By Nkechi Odoma
After an exciting display of photoshopped actions by President Idriss Deby, in a manner which glaringly spited our troops, the Chadian leader is surely having blissful nights. He feels accomplished not because he is fighting terrorists, but for the simple reason that his plots of mockery has been successfully executed.
Deby was extremely elated because he sold a hoax to a docile gullible population and it flowed with him excitedly. A few disgruntled elements patronized his counterfeit ‘triumph’ and heaped accolades on him. Deby knows deep down his soul that he has duped a complacent continent.
In Africa, there is the resentful tendency of leaders to use every opportunity in exploiting the peoples consciousness in their favour to gain political mileage. On the political chessboard, all is fair insofar as it confers victory or shores up the popularity rating of the schemer.
Boko Haram insurgency has been a problem in West Africa since 2009, particularly around the axis of Lake Chad Basin. The infiltration of Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) terrorists in the region is also concentrated in the area over a year now. President Deby and his satanic comrades romanced the havoc terrorists have wrought for the region noiselessly and unperturbed.
Deby suddenly woke up one day to stage a movie scene claiming to be fighting Boko Haram. What a repentant heart. Christianity and the season of Easter especially, preaches about repentance and salvation. From this prism, one is tempted to pardon President Deby’s hocus-pocus. But outside the periphery, Deby is a loathsome character, revoltingly satanic and a trickster in the fame of Ghanaian fables.
But who cares in Nigeria about his antics or the demonic inner contraption of his wretched and evil heart? Certainly, nobody gives a damn about him, after all, not many Chadians cherish him any longer . It’s their exclusive burden. The people have acquiesced to his wickedness and that’s why they still tolerate him as their leader. He is free to hatch any evil against them.
But Deby’s attempt to pollute Nigeria and instigate Nigerians against our military is provocative. It violates international conventions. Even Africans do say, a man who sleeps in his house and puts his legs in another man’s house is gunning for trouble. President Deby is standing on this keg of gun powder, which might finally explode on him.
In 2016, when the Nigerian Army demystified the dreaded Sambisa forest, Boko Haram’s most fortified fortress, President Buhari did not rush to Chad to celebrate photo fair of this victory over insurgents. President Buhari didn’t photoshop and released the pictures to the media.
It is inexplicable and inexcusable for President Deby to throw mud into the faces of Nigerians this boldly. He has nicely derided Nigerians with his pretentious confrontation with Boko Haram insurgents in Chadian territory.
It even pains more infinitely to realize that President Deby is a symbol of deceit and leadership degeneration in Africa. For the clear- minded, what is incontrovertible in Deby’s latest actions is that he is not fighting terrorism. If he pretentiously and cowardly flinched before terrorists yesterday, he cannot make such loud noise today as fighter of terrorists.
The world should understand clearly that Chad under Deby is not fighting terrorism. President Deby is fighting for his own political survival, but has found the plank of terrorism a necessary tool to nourish his ambition.” This is made manifest in the open secret about to be ratified alliance between the terrorists group (Boko haram/ISWAP) and a tribal opposition group in Chad attempting to take over his job.
Real warriors do not brag; they do not boast. The real victory in any war is not the ephemeral type, but the permanence of victory. Nigeria has recorded more victories against Boko Haram and ISWAP terrorists in the last four years under the Buhari Presidency than Chad and every other interest put together in all tinges. Nigeria has conquered the terrorists several times, but did not make a carnival out of it, like Deby because it has not reached the terminal point.
In President Buhari’s time, Nigeria has retrieved all the 18 local government areas in the Northeast coercively annexed and occupied by Boko Haram insurgents. Nigeria has destroyed countless Boko Haram armoury bunkers in the country, including Sambisa forest. Nigeria has regained the freedom of tens of thousands of Nigerians held in Boko Haram’s secret gulags.
Nigeria has restored religious and traditional rulers forcefully deposed by insurgents in the Northeast. Nigeria has forced terrorists to confine their operations to the Lake Chad area. Nigeria’s counter-terrorism combats have more success narratives than Chad can ever approximate. But it is silent because the battle is in its final stages.
So, the disgruntled elements celebrating Deby’s circuit show should reflect deeper. The intense noise about Idris Deby of Chad fighting Boko Haram better than Nigeria is baseless and vexatious. It is hollow and outlandish. It is another fake news by fake activists and their league of idle congregants.
That President Deby is leading Chadian troops to clear Boko Haram /ISWAP terrorists from the Lake Chad Islands is far from the truth. In all ramifications, this sort of news can only be peddled by idlers and people who have medals in falsity. The propagandists are devoid of any idea about what Nigeria’s Chief of Army Staff (COAS) and ombudsman of the counter-insurgency operations, Lt. Gen. TY Buratai and Nigerian troops are doing in the Northeast.
Gen. Buratai is a terror to terrorists. He is a thorn in the flesh of terrorists. That’s why they attempted to kill him several times, but he defended himself and rather sent the insurgents who ambushed his path to their early graves.
However, what is indisputable is that Chad is not fighting Boko Haram in the Lake Chad. Even what President Deby did and garnished it with photo carnival had no nexus with terrorism. Deby and Chadian troops only summoned effeminate courage to confront Chadian rebels at Kelkoua, a tiny portion on the bank of the Lake Chad. Chad has the disreputable record of being a breeding ground for rebels.
The operation led by President Deby of Chad only cleared a mere 2% of the camps of Chadian rebels in the Lake Chad Islands. The whole world knows that 80% of Boko Haram/ISWAP terrorists are Chadian rebels. Virtually all of them are found in Lake Chad Islands within the Chadian territory.
Criminals have neither strict morals or bounds, so they stray into Nigeria from Chad to commit atrocities. Therefore, Idris Deby is fighting his own rebels which they have romanced and petted over time, but have gone berserk. The rebels have grown in strength and have become monstrous hence the Nigerian military is not allowing them the liberty to freely operate in Nigeria.
So, Chad has discovered it’s foolery of courting and dinning with rebels and terrorists and now fighting for its existential survival; while President Deby is exploiting it for his survival in power. Without mincing words, Chad should face its consuming quagmire and never to contemplate dragging Nigeria into its morass.
Odoma is President, Africa Arise for Change Network and wrote from Abuja.
