That the call by the Nigerian Government on the United Nations (UN) to investigate the funding and training of the Boko Haram terrorists has generated so much criticisms is expected and rightly so.

It was the Chief of Defense Staff (CDS), General Christopher Musa, that made the call in a recent interview with Al-Jazeera where he alleged that there was international flow of funding for the terrorists, and the need for the UN to come in to trace and track it.

The Defense Chief who questioned how the insurgents had sustained themselves for 15 years, fingered international conspiracy in providing the terrorists with funds, training and equipment.

The CDS’ call on the international community for investigation came at the wake of a new trick by Boko Haram and ISWAP terrorists who are now deploying drones for surveillance ahead of launching attacks on security operatives.

No doubt, General Musa meant well in his call to the United Nations(UN) to investigate the source(s) of funding and training for Boko Haram though he may not have factored-in the fact that his call would create the misleading impression that the Nigerian security system lacks requisite capacity to deal with the Boko Haram and other emerging security challenges?

The CDS gave the impression of having no clue to what is happening by engaging in the sort of conversations and innuendos that ordinary civilians might share while debating newspaper headlines at newsstands.

You cannot have access to intelligence reports and then resort to simplistic catchphrases like “international conspiracy” as explanations for Boko Haram’s resilience, or suggest that a foreign journalist knows as much as you do about your country’s enemies, or advise the public to inquire about the group’s funding.

The call showed the limitations of Nigeria as a country which ought to have been addressed by the Presidency. It is also very sad inferring from the CDS’ statement that the war against terrorism is far from being over technically or otherwise.

And complicating the matter is the truer fact that more splinter groups are coming up.

To me, this matter goes beyond the activities of Boko Haram in the northeast. What’s happening in the Northwest, North Central (Niger, Benue, and Plateau particularly) have the language and character of what we have in Bornu as Boko Haram activities.

Now in the entire Southeast, we have another variant of the same brand in character just that it has been labelled “unknown gunmen.” In the southeast the act is the same! The spirit is the same just that it has become very convenient for managers of our security infrastructure to ascribe what’s happening in the east to the protest of “Indigenous people of Biafra”.

Whether anybody wants to hear this or not, the killings in the southeast by the so -called unknown gunmen does not have the character and spirit of the Igbo man. No Igbo man kills for killing sake! If they want to secede is it by killing fellow Igbo men, women, and children and destroying their own place that they will get the central government to listen to them?

The same malaise has crept into Southwest and the miscreants are digging-in deeply and save for the well-coordinated activities of the Southwest internal security outfit, Amotekun, by now they could have been doing some heinous things on a bigger scale in the region.

Last year, in one of my posits on the spate of insecurity enveloping our country, I raised an alarm that it seems Nigeria is being invaded from outside. Thank God the CDS is today raising the same issue.

What is the job of the Department of State Services (DSS), National Intelligence Agency (NIA), Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA), the Nigerian Police Force Intelligence Bureau, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), and office of the National Security Adviser (NSA)? Can none of them do what we are asking the UN to do for us? What have we been doing with the intelligence provided by our neighbours (Cameroun, Chad, Niger Republic)?

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When this whole madness started, it was made to look like a religious warfare embarked by some Muslim extremists to exterminate Christian enclaves in the northern parts of Nigeria. But now we are beginning to see that the mindless killings actually have nothing to do with religion though it has been concocted to paint that false picture.

Can the operators of the Nigerian government security apparatchik just sit down to study the evolutionary pathway of this evil being visited on innocent Nigerians in the various communities especially in the north but not restricted there only.

From obvious indications, our government and even the citizenry seem to have been completely manipulated to look in the wrong direction for answers to the spate of senseless and mindless carnage being visited on our people across the country. No particular section of the country is singled out for this mayhem except that some areas especially in the north had witnessed this carnage on scales that could best be said to be devilish.

Truth be told, the inactivity or the inability of our security apparatchik to be more proactive and sincere in addressing the embarrassing state of insecurity across the country is a fallout of the serial failures of our leadership to think deep on issues that affects the ordinary citizens. And the reason is simple: most of our people in government are compromised.

In fact, let us go back to what Sheikh Gumi told all of us sometime ago. He said the military intelligence and the security agencies know where the terrorists/bandits are.

Even the northern governors have said the security agencies are in collusion with the bandits. So, is anybody serious about bringing the security situation to an end, are they serious?

Over the last decade and a half, hundreds of Nigerian soldiers have given their lives to this fight. There is no doubt that if we continue to confront this enemy as blindly as we have been doing all these years, many more will needlessly die along with thousands of Nigerian civilians since the reality as we have seen and heard, even after the “technical defeat” of Boko Haram, may be far different.

Whose interest it is to see Nigeria destabilized and why? This is the core question our government and its security agencies should seek to answer as a starting point to this ever-evolving menace. God bless Nigeria!

(IFEANYI IZEZE writes from Abuja: [email protected]; 234-8033043009)