Tuesday, May 13, 2014
Unknown
When I attended the National Economic Forum on Education in March
I was tasked along with a group of others to develop a mock educational
curriculum of what we should be teaching our children in 20 years time…in the
future.
But before we could go into the
actual syllabus we had to first of all imagine what the future would be
like. While moderating that discussion a youngish older man (go
figure) on my right got up and said that the world would be a much
dangerous place and to counter that danger Nigeria would have to have a strong
and able defensive system.
This was an educational forum …
why would Nigeria need a strong military I thought to myself. But he made sense
and he was right. With the advent and growth of bokoharam it is clear
to understand his concerns and fears. But contrary to the norm, I do
believe that bokoharam would actually help improve our defensive system?
But let’s hold that thought…
Several decades ago … actually
several centuries ago, the 18th century to be precise, smallpox
a disease distinguished with ugly rashes all around the body was responsible
for 8% to 20% of all deaths in Europe. The very best scientists from all over
Europe gathered around trying to figure out a cure for the disease, but to no
avail. Nobody could figure anything out.
But then word spread about
a successful method called inoculation/vaccination being carried out in
the Turkish Ottoman Empire. By
extracting the puss from the smallpox rashes on an infected
individual and injecting it back into the body of a healthy person,
they (the healthy person) were able to build immunity to the disease and
permanently.
This did not
make much scientific sense. How could the injection of a disease end up
causing the body to build immunity against that same disease? It was
confusing.
Well it turns out that the puss
contained a less severe strain of smallpox. And due to the weaker nature
of the smallpox in the puss, the human body had enough time to fight and
simultaneously develop a natural defensive mechanism against the disease.
In other words the human body could build immunity naturally without suffering
any great damage.
What was even
more interesting (back then) about this technique was that the newly
acquired immunity could protect the body from future attacks
from even stronger small pox strains.
Now back to that thought you
were holding…
The injection of a disease into
a human body to make the human body more resistant to the disease was a strange
thing years ago. The same thing would be said about boko haram being a
good thing for Nigeria and our National defence. But if you look at boko haram
as a disease (and they are a disease), you will realize that they are testing
the Nigerian defensive mecahnisms daily and the natural projection is for us to
improve and grow.
So that’s why anytime a terror
attack happens in Nigeria, the sense of hightened security is palpable. Police
officers actually stop and search vehicles and are not even interested in
collecting bribes. Security counters at airports are more diligent and
stricter, the country is on a higher security watch.
Like smallpox injected into a
human body, bokoharam injected (albeit tragically) in the Nigeria system
causes the nations defensive mechanism to improve. Over night but subtly we
become better police officers, more alert soldiers, better defensively and soon
if we survive we could like Israel build a strong immunity to terror
attacks. By doing so we would be prepared for even more dangerous future
attacks more advanced than boko haram just like the gentleman predicted at
the economic forum.
But we can only get there if we
are able to survive the boko haram disease. And we have shown
temporal signs of improvements, but can we make them permanent? That is the
key. If we can
make our defensive improvements permanent, then our airport
security will bebetter, our army will be better, our border control better and
Nigeria overall will be defensively better.
But that is only if … emphasis
on “IF” we survive the bokonization of Nigeria with minimal casualties,
without a civil war and together as one Nigeria. But can we
survive? #bringbackourgirls
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