On Boko Haram attacks in North Cameroon
Grinding an axe with the armed forces
Multiple Boko Haram attacks and the Cameroon Army's inability to secure the country are the price to pay for years wasted concentrating on defending a regime against political and social dissent instead of developing a full fledged security strategy for decisive action against any serious external threat.
Where are our
famous BIRS and others now that life in Northern Cameroon has become more
insecure than in Northern Afghanistan? Busy preparing a 20th May Parade?! What do they make of all the kidnaps and killings going on? One of them said over the radio that they are unhappy when the public criticizes them, that is in reaction to the Boko Haram attack on a military target to rescue one of their previously captured members. But let us ask a few questions.
Do soldiers in
Cameroon today enjoy showing off instead of doing the military work of
defending their fatherland? If not, someone tell me, why does Boko Haram have
the leeway to stroll into Cameroon, kill, kidnap and stroll out without the
least disturbance?
Do our overpaid
military officers enjoy their salary and the good things money can buy so much
so that they forget their duty to fatherland? Do they know why they are paid?
Or do sinecures from Biya's regime make them to believe that their only duty to
Cameroon is to bind their hands from conducting a military coup?
If, as they
claim, they are still aware that the army was not only made to protect the
regime against its disgruntled civilians, have they forgotten a soldier must
always be ready? So they want Boko Haram to finish kidnapping the whole
Northern Cameroon before it will occur to them that national security is
threatened? If they are so great as they have been claiming, why does Boko
Haram keep getting away with these incursions?
Is it that the
soldiers do not yet have orders from their commander to act? I keep wondering
how our regime operates. Their soldiers are ever so quick and decisive in
dealing with former workers striking over severance pay (Tole Tea), students
striking over academic reforms (Yaounde in the early 90's and Buea since then),
and the public manifesting against price hikes (Feb. 2008) and constitutional
changes, but never there when military might is needed.
Why have they
not established a plan of action to secure the borders since Boko Haram started
brazen incursions into Cameroon? Regime barons bragged about BIRS in the
Yaounde Maritime Security summit last year and claimed that other countries
came to learn from Cameroon how to protect their borders. Now, it is clear that
it was empty "vooooooom" or "big mup" as we call it in
pidgin.
I beg, somebody,
tell our president, we do not need France's help to protect this country.
Unless he is not the one in charge of these trigger happy BIRS et al. We just
need to unleash them on Boko Haram. They may be a guerilla force, but I do not
believe the handful of hungry ruffians with no formal military training or
sophisticated equipment can defeat the Nigerian and Cameroon armies even with
hit and run strikes. What happened to hot pursuit? I am sure if Nigerians pursue
Boko Haram, they will stop at the border and Cameroon can continue from there!
Do Cameroon and
Nigeria want to claim that their border is so big that with Nigerians on one
side and Cameroonians on the other, we cannot secure it? Or is it simply that
François Holland has not yet given instructions to his valet, the president of
France in Yaounde, to take action?
Only
time will tell. However, I am sure that after another excuse to hurry to
Europe, away from this ill smelling air of the capital city, the president of
France in Yaounde will, on his return, execute instructions from the president
of France in France and at last Boko Haram may start worrying.
Soldiers were
congratulated and promoted recently, for their role in defending Bakassi, even
though I read from the ICJ that the conflict was settled peacefully! I see a
man creating an opportunity to pander the army for nothing done, encouraging
laziness and setting a bad precedent for future generations.
In towns, top army
officials are putting up mega buildings, I wonder where they get the money
from, are soldiers also business men? Bribery, nepotism and tribalism are the
working principles for recruitment into the ranks. Proof, some spoiled brats
whose parents bribed for their entry into top official training schools died
during training. If not, how did these weaklings make it through the selection
tests? What war can such an army win, apart from the one against civilians.
Has this army really
been tested? Does Cameroon not remain highly vulnerable to any external attack?
Are we not only safe because other countries realize that war helps no one,
reason why we have no major external threat?
No one can convince
me that with fuel being diverted from the army camp and sold on the black
market, our army has the capacity to swiftly and decisive contain a serious,
planned and orchestrated attack from outside or within Cameroon. With promotion
in the army being based on tribal origin and name, nothing proves that the rank
and file have the morale to fight to the very last to defend our country.
I also wonder why it
does not occur to anyone that military barracks are better situated away from
town, in order to keep prying civilian eyes away (since spies can easily mix in
the civilian population and steal our defence secrets) but also, to protect
civilians because in any feud, military installations will be the target. What
of the consequences of an explosion like the one that once occurred in the arms
depot (la poudrière) here in Yaounde. If such an explosion where to occur in
the presidential guard camp, will all the civilian population around Melen not
be endangered? Why does it not occur to anyone that the camps should simply be
moved to a new, more remote part of town? Are they only good at bullying
unarmed demonstrators? What a mess!
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