
guidance.
“The parents of the girls you abducted are just trying
to give their daughters a chance at having successful lives. Without an
education there is very little anyone can achieve in this early 21st
century.
“I know living in the bush; it must still seem like the
dark ages but the truth is that even with the lack of jobs and
opportunities for young people in Nigeria currently, it is still better
to be educated.
“An educated university graduate who was selling
food from a food cart ignited the Arab Spring which was spread by use of
the internet which is hard to use if you are not educated. “There are
writings, videos and stuff you post on the internet which I haven’t
seen. But think of it, you can only post and use the internet because
some of you have some education.
“But in the end you have no
control over the distribution of your advertising and recruiting
information because as you may know, the internet is really part of the
western system you despise.
Why you’re succeeding
“The truth
is that you have succeeded because the Nigerian state has failed to
provide jobs and opportunity for its young people who you can now easily
recruit. By disrupting education, you are adding to the burden of the
people.
“You may say, but how about our religious issue? Let the
truth be told, just as there are indigenous southern Muslims, there are
indigenous northern Christians even from your epicenter in Borno State
and just as you are zealous for your religion, I don’t see them giving
up their religion either.
“The reasonable solution to this impasse
would be for you to advocate for everyone to be able to practice their
religion as they see fit with respect for each other’s beliefs.
“Remember, a couple of centuries ago, all of our ancestors below the
Sahara were all animists worshiping various ‘gods.’
“This ‘One
God’ — us against them situation — is a relatively recent one in our
human history and you will be advised to let the originators fight it
out and let your people be.” (Naij)
READ MORE: http://news.naij.com/65583.html
READ MORE: http://news.naij.com/65583.html
Nollywood actress Chika Ike sent a press release on the trending topic.
The Time to act is now.
Following the abduction of Nigerian school girls which took place some
weeks ago, international artists have join the campaign to call for the
release Of abducted Nigerian School Girls.
