Where is Nigeria's Beowulf?
Published: 23 January 2013                      By Abiodun Giwa

  Where is the Beowulf to help Nigeria fight the Grendel that is waging war against it
and has almost decimated life in northern part of the country? This is a question
observers are asking following another twin attack in two days that claim innocent 23
lives. 
The first attack reportedly happened in Kano where militants identified as members of
the dreaded Boko-Haram opened fire on 5 hunters and killed them. In another
incidence, another set of 18 in a market were sent to their graves by volley of gun
shots, where they played draughts.
Just before these two incidents, the Emir of Kano, Ado Bayero escped death by a 
whisker, while his driver and two others with him in the car when he was attacked
wern't so lucky, and were despatched to their graves like others, more than two
thousand souls the Jihadists in the country had killed since they began their attack
on the country in 2009.
 These latest attacks happened few days after two soldiers among the country’s force
detailed for Mali’s ECOWA contingent were gunned down on their way out of the
country. A wing of the Jihadists’ organization waging war against the country had
claimed responsibility for the attack on the Mali bound soldiers.
 Living in some parts of Northern Nigeria has become a moral equivalent of being in a
battle front. Bombs are exploded at will against innocent people in places of worship
irrespective of religion, government buildings are targets as well as army and police
barracks. The government seems helpless, though it has composed what it calls
Joint Task Force, JTF, comprising members of three branches of the armed forces
that includes the police to fight the surge in Islamic militancy.
  Yet, observers are saying Nigeria urgently needs help. They say help shouldn’t wait
until the country begins to bleed. The attack on Nigeria by militants began way back
before the war in Libya. The trouble in Mali began after the liberation of Libya following
Muammar Gaddafi’s fall. Today, French troops and ECOWA’S military contingent are
 in Mali with an aim to pursue the militants out of Mali to forstall the militants from 
matching on Bamako.
 The French government, observers say, has proved to be a reliable ally for Mali like
Beowulf to the Danish nation. Grendel, a dreadful monster matched on the Dane’s
land,caused massive destruction to monuments and humans; the news reached
Beowulf, and based on the friendship that had existed between the Danes and the
Geats, Beowulf-a Geat warrior- didn’t wait to be invited to help the Danes. He offered
his service careless of the danger to his life, and he killed Grendel and its mother.
 By sending its troops to Mali, observers say Nigeria may have thought cutting the
wings of the militants in Mali will neutralize Boko-Haram’s insurgency at home. Others
say it would have been better for Nigeria if it has diplomatically distanced itself from
involvement in Mali to avoid exacerbating the militancy at home, which may come with
 a renewed attacks as a reprisal for Nigeria's involvement in an attack against the
interest of Jihadists that are already at war with it. 
 It is certain by observers reckoning that after the French and ECOWAS troops 
assignment at driving the militants away from Mali, they wouldn’t cross into Nigeria to
drive away B’Haram militants. But will the success of Mali’s expedition gear Nigeria’s
friend to be its Beowulf like France and ECOWAS have been to Mali at its hours of
need.
  Will the world wait for the Jhadists to seize a part of the country before help will
be rendered to save Nigeria from bloody Jihadists?


      

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