BORNO IN OUR GENERATION AND THEN PEREGRINO BRIMAH

"Prejudice", according to E.B White, "is a great time saver. You can form opinions without having to get the facts". Otherwise how will one describe the rediculous views expressed by one "Dr Peregrino Brimah", in an obscure online newspaper called "News Rescue"? 

For the records, the insurgency started in this form in July, 2009 and our present trials and tribulations commenced. The subsequent humanitarian disaster that has engulfed our land can easily rival the pogroms of the World War II. In villages, hamlets and towns across the frontline states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa, death has become a citizen to the extent that decent burial has become a luxury. Bodies are being stashed in trucks and buried in mass graves while many are abandoned to the vultures in Baga for example. The Boko Haram authors of this horror have murdered upwards of 100,000 innocent souls and have further displaced millions of innocent villagers whose only fault is being alive. The international community largely ignored this tragedy until the 219 Chibok Girls were abducted. The world media have since gone back to recess with respect to Borno as the horror is orchestra being staged. We are not a priority, even with the internationalisation of this tragedy. At best we are given erratic footnotes. In what one can say a twist of luck, the elections approached and our thoroughly traumatised people were offered the luxury of choice and they voted change, to try their luck, just in case our situation could positively change. With the help of other Nigerians, that Government was sacked which was viewed as grossly "incompetent and responsible for the escalation" by not providing the needed political will to win the battle against the insurgents. The people of Borno, the epicentre of this senseless carnage, voted to retain their Government, under the young and dynamic Governor, Hon Kashim Shettima. It is a great miracle that he is still alive and passionately occupied with the mandate entrusted to him in the two difficult elections he contested. Within his reign thus far, he has visited dozens of villages and towns whose occupants were almost wiped away and their properties razed: Baga, Doron Baga, Bama, Gwoza, Gamboru Ngala, Monguno, Marte, Damasak, Damboa, Chibok, Askira Uba, Malam Fatori, Dikwa, Benishek, Gubio, Magumeri, Banki, Mainok, Jakana, Ngamdu and hundreds of hamlets across the state. In each of these visits, he has not only consoled the survivors with tears and a token but ensured that they are relocated to the safer city of Maiduguri, into camps run by the state government. For the first time in our generation, our people became not only internally displaced persons within our shores but also helpless refugees across the border. In Cameroon and Niger, our people were not only abandoned without food and clean water but confined to camps in less than human conditions. Hundreds have died as a result of treatable diseases..... malaria and cholera. The state government has evacuated many back to Maiduguri through long, treacherous and almost impassable paths across mountains, deserts and forests yet thousands still remain in these unfriendly refugee camps. During the previous regime, the state governor has made dozens of attempts to see Mr President, the National Security Adviser, the military chiefs just to avail them of important information which could have helped the situation for our people but he was either rebuked by presidential aides or outrightly condemned and treated with hostility and disdain. He was often blocked from seeing any of them. He was under constant surveillance while Boko Haram conquered Nigerian territory, massacred our people and defiled our women. Is there any other definition of cruelty and dereliction of duty? Is there any reason why these people should not be made to answer questions at the International Criminal Court? For, they swore to "defend the sovereignty, territorial integrity and the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria". Borno is a part of the Nigerian territory. My fellow citizens, it is against this background that this unknown character named Dr Peregrino Brimah wrote his provocative comments on His Excellency Honourable Kashim Shettima, the Executive Governor Borno State. Since the outbreak of this insurgency, this Governor has shown leadership and has become the Icon of our land, a beacon of hope. Without iota of doubt, he is the most challenged and humiliated Governor while still in office in the history of this country. Precisely, he deserves our collective support and sympathy. One finds it truly amazing and really difficult to believe that a person who perhaps have never visited Borno and who is so ignorant about us and considers Borno people as "Hausa/Fulani," could write such rubbish and gain the attention of the public, however minute. At this stage of our existence as a people, what we need is an understanding of our difficulties from the rest of Nigeria. A gentle and sincere "sorry" from the creeks of the Niger Delta could mean a lot to our people. We are a very proud, self-relient and resilient people. With over a thousand years of written history, ours was one of the oldest Kingdom with courts and organised administration in the entire West of Africa. Our ancestors have conquered such challenges in the past and Bi'izinillah, we shall also triumph in our generation.