If there is anything that is currently giving sleeplessness to Nigerians, it is problem of Insecurity. Quite rightly so because the Nigerian President asserted in May 2014 that Boko Haram insurgency had ensured 12,000 deaths and 8,000 crippled people. If the constitutional provision in section 14 which states inter alia- “the primary purpose of the government shall be the security and welfare of Citizens”- is anything to go by, Nigerians ought to be comforted by this that their government shall bring succor to them. Unfortunately, this is not so? Owing to the insecurity ravaging the Nation is squarely placed at the doorsteps of Boko Haram, it is necessary to ask ourselves: What is Boko Haram?
Boko Haram was created in 2002 by Mohammad Yusuf (1970-2009), a radical Islamist cleric, in Maiduguri, Borno State. The group had ulterior political goals to create an Islamic state and impose Sharia laws. The Boko literally means fake but used for education, while Haram means forbidden. In concrete terms, Boko Haram means western education is forbidden. The radical and often violent nature of the teachings, especially with the declaration on July 30, 2009 by Mohammad Yusuf that democracy and western education must change, the security forces stormed the Boko Haram base in Maiduguri and arrested the leader. Less than twenty four hours later, Yusuf was later found dead while still in police custody. The failure to prosecute those security personnel who were responsible for the extra-judicial killing of the Boko Haram leader represents one of the primary grievances of the members of the sect, and can be seen as fanning the embers of the Boko Haram terrorist campaign against Nigerian security forces and authorities. In addition to the killing of the Boko Haram leader, some Nigeria Police operatives were captured on video in the extra judicial killing of more civilians (some on crutches!); the attendant failure to prosecute these trigger-happy cops, in what has defined the injustice of the Nigerian state, is another grouse of the Boko Haram with the Country.
The narrative of insurgency in Nigeria (in the last five years) has been that the Northern Muslims are unwilling to allow a Christian from the Minority in Southern Nigeria. This has also been buoyed by the fact at the time that when the late President Umar Yar’adua was incapacitated - due to the debility of a terminal illness - to perform his presidential functions, a tiny clique associated with him prevented the then VP Goodluck Jonathan from assuming the office in acting capacity in accordance with constitutional provisions. The proponents of this view point failed to understand that the refusal to allow Dr. Goodluck Jonathan become the Acting President was not a Northern agenda per se but that of a selfish and greedy cabal, which also included a fellow Christian Southerner from the Niger delta region, James Ibori. Furthermore, it needs restating that, in those heady days, General Muhammadu Buhari (GMB), a Northern Muslim, personally took a letter to the Senate President, Mr. David Mark, urging the Nigerian senate to pave way for the swearing in of the VP Goodluck Jonathan as acting President with full Executive Powers!
The complexion of insurgency in the last five years has necessitated a perspicacious analysis of this menace as a way of properly situating it within the context of the dynamics of the political and religious balance in the Nigerian state. Broadly, any breach of security in Nigeria is attributed to Boko Haram. Whilst the notion that Boko Haram started in 2002 as a result of the need to create an Islamic jurisdiction whereby sharia laws subsist may have some vim because a Christian southern was a President then, this argument becomes deflated by the fact that, in 2009, the group assumed some frightening state of disorder under a Muslim President. This, obviously, necessitates the question again: Who is Boko Haram? Indeed, analyses have shown that there are, at least, three variants of Boko Haram:
1. The Original Boko Haram led by Mohammad Yusuf which has an axe to grind with Nigerian security forces, and invariably Nigeria, for the extra-judicial killing of its leader and members.
2. The Criminal Boko Haram is involved, through its possession of lethal weapons, in criminal activities for pecuniary gains.
3. The Political Boko Haram is interested in profiting politically from deadly insurgent attacks in the country. This is by far the most virulent of the three Boko Haram variants!
Truly, in view of the mystified phenomenon this insurgent group has become, it is of paramount importance to probe what Boko Haram truly is. It is noteworthy that, today, all acts of infamy bothering on breach of the nation’s security, are labeled ‘Boko Haram’ because, as it were, this phenomenon seems to have defied rational logic. Again, let us ourselves: what is Boko Haram?
Many of the proponents of Boko Haram phenomenon being Islamic, especially from the predominantly Christian South, have often argued that the spate of bombings of Christian churches reveals the agenda to ‘Islamize’ Nigeria. The propagators of this viewpoint also assert that the petulant promise by some Northern elements from the core Muslim North to make Nigeria ungovernable for the current Nigerian President, who is from the minority Christian south, is the kernel of the current insurgency pillaging the Nation state. Though unable to pointedly place their fingers on the identity of the said Northerners, these people have given full rein to their line of thought without giving consideration to the contradictions in this polemic assertion.
