We Need To Talk About The Airforce’s Costly Mistake In Borno

A terrible thing happened on Tuesday. An Airforce jet bombed an Internally Displaced Person’s (IDPs) Camp in Rann, Borno State killing about 52 people and wounding as many as 200. Children, as well as aid workers from the International Committee of The Red Cross(ICRC) and Medicins Sans Fontier(MSF), were among the dead. It’s a tragedy, a disaster, but the Nigerian government is calling it a ‘mistake’.

Late Tuesday evening, AP broke the news on Twitter that disaster had struck.

BREAKING: Nigerian state official: Military jet mistakenly bombs refugee camp, kills more than 100.

— The Associated Press (@AP) January 17, 2017

Northerners who have fled the insurgency in their homes, who have watched their families slaughtered, their lives destroyed, finally find succour, only to be killed by friendly fire. No one knows what to think of it, and of course, conspiracy theories are flying around. But we just have a few questions, really.

1. What sort of yama yama ‘mistake’ is this, please?

Okay, we do realise that intelligence errors can and do occur in military conflicts, but we’re still damn mad about this. And rightly so.

2. Secondly, why is President Buhari apologising on Twitter, when he can be doing it from the actual camp where lives were carelessly taken?

Yeah, so the President regretted the sad incident on Twitter, whatever. But we need him to do more, please.

3. Nigerian Air force, how many people are going down for this?

You better make sure there are inquiries and subsequent resignations after this.

4. How can we be sure that this doesn’t ever, ever happen again?

Never again!

5. And finally, why are we being fed the ‘Boko Haram has been conquered’ story, when it’s obviously not the case?

Stop lying o!

We want answers, most importantly, we want action. May the souls of the departed rest.