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Boko Haram: The Chickens Have Come to Roost?

August 9, 2009

Violence, mayhem, destruction and crises have become perennial issues and reoccurring decimal in Nigeria. The current Bauchi massacre led to over 150 deaths with red alert in flashpoints of Kano, Kaduna and Yobe-a more or less security alert to de-escalate the violence. What has become apparent in the past 20 years is that Bauchi which used to be peaceful and serene, just like its neighbouring city of Jos is no longer insulated from being described as hotbed of violence competing with such more fiery places as Kano and Kaduna. However, this speaks to a deeper structural problem, rather than being a mere sporadic and superficial manifestation as it is being widely touted in the public discourse.


However, we cannot find the solution to the perennial violence merely by setting up panels and hiding the facts in books. To be sure, the knowledge of what resulted in the violence is in the heads of the people, it is being carried around like rumour and it is being over-exaggerated by town criers, eyewitnesses and those involved in hearsay. The history of Nigeria has shown that panels obscure rather than illuminate the facts. If you want to hide the facts or wish nothing to be done, just set up a panel. Everybody will calm down and nothing happens. The aggrieved party however will prepare for the next round of violence- it is such a vicious cycle. The Jos crisis is still very fresh in our memory and then just 30 minutes drive down the road has led to a second round of violence in Bauchi.

How do you describe the Bauchi violence? Political, economic, ethnic or religious? Who are the actors and social forces behind it? Why were such a huge number of people killed in such a short time and police response was almost too late in coming, except in the arrest of suspects. We have been speaking and writing about violence in Nigeria for over 40 years, how religion is manipulated, how youth are instrumentalised, how politicians are the key beneficiaries of every form of violence. But how far have we gone to rectify things in our personal and collective conducts? What policy options and outcomes have we put in place? Who have be penalised, who have been cleared? Why is there still no violent free Nigeria in spite of the numerous panels set up to investigate violent activities?

 There is a general case that can be made about the unprepared nature of the Nigeria state and society to rehabilitate its youth, to reintegrate them and make them culturally, educationally, socially and economically productive. The carnage and the uncertainty in our cities either through religious, political or social unrests  have all been created by the culture of a mobile and restive and frustrated youth that can always be used as thugs at any time on anybody. I agree that there is a National Youth Policy, but we are yet to programmatically define how we intend to move our youth forward, using the Youth Policy as an instrument; and how we can prepare them for the challenges of their professions and for leadership. There is still the old belief that the youth are at best instrumentalised and used for the selfish ends of politicians and moneybags-and nothing else.

 Nigeria is socially, very highly charged. The youth are angry and truly aggrieved. They went to school yet they are excluded, they went to farms yet they have no harvest, they want to marry, start a family, own a house, yet they cannot do any of those because of social and material hardship that denied them access to jobs. About 42 Million Nigerian youth are out of jobs, the capacity for private sector to create job is weak, the absorptive capacity of government agencies is weak. The creative talents and ingenuity of the youth can not be supported by microfinance due to lack of collateral.

 Yet, every violence is proclaimed by and in the name of the youth, every anarchical activity is written in their name. This creates negative feeling across the country towards the youth, and it does not confer on them any generational advantage. They feel displeased and angered. This is not how to make progress in an age when the youth of other continents are making impressive strides in IT and knowledge-driven projects. We can not continue to dispirit our youth and criminalise them at every opportunity available to us. This is time for sober reflection.

 It is true that some youth were involved and used in the Jos and Bauchi violence, as they have always been. But is this not because society and the elite had decided to take advantage of their vulnerability? The economically and materially vulnerable is always weak. The person who did not go to school is even weaker, as he/she is intellectually vulnerable and lack self-initiative, competences and ability to make rational choices that should drive him/her in a specific direction. There is no where in the world that the state does not prepare its youth for the future, guide them in the choices and options available to them, through state counselling, mentoring programmes, educational and excursion activities, integrative national programmes and projects and so on. In a word, getting the youth into a national conversation, that speaks to their oneness and the unity and integration of the country. Increasingly these programmes have disappeared. The NYSC has become more of an avenue or stop gap for many who could not or who are unsure of securing a job.

