Ibrahim Attahiru: Courage too brief on hot seat

Nobody needed to tell Ibrahim Attahiru that he ascended the summit of his career at a very tough time. He was made the Chief of Army Staff at a time the security of the nation was, and remains, at the the most embattled probably since the nation evolved.
Boko Haram had come back stronger. Bandits had been dictating the pace, while kidnapping and cultism had become an industry. They still remain so, unfortunately.
The situation was/is worsened by the fact that the military’s morale is arguably low. And it had to be based on the circumstances on ground.
Weapons are far from being enough, to the extent that the enemies seem to have better ones than the nation they are fighting. There is corruption, tribalism and a spreading sense of anti-country disposition and manifestation. When you therefore emerge as the head of the military in such a situation, you have come at a most critical moment.
That was the story of Attahiru. Yet, he was ready to bear the mantle. He wasted no time in trying to adjust to the challenges, even if he had ‘distractions ‘to face, including invitations to the National Assembly to explain one thing or the other. No wonder, he responded to questions with military impatience and direct-you-question-to-the-appropriate-quarters bluntness.
As much as he tried – unfortunately – the battle got tougher. The syndromes remained and got messier, as new deadly threats emerged almost by the day.
Yet Attahiru wanted to fight on. With courage and determination. Until the worst came in the evening of May 21, when he died in the air crash that occurred in Kaduna. It was a huge irony of life: It happened in a military setting, as it was a military aircraft. Besides, this was Kaduna, the land of his birth, just as he was said to have died alongside his wife, apart from the other six people on board. Some are still hoping that the wife was not in the aircraft.
It is indeed not surprising that many Nigerians have started mourning him. It is a moment that, beyond the usual discordant tunes that now characterise our nationhood, Attahiru is genuinely being mourned as one who served his fatherland, who was prepared to do his best to save his country from unprecedented insecurity.