First, the spate of bombings or attempted bombing of some Mosques in the North seems to have removed air from the sail of the aforementioned line of argument.
On June 23, 2012, attempted bombing of a Mosque in Fage Local government area of Kano was aborted. As usual, Boko Haram was credited with this terrorist act. But in a swift reaction, the Boko Haram group vehemently denied this in a statement written in Hausa and translated to English:
“Blessed and thanks be to Almighty Allah and merciful. And to also his Prophet Muhammad (S.A.W.). After this we wish to react to what we heard in the media yesterday Friday that some people attempted to plant bomb in one of the Friday mosques in Kano City. This jihad being advance by Jama’atu Ahlissunnah Lidda’awati Wal-Jihad wish to distance itself from this atrocity, and we are aware that it is such mischief being orchestrated and in line with the operations of SSS like their counterparts in other parts of the world; all in the bid of blackmailing Mujahedeens. And they will not succeed by the power of Almighty Allah, because everybody knows that we are doing only Jihad towards ensuring adhering to Muslim system. It is because of this that we were being said to be “Islamic Extremists”, and so how can we bomb where Allah is being worshipped? Because of this, it is just mischief of those kicking against the realization of Islamic state, and they will not achieve their sinister plot with the power of Allah on our side. “We are happy to express our happiness and joy because of the gallantry Almighty Allah granted our brother Habibu Bama, we are hoping Allah accepts this act of martyrdom and his sacrifice to Jihad, dying in the field of war is a pride and most cherished last pride of a real Muslim. “Again, we are warning the media up to now to brace up, because like they know we are working very hard to avoid face up with them. But up to now some of them did not understand us. Because like we put it as a condition to them, any media outlet that knows they will not report our messages as we put in correct form, it should not disseminate it completely, even from the government side concerning us and even if it is Goodluck Jonathan that talk about us. They shouldn’t make a mistake and report it. And if they make mistake and report it, then whatever that befall them, they should cry with themselves.”
After this incident, there had been actual bombings of other Mosques in the North:
(a) Emir’s Mosque, Kano was bombed on April 4, 2013 leaving one person dead. This came less than 24 hours after the inauguration of the 26-member Boko Haram committee by the Federal Government.
(b) A Mosque in Konduga in North East region, leaving 44 persons dead on August, 10, 2013.
(c) On April 6, 2014, gunmen with IEDs reportedly came in 15 Hilux vehicles and attacked a Mosque in Buni/gari, Yobe State. 17 persons were killed and several houses were torched! It must be noted that Buni/Gari is six kilometers south of Buni / Yadi where, a month earlier at the Federal Government College, 29 male students were killed and the girls were abducted.
Second, it is also important to note that the killing of Major General Mohammed Shuwa, a notable Northern Muslim and civil war veteran, on November 2, 2012 by four gunmen who posed as his guests in his Maiduguri residence has also dealt a fatal blow on this argument of the insecurity in the North being orchestrated to force President Goodluck Jonathan, a Christian from Minority southern ethnic bloc, out of office. Boko Haram also brought out a swift statement, through its spokesman Abu Mohammed Abdulaziz, exculpating the group from any complicity in the cold-blooded murder.
Third, if there is still any vestige of doubt left in anyone about the unmeritorious content of the aforesaid argument, the last Wednesday (July 23, 2014) attempted Murder of the former Head of State, General Muhammadu Buhari (GMB) through a car bomb in Kaduna, should dispel such as this murderous impudence could not have come from Boko Haram. On the same day in Kaduna, an Islamic scholar and preacher, Sheik Dahiru Usman Bauchi, was targeted in the first car bomb that altogether left about 89 persons dead and scores injured. What is befuddling in the Wednesday bomb blast, especially the one involving GMB, was the spontaneity of a large army of analysts, like a herded community, argued against the possibility of any complicity by the government! What was most baffling was the nabbing of a cross-dressed young man, caught by the military near the bomb blast, and accused as being responsible for the blast. It seems to be a sordid way of sinking to the ludicrous level in absurdity!
On the contrary, the protagonists on other side of the polemical exchange have argued that the spate of bombings should be placed squarely on the laps of President Goodluck Jonathan’s government. This view, according to these elements, is based on some verifiable facts:
- On October 1, 2010, while the 50th Independence Anniversary was going on at the Eagle Square, Abuja, two bomb blasts occurred outside the venue. Eight persons were confirmed dead. The explosions came an hour after the main militant group in the oil-rich Niger delta, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), threatened in an email, about an hour earlier, to attack the festivities and warned people to evacuate the area. "Several explosive devices have been successfully planted in and around the venue by our operatives working inside the government security services," the email, signed by spokesman Jomo Gbomo, said. "In evacuating the area, keep a safe distance from vehicles and trash bins." President Goodluck Jonathan, who was inspecting a guard of honour at the time, called it a "wicked act of desperation by criminals and murderers".
