The fear of God, says the scriptures, is the beginning of wisdom — positive fear that drives positive change. But what of paranoia that views everyone as mortal enemies?
Such paranoia appears to have gripped the Jonathan presidency, with its current war on the media.
Like crazed but phoney Leviathans, Nigerian troops on the highway flex their muscles, cock their guns and unpin their grenades. Their formidable opponents? Harmless newspaper van drivers, speeding off to deliver newspapers in far-flung Nigeria.
The troops stamp, growl and grunt: Boko Haram has found new allies in newspapers and their transport fleet. Their winning intelligence, sure banker to sack the dreaded Sambisa Forest, screams and swears Boko Haram bombs nestle among newspaper parcels. But after searching and searching, and detaining van drivers, and impounding newspaper stock for no less than three days, they have hit nothing but empty air.
Yet, the Jonathan military braves keep on searching, impounding, and detaining; and keep on threatening, huffing and puffing, even bullying innocent vendors, like some coward who sees a person he could beat up and suddenly becomes hungry for a fight. Meanwhile, their attention is sorely needed in Sambisa Forest!
But maybe the troops are looking the wrong way, for the invisible bomb. Poor dears, they are searching newspaper parcels! How about some positive suggestions?
Since news (not newspapers) is the new enemy, why don’t these brave and admirable troops confiscate every hand phone — smart and not-so-smart — every computer tablet, every iPad, and every IPod?
If they did that, they would perhaps have arrested every facebook post, every tweet, every online story, every breaking news — and gosh! these online media are notorious for “breaking news” without necessarily double checking — and even every subversive music on IPod: yes IPod, for all that sweet music may well be lyric-ised code of Boko Haram ordinance! Come on boys, the physical newspapers are too clumsy and slow, the real enemy is the nimble social media!
And if that did not deliver much, why not simply militarily decree and flatly outlaw the use of these smart gadgets — or better still, jam the satellite sites that power them? And if you are reminded it is a democracy, which outlaws such knee-jerk and brainless military rule tactics, just remind them as Sage Doyin Okupe has volunteered: for security from Boko Haram, citizens’ basic rights must bow, constitution or no constitution!
Given the Jonathan military goons’ especial focus on this newspaper, in their quixotic war, it is legit to declare: “The fear of The Nation is, for President Jonathan, the beginning of wisdom — or more correctly folly.”
Yes, folly because what power can a common newspaper have against the all-mighty president who could easily have been a Pharaoh or a Nebuchadnezzar or a General but has graciously refused to do so?
But before Jonathan’s army got lost in its quixotic maze, this simple reminder: by bullying what it thinks is “soft targets”, while the hard target sits un-harassed inside Sambisa Forest, its tactics are no better than Boko Haram’s.
But then, it is the age of equal-opportunity terrorism — whether by Boko Haram or Jonathan’s troops!