If service chiefs can't give Security for Polls, they should resign

One year and one month later, and under his very watch, Boko Haram has become savagely audacious. The embarrassing failure of CDS Alex Badeh and Jonathan’s government has become an excuse to mess with the country’s future, making us look like a land of fools and idiots.

In decent countries Badeh, all the service chiefs and indeed Jonathan, their appointor, would have resigned with their tails between their legs.

They would have publicly apologised for the grief they have brought upon the nation through their incompetence. They would have repented for the shame of Nigeria, once Africa’s giant, now reduced to looking to Chad and Cameroon and Niger Republic for salvation from Boko Haram.

They would have been afraid to retain their positions much less contemplate using their failure to press for the shift of an election date foreknown years ago.

But that, obviously, will be expecting too much.

This Saturday, against common sense and the wise counsel of the National Council of State, Jega may be compelled to announce a shift in election date literally at gunpoint. We know there are many forces at work, including INEC commissioners and insiders who want to sabotage the vote and push Jega over the edge. In their desperation they fail to see that this is about Nigeria.

The service chiefs are expected to tell Jega that they cannot guarantee security if he insists in continuing with the elections on schedule.

We find it shocking beyond words that Jega is being forced to carry the can for the failure of the security chiefs and the Jonathan government as a whole.

If the security chiefs by themselves admit they can no longer secure the country as they have so openly done, then they should resign immediately and pave way for those who can. Announcing a date change to do in six weeks what this government has failed to do in five years does not make sense.

The honourable thing for the service chiefs is to resign now. They must not plunge this country into chaos.

by LEADERSHIP Editors