COMBATING CAMEROONIAN TYPE OF BOKO HARAM

Information show flow from majority weak to strong

The invisible can sound very powerful isn’t? You can’t fight what you can’t see. All the sophisticated logistics and assistance given Cameroon or its military can’t fight what is invisible. Now to fight the invisible the secret is you must first make the invisible assailants visible before you attack. Nowadays many people in countries where dictatorship and suppression of press freedom or censorship of it is predominant chose to either write anonymously to inform anonymously or remain mute because of fear of punishment that awaits them. The just are punished and the unjust go unpunished.

Preachers in churches have also been using a methodology to pass their teachings across. With this methodology they preach against something without pointing the exact thing so that you know it well to know that it is bad and flee from it. A teacher teaching that corruption is evil can use a contextual example for the students to understand but our teachers have not been doing this. If you teach that corruption is bad to a student in a school let’s say GHS Tabenken and give the example of Mr. Marafa who is in prison for corruption charges the students will not grasp what you are teaching. This is because firstly, they have never seen Mr. Marafa and secondly do not know about his activities in this village. Why not point at an example of somebody they will know and have known his activities so that they understand they shouldn’t in the future copy such footsteps?

Now I am a keen listener of programs on the national radio and television. Most of the time when I tune to a program where people call to participate, there is strict restriction that you shouldn’t call names. Now if one was calling to report a terrorist and is forbidden to call names then are they not helping to hide these terrorists. Here you see that the terrorists can be Cameroonians themselves with an agenda of their own hiding somewhere. Look at this truth – the secrets of every master are known by his servant not even wife or children. The master who smokes in hiding, chases women, deals in drugs etc it is the servant that he sends to do for him all these bad transactions. In his desperate situation the servant can’t reveal these transactions to the wife or children.

Now if Boko Haram is invisible and they have secrets which they use to carry out their activities who knows them? Their servants recruited to serve in fighting for them to achieve their cause. These recruits can neither complain to the masters nor to the governments. The miserable recruits can be likening to the servant who transacts funny deals with his master because a master needs somebody to serve him even in the worst transactions.

The things that are hidden that can’t be revealed are so powerful. Now how do we fight to stop them? How can a house wife fight the secret deals between her husband and servant?

To my understanding I think the government in the case of Boko Haram should try to capture some of their recruits then empower them with money and they will leak the secrets how the sect functions and like that we can win the war against them. The servant doesn’t leak secrets between he and his master to the wife and children because he is financially down bottom – he has the dilemma if I report they will formulate something and chase me away or even punish me. In this dilemma the best thing is that he will remain silent.

The other time, when I read the bill on terrorism in our country, I discovered a serious warning to any individual or group which would threaten to or destroy property. The question that came to my mind was if these properties are acquired by trampling on the rights of the poor community, some committing acts like child sexual abuse, adultery etc in the community because of their financial prowess then when these vulnerable ones at the time abused didn’t act because probably of their situation. If they grow up there will be an urge to revenge in them except a few who become true believers and let go because of God. Now what is the government doing or has put in place such that the vulnerable report abuses or such acts that can cause one or a group to think to revenge through unorthodox methods or join such criminal groups. I think the government should create structures and another media which is affordable to the poor and managed by them. The Cameroon type of Boko Haram can grow if this is not done. A government official can be a Minister during the day and Boko Haram at night. He will recruit servants who are afraid to report him because of the consequences that will befall them. I suggest there should be a media for the voiceless in all communities controlled by them to replace the current voice of the voiceless pattern where the voice claiming to be for the voiceless is manipulated by his master.