………Daring fear to conquer it

By Yakubu Ahmed-BK

There is this saying that if you have a lion as the Commander of pack of dogs, every dog will fight like a lion. But if you have a dog as the Commander of a pride of lions, every lion will fight like a dog.

This is simply apt for Borno at this moment of very serious trial. I have observed that since the assumption of office of Professor Babagana Zulum as Governor of Born state, the perspective of the war against insurgency has dramatically changed.

The fire eating and no nonsense Governor has demonstrated textbook fearlessness and sounds somewhat careless about the dangers inherent in his constant voyage into the theatre of war, in his one man crusade to return IDP’s to their towns and villages in Northern Borno.

Despite the attacks on his convoy, the attendant lost of lives and the pressure it wrought on the military and other security formations across the axis, he still remained adamant that regardless of the dangers, he will see through to his desire. A lion had been birthed in Borno. And from all indications, that lion has birth many other lions.

The story of this new narrative began with the insistence by former Governor Kashim Shettima to nominate a dark horse against all political permutations to succeed him. It looked like Kashim Shettima was about the only one who had seen the qualities of the man Borno needed at a time like this, to extricate it from this malaise. He fought it alone at the risk of political ostracisation and losing out on old friendship/partnership/association/kinship.

Now, everyone in the Zulum team in Borno has turned into a lion. Everyone that has been tasked with a duty connected with resettlement of idps or linked with efforts to turn things around has become a Zulum; fearless, red eyed and ready to die, if it comes to that, to achieve the objective of facing fear and conquering it.

The last time the BBC Hausa Service interviewed Borno state Commissioner of Justice Kaka Shehu Lawan soon after the attack on the Governor during which some lives in the convoy were lost, he made it clear that those who were urging caution on the part of Zulum and bandying fear of losing his life, have completely been overwhelmed and conquered by that fear.

He noted that fear was the fact that had emboldened the insurgents and made the war so intractable. According to him, the job at hand in Borno at the moment is not for the faint-hearted or lilly-livered. The guy gave a hint that everyone involved in the implementation of the Zulum-road map for the restoration of civil order in hitherto conquered territories on the shores of Lake Chad has seen the fire fighting spirit of their Governor and as such, the fear people are talking about will no longer be a factor.

“For those who see fear as a factor and are therefore urging for restraint have missed the point. Fear is what has kept the fire of the insurgency burning and until it is made to wither, no progress will ever be made and no change in the prosecution of the war will ever be gleaned.”

Of course, lives are likely going to be lost. But lives in their thousands have been lost and are being lost every hour. They have been lost with no progress being made at all. And even if Zulum cocooned himself in his comfort zones in Maiduguri or Abuja, it does not look like the killings will stop. So, why not brave it, face fear, lose some lives and conquer the odds and perhaps open a new vista in the prosecution of the war? History, as they say, will forgive those who take a risky that sprouts, but it will not forgive those who take no decision at all.

In any case, fear has not changed anything since