2nd March, 2015
By Lateef Raji
On the 7th February, I tweeted “What did these service chiefs know that we don’t know? Have they signed a pact with Shekau to lift the siege before March 28?” I might be correct after all.
The report from the battlefield seems to be turning against the insurgents, and suddenly, they have developed a kind heart and released 158 women who have been in captivity for months, and there is a comic order that Shekau be brought in alive.
All in two weeks of the supposed six weeks the onslaught is to last! A lot of things just do not add up concerning the manner the Jonathan administration has been handling the threat of insurgency within the country. The situation is fraught with fraud and deception. There is an element of dishonesty and hypocrisy in the government’s response to the activities of the dastardly Boko Haram sect.
It beats one’s imagination as to why the Jonathan -ed Federal Government waited till the dawn of an electioneering week before deciding to take up Boko Haram head-on. All along, concerned Nigerians were mystified regarding how the Nigerian military, renowned for outstanding performances at various international peace-keeping missions, could not frontally rout a rag-tag insurgent group operating within three states, and in few Local governments of the federation.
As things stand now, especially with the now apparent dubious stance of the Jonathan government against the insurgents, it is quite clear that the problem is not with the Nigerian army. Rather, the problem is that of a government that has decided to play politics with the Boko Haram menace. I am tempted to believe so after watching the interview of Brigadier-General Mohammad Umar Adeka on Sahara Reporters online television, where they broke the Ekiti rigging scandal. This episode is a must watch for all Nigerians because the retired army officer maintained that Mr. Jonathan sponsored militants to loot Nigerian Army Armoury in Jaji and Kaduna to fight against the army in the creeks of the Niger Delta while he was Governor of Bayelsa State. There has been no rebuttal from the army or elsewhere. Without any doubt, the Jonathan government has always known what to do with Boko Haram but would only do it when and if it is politically expedient for the President and the ruling party. Is it not callous that the same government, that is now desperately rolling out the tanks against Boko Haram, on the eve of an election, looked the other way for over five years while the insurgent group pounded on hapless Nigerians for the fun it? Many analysts have posited, and perhaps correctly so, that it is politically convenient for Jonathan and his Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, to let the Boko Haram group enjoy its reign of terror in the North-East of the country since that region is one of the major strongholds of the opposition All Progressives Congress, APC. The bastion of the argument is that if the North East continues to remain in turmoil, the major beneficiary would be Jonathan and the PDP. Today, there are so many Internally Displaced Persons, IDPs, from the North-East, scattered along the borders of Cameroon, Chad and Niger. These are potential electorate displaced and possibly disenfranchised. The incontrovertible fact, therefore, is that the Jonathan administration is guilty of conspiring to encourage blood-letting. President Jonathan should be made to explain to the International Criminal Court, ICC, how several innocent Nigerians were killed, under his watch, through the deliberately unrestrained activities of the Boko Haram group. He must explain his role after the death of these vulnerable Nigerians whom he swore to defend on oath. He needs to explain how he let down these innocent Nigerians by not coming to their defence at a time they needed their government most. The blood of these innocent Nigerians is crying for justice. And surely, President Jonathan would know no peace until justice is done. What kind of leader looks the other side when his people are being maimed and killed? It took revelations from Amnesty International, AI, for us to really come to grips with the intensity of destruction at Baga, a rusty town about 160 kilometres from the Borno State capital, as most of the federal agencies authorised to give information callously played politics with it. According to AI reports, the Baga attacks, which left over 3,700 structures damaged or completely destroyed, is the largest and most destructive yet of all Boko Haram assaults analysed so far by AI as it has led to the displacement of thousands of people. The report further stated that, aside Baga, at least 16 other towns were destroyed as over 35,000 people are reported to have been displaced, with many said to have drowned while trying to cross Lake Chad and others trapped on islands around the lake. What kind of leader watches viciously as such monumental damage is being perpetrated against his people? A recent data revealed that Boko Haram attacks, over the last five years, have left at least 17,000 people dead and 8,000 crippled in the last three years while hundreds of thousands have fled their homes for the fear of the insurgents. Another 3,000 were reportedly killed in the Baga attack. Perhaps, the most audacious of the dastardly acts of the group, to date, remains the abduction of over 270 secondary school girls from their school at Chibok, Borno State. They have since been in the custody of the sect for well over 10 months. In its characteristic sadistic and mischievous style of managing the Boko Haram crisis, President Jonathan initially claimed the Chibok girls’ kidnap was a ruse. It took the intervention of 17-year-old Pakistani child right activist, Malala Yousafzai, for the President to eventually agree to meet with the distraught parents of the Chibok girls. In an unending serialised drama, somewhere along the line, we were told by the nation’s military high command that the location of our girls has been discovered. However, according to military authorities, they had to tread cautiously in order not to jeopardise the safety of the girls. Sheer hypocrisy! So, why has the military suddenly found it now most appropriate to invade Sambisa forest? Are the girls no longer in Sambisa? Why has the safety of the girls, suddenly, no longer matter to a desperate power drunk despot? Who is actually fooling who? In a recent piece, Nobel Laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka, asserted that President Jonathan is worse than disgraced biblical tyrant, Nebuchadnezzar, describing Jonathan as a President who embraces impunity. According to the account of the Holy Bible, Nebuchadnezzar at the height of his imperial reign became too big-headed and God tampered with his heart and made him to eat grass and live like an animal for seven years. While analysing President Jonathan with the precision of one who knows his subject matter very well, Soyinka writes: “Long before Nyanya (bomb blast), long before Chibok (girls), long before the mildest of then now innumerable violations of our basic right to exist as free citizens, the march of a nation towards implosion has dominated the landscape but an obsession with the pettiness of power has obscured remedial vision and thus, the creative options constantly open to prescient leadership.”
According to Soyinka, the refusal of other countries to continue to help Nigeria in the fight against terrorism was because the foreign countries were cynical of Nigeria’s claim to fight insecurity. He said insecurity would have been curbed if Nigeria had learned from what happened to Mali wherein al-Qaeda militants brought the nation to its knees. He said, “The lesson of Mali was completely lost on complacent leadership, however, leaving time and space for alien invaders to make common cause with the internal, unleashing destruction at will and dancing around a nation whose armed forces have acquitted themselves creditably on foreign missions.”
The President could continue to fight his spurious war against Boko Haram. One thing that is, however, certain is that, one day, he would pay for his crimes against humanity. Former Liberian President, Charles Taylor is currently facing the music. Very soon, it would be President Jonathan’s turn. Then, there would be no hiding place for him.
•Raji is Special Adviser to the Lagos State Governor on Information & Strategy.