Who is in charge?

My column in BusinessDay NG today follows up on the Kaduna Train attack and asks who is truly in charge in Nigeria?

It is important to ask this question because:
a) Kaduna is the state most saturated with military installations;
b) the airport in Kaduna has been attacked not once, not twice, but three times in the last 13 months;
c) the attack a week ago was the third attempt on the rail line;
d) the same rail line was attacked while we were all talking about the first one.

If the first attack caught the security operatives unawares, which it should not have in the first place, the second only showed that the security operatives are either unwilling, unready or simply incapable.

On his part, the Mayor of Abuja, again, ordered service chiefs to deal “ruthlessly” with terrorists. The lack of implementation of previous orders is a big story: Buhari is not in charge of anything, except perhaps politics. Nigeria has been carved up by its real rulers — armed gangs of terrorists.

Since the incident, there is nothing the government has done that has inspired confidence. With enough blame to go around, it is just a matter of time before the next big incident hits.