THRILLER FROM THE VILLA By Abdulrahman Abdulraheem
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In Nigeria, my dear country, government has been largely seen as a failure and the last one always seem better than the present one. The more things seem to be changing, the more they actually remain the same, even worse.
Just when government said it is making steady progress against terrorism and inspite of all the assurances we have heard from the State Security Service (SSS) and others, members of the dreaded Boko Haram group struck again in Abuja, this time, hitting the office of ThisDay Newspapers.
Now, we ask, do we now to take US Embassy warning serious? Was there any serious measure put in place by our security agencies to quell yet another attack on Abuja when the warning came?
The answers to that question are two.
One, Thursday's needless assault on the Fourth Estate at the heart of Abuja appears to a pointer to the fact no one did anything to really safeguard the town. We are still at the mercy of the attackers. The only thing we are proficient in doing is rescue efforts and cordoning off areas of bomb blast incidents.
The second answer to the question is in Federal Government's reaction to the last US Embassy warning some weeks back:
"Whereas we believe that every country has a duty to secure its citizens and take decision that will ensure the safety of their nationals, we have always appealed to such Embassies and Agencies not to create public panic in our country.
"This is because some of these statements that are often issued create undue panic among the general public.
"I will still appeal that foreign Embassies and Organisations that are working within Nigeria if they have any doubt at all about the preparedness of our agencies to secure public places, I think it will be wise to communicate that to us.
"But, I must say that our security agencies have over the last year increased their capacity to respond to some of the threats particularly within this City and several other cities.
"And I believe that a lot of work is being done. And we also know that when the issue came up last year our security agencies reassured the nation of our preparedness to safeguard all our public places especially the hotels."
The above quotation was Labaran Maku's reaction to the warning on behalf of the government. I am sure the measures he talked about were the road blocks the government is mounting everywhere, which do nothing but cause avoidable traffic and frustration for innocent commuters.
Government also have this mentality of VIP protection whereby they over-protect the big hotels and highbrow areas of the town anytime there is a threat while abandoning other areas. In recent times, security agencies have concentrated on the big hotels and caused traffic around them and now the blast happened around Jabi/ Utako area of the capital city. But the reality now is that the bomb went off in Abuja as predicted by the US.
The President has condemned the blast as usual. We don't doubt his commitment to the battle because his government has been under attack but we doubt the competence of his top security chiefs. How can any serious country receive an intelligence about a potential bomb attack from US and just go to sleep?
This column insists that some people do not just deserve their present pay. They don't.
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