Secure The North: Can We Start With Colonel Dangiwa Umar & Co?

(SPECIAL CONTRIBUTION)

Col. Dangiwa Umar (Rtd)

By Cham Faliya Sharon

Over the weekend, retired Colonel Dangiwa Umar attacked the Buhari administration for purchasing A-29 Super Tucano jets to fight insurgents and bandits in Nigeria. He even faulted the entire premise of declaring bandits as terrorists.

Well, I looked, looked, looked, and looked in vain to see whether Dangiwa Umar will offer us his moustache to be used in fighting the bandits and insurgents, and I wondered also whether he is merely angry and bitter with President Muhammadu Buhari for breaking all records in the purchase of Naval warships, armour tanks, fighter jets and patrol boats in Nigeria’s history, or whether he is still petty and jealous that the man he helped the corrupt “Gloria Okon” chieftain to overthrow in 1985 is now President!

In any case, it is on record that when the North was being seized village by village and city by city between 2011 and 2014, during which Nigerian soldiers were running from “Boko Haram” and escaping to Cameroon for lack of mere bullets

and rifles, and Northern Emirs and leaders were being assassinated by the same “Boko Haram”, Dangiwa Umar was busy defending and campaigning for President Goodluck Ebele Nnamdi Azikiwe Jonathan! And then the most shocking part!

Almost all the northern big leeches like Attahiru Bafarawa who joined GEJ and retired Colonel Sambo Dasuki – the twin of Dangiwa Umar – in looting all the funds earmarked for the procurement of arms that could have helped in securing the North during the glory days of “Boko Haram” have now become big sponsors of the ongoing “SECURE THE NORTH” protests! Apparently, the only one among them not openly speaking out and urging such protests is Sambo Dasuki himself.

And that’s because he is probably too shy or still ashamed of his role in helping GEJ and his Camorra turn the Northeast and parts of the Northwest and Northcentral into a wasteland of blood and gore!

These days, even prostitutes with 35 years working experience in prostitution are intimidated by the shamelessness of Attahiru Bafarawa, Tanko Yakasai and their likes in the North who took large chunks from that $2.1bn arms funds that GEJ converted into his campaign funds when the North was virtually prostrate, with over 2 million refugees taking refuge in camps in Niger Republic and Cameroon.

But thank God for 2015. With a reinvigorated military, coupled with a determination to restore some normalcy in the North, the Buhari administration seized all the Local Government Areas that “Boko Haram” in Aso Rock handed over to “Boko Haram”.

Massive investments were made, and are still being done, in the procurement of sophisticated weapons for our military establishment. And, yes, it’s true that some of these security challenges still exist. But it is utter mischief, accentuated by brazen shamelessness, for those who “ate” our arms funds seven years ago and left our military and the country grievously defenceless to be talking about insecurity and even blaming it on the one leader who restored Nigeria’s territorial integrity from the vandals they handed it to in 2012 – 2014!

While our gallant troops are out there battling these insurgents and bandits, who are mere tools, anyway, of distracting the public from the daily news of infrastructural achievements of the Buhari administration, the SECURE THE NORTH protests can as well go on. But it will make greater impact if the protests are held in front of the houses of Attahiru Bafarawa, Colonel Dangiwa Umar, Sheik Gumi, Tanko Yakasai, and their ilk. Or, didn’t someone say Name-and-Shame is another method of fighting moral bankruptcy and shamelessness?

Written by: Frank Oshanugor

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