What we have done systematically to our youth is to destroy their dreams and make them have negative perception about society and what it has in store for them. We have not inspired our youth enough, and we have not put in place precepts and examples that will and should guide them. In that regard we have also failed the youth. There is spiralling and unending violence in Nigeria, not just northern part of Nigeria, as a testament to how much we do not care for our youth and how much we wish them to die over the selfish interests of a few elite. That is not patriotic, neither is it fair. As parents and guardians we should prepare our youth for the challenges of tomorrow, for a profession and leadership. 

 Nightmarish memories of the Bauchi crisis will die down and everybody will go back, business as usual, and in no time another crisis will catch up with us again “by surprise” and we once more suddenly remember Bauchi and then Jos. The response of the state and security agencies will remain predictably the same. Things can not continue in this cyclical and ad-hoc way. No nation makes progress in that manner.

It is not too late and the situation can still be salvaged. How do we proceed? There is need for a truth session where everybody should concede that they have done wrong and agree to forgive-to lead in this MUST be the politicians. No panel of investigation can truly reach the roots of the matter in the Bauchi crisis, not because they cannot, but because they will not. And they will not reach the roots because they have no political will.  They have no political will because that will is blocked by the politicians!

The next stage is to sociologically disentangle the youth on the basis of those who are in or out of school. Who is in need of job? What kind of job? Who needs rehabilitation? Who is tied to the apron strings of some politicians and religious leaders? Who is linked to some wide aspirations that cannot be met in the context of Nigerian citizenship?

 The third layer of response should be how to put in place appropriate recreational, IT and other facilities that will celebrate the creative talents of the youth. A Public Private Partnership (PPP) will help in this regard and this can be replicated all through the country in a phased and systematic manner. Youth groups, student associations, ethnic and developmental groups can all be brought on board to accomplish this mission. It will not cost too much socially and financially, yet it will save us a lot in Nigeria .

The next phase should be a massive enlightenment campaign that makes the youth to come back to the ideals of   patriotism and citizenship. A campaign that teaches them about what it means and what it takes to be a patriotic Nigeria and how to achieve the ideals of nationhood. If these are taught to the youth and they internalise them, there is every possibility that they will eschew violence and never again allow themselves to be used to accomplish the selfish and personal interests of other people. There is need to re-tell such youth a simple story-about the meaning and value of life and the fact that no life, once taken, can ever be brought back. That point must not be lost on us, it must be truly internalised and appreciated.

Lastly there is need to groom youth peace vanguard in focal points across the country. The vanguard will involve themselves in rallies, workshops and open campaigns to enlighten other youth on the social and personal consequences of violence. They will also be involved in Training of Trainers (TOT) programmes on how to anticipate, contain and check violence in neighbourhoods and communities, at schools and in other public spaces. In this way, a huge number of youth will have their skills and capacities developed and their ideas about violence heavily moderated if not modified.  Through this a new generation of youth will be created, old vices will be jettisoned and there will be moral and social regeneration of our youth.

Once the youth are fully engaged, well-informed and enlightened about the negative consequences of violence; that violence does not pay, they will always seek peaceful means of dispute resolution and refuse to be used as political or religious hirelings to anybody. It is possible to get out the youth to this social and intellectual level, it is also important that in so doing, we simultaneously prepare them to take charge of their future and destiny. Many Nigerian youth are increasingly becoming pessimistic and cynical and this is affecting their social mode and behaviour. Any nation that finds itself in such a situation must know that there is a “civil war” on the horizon. This war is not going to be ethnic but inter-generational. We must avert it. Those who continue to arm the youth to kill others, must know that one day, some day, such youth are capable of turning those arms on them too.
 

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