Requiem for Colonel Salisu

If I stop probing, I am likely to live longer. But that’s a pipe dream, no Naija should expect long life, except of course you are an incumbent politician. The reporter in me would always be inquisitive. Probing poisons the artery of a conscientious reporter in the land of anomie. Accept officialese, that medication that the oppressor prescribes for the sanity of the oppressed, and you will live long and sleep well – ask the staff of NTA and Radio Naija and allied media.

Hear this one - he is Kabiru Salisu, a colonel in the Naija army. A gallant soldier. You must be pardoned for not knowing him. There are no monuments named after him. Pen robbers stand better chances of having a song waxed for them than he would. A first lady of any hue would be recognised for stealing our money and using a quarter of it to build a monument to our adulation than Salisu stands of having a road named after him. Yet he gave his life for us.

Don’t expect the army he served instituting a medal of gallantry after him. His commander-in-chief is bound to remember who embezzled his campaign funds than reward his chivalry. Salisu was killed in his APC (not Buhari’s party – haters!) and buried in his home town with minimal honour. Then they partied on.

Salisu’s return journey to Haramistan did not go like most military postings. It somehow leaked all over that the haramists ambushed his convoy, but he escaped. He did not escape when they trailed his APC and smoked him and his colleagues. If you could ask questions of your partying commander-in-chief, the questions would be how did his posting to war get such coverage on social media? Why was he targeted? How come his movements were known since we agree with the C-in-C that haramists have neither superior firepower nor better intelligence than our forces. Has anyone been investigated, charged or court-marshalled either for negligence or treason? Writers and tweeters stand better chances of tasting detention hell than official moles whose actions lead to the death of our gallant soldiers. It’s the way the cookie crumbles – here.

As for Colonel Salisu, his wife is widowed in her prime, asking– why me Lord? His young children are comforted with – Daddy has travelled. It’s the way we shield the minds of young children from the painful finality of death. So, we forgot Salisu even before we committed him to mother earth and continued to groom the party. No tears, no grief, no eulogies, no medals. See why officers cry when they are deployed? They have no hope in the ability of the system they’ve signed-on to either protect them or honour their graves.

Next was Nyanya. Someone closed all bus stops in surrounding suburbs and centralised a park without security, paving the way for genocidal minds to strike en-masse. Now nearly 100 are dead, nearly 200 wounded. Distraught families are looking for loved ones and asking questions. Next day, their answer emerged in Kano looking for answers – to his embezzled campaign funds. No flags flew at half mast, no mourning declared. To quote Pius Adesanmi, the Kano trip was not to rally our troops from lethargy and melancholy but to rally the party that is now as good as joining Islam according to its chairman Adamu Muazu. Kano’s rented crowd is not Nyanya, they came out en-masse. Life goes on.

In this confusion, I found a meddler by the name of Andrew Pocock. While our selected president was putting his life on the line rallying his party, Pocock who should be watching over British business from his secure offices in Maitama; rallied 15 members of his staff. They went to the National Blood Transfusion Service. Pocock’s wife (if he had any) was not in labour, neither were any of his siblings affected.

Now, this must be a diplomatic faux pas! As someone joked, not even a thought that an oyibo blood cannot run in a black man’s vein. They did ‘the needful’. And for this diplomatic interference, I hope that Minister Aminu Wali protests to the Queen. I doubt if the Geneva Convention allows this. A foreigner’s altruism galvanises political scavengers, but not the president, not his vice, not a minister – they have blue blood.

While we’re at it, armed gunmen went into a female hostel in Haramistan and abducted about 100 girls. How did that happen? You would think that if a female hostel still existed anywhere in the northeast, it would be an impregnable vault of armed security. The military put a spin to it by announcing a rescue. They didn’t know that the BBC would check things out. See why they banned phones? Now they have recanted. No heads will roll. The parents of the girls, like Salisu’s widow are on their own in Sambisa forest seeking answers. This was only a requiem for Colonel Salisu.

Don’t expect the army he served

instituting a medal of gallantry

after him. His commander-inchief is bound to remember who embezzled his campaign funds than reward his

chivalry