- However, President Goodluck Jonathan later absolved MEND of any complicity in the blast when he said: “It is not MEND.” This statement raised eyebrows across the land as the official statement from the security agencies on the cause of the bomb blasts had not come. The question was: Did the President know who did it since he knew who did not? In a new twist to the issue, Mr. Henry Okah, the MEND leader, deposed to an affidavit (in case no:A570/10) in faraway South Africa that MEND was not only responsible, but that President Jonathan knew about it and wanted them to pin it on some Northern elements who were contesting the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) presidential ticket with President Jonathan at the time. High Chief Raymond Dokpesi, the campaign manager of one of the contestants (former Military President Ibrahim Babangida) was arrested by security Agencies in connection with the bomb blast. But as soon as General Babangida withdrew from the race, Dr. Dokpesi was released and adopted into the campaign organization of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan! It should be remembered that about a month before the blast (September 8,2010), President Goodluck Jonathan removed the Muslim Chief of Army Staff, Lt. General Abdurrahman Dambazzau and appointed, in his place, Major General Onyeabo Ihejirika, a Christian from the Southern Nigerian Igbo ethnic stock.
(b) On June 16, 2011, an unnamed man held a meeting with former Inspector General of Police, Alhaji Hafiz Ringim, and later joined the convoy of the Police chief to the office. Within the precinct of the Police Force Headquarters, this fellow reportedly detonated a car bomb that killed sixty persons, including a Commissioner of Police.
(c) On August 11, 2011, a car bomb ripped apart the United Nations office building in Abuja leaving many people dead. At the scene of the carnage, President Goodluck Jonathan reportedly told Journalists, inter alia: “Other countries have experienced terrorism, may be this is the turn of Nigeria.”
(d) Nuhu Mohammed Marafa (Alias Babawo), a suspected financier of Boko Haram and close associate of Vice President Namadi Sambo, was arrested on January 17, 2012 for illegal possession of Arms and ammunitions. The case, charged to a Magistrate Court, was dismissed for lack of diligent prosecution.
(e) President Goodluck Jonathan, at the Ecumenical center in Abuja during the 2012 Armed Forces’ Remembrance Day, said that his government had been infiltrated by Boko Haram elements. But till date, no single high profile arrest has been made of anyone (in his government) connected with the Boko Haram group.
(f) On April 28, 2012, the late National Security Adviser (NSA), General Andrew Owoye Azazi, at an interactive security conference in Warri, asserted that the Boko Haram insurgency ravaging the country was from the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). On account of this straight-from-the-gut assertion, General Azazi was unceremoniously removed, though he was from the same Ijaw ethnic stock with President Jonathan.
(g) Senator Ali Ndume, through his lawyer (Mr. Ricky Tarfa, SAN), deposed to an affidavit on May 26, 2012 that Vice President Namadi Sambo gave Boko Haram the telephone number to call for peace process and that, all his dealings with the group, were with the acquiescence of the President’s deputy.
(h) On November 2, 2012, President Jonathan’s Federal Government announced that Boko Haram had appointed General Muhammadu Buhari (GMB) as its negotiator in the proposed peace talks. Quite expectedly, GMB refused to swallow this gambit saying, he could not negotiate on behalf of a group whose murderous escapades across the land were clearly anything but Islamic. He also seized the occasion to lampoon the Federal Government for deploying soldiers that mindlessly killed indiscriminately in the North on the pretense of fighting terrorism. This view, of course, tallied with views by the Northern Elders’ Forum, and for which a formal protest to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in Hague was planned, that the Army under the former Chief, Lt. General Azubike Ihejirika, used the war on terrorism as a subterfuge for massive killings of innocent Northerners with outright genocidal intent.
(i) On May 26, 2013, Emergency rule was declared on Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states , three Northern States – considered to be on the frontline of the Insurgency campaign – as a result of loud uproar by the citizens about President Jonathan’s seeming reticence in frontally confronting the menace. But the spate of increased bombings in these states did not really justify the increased presence of the Military in the last one year. For instance, on February 25, 2014, gunmen violated the serenity of the Federal Government College, Buni Yadi. After the dust settled, twenty-nine male students were killed and the female counterparts abducted. These dead young Nigerians were not even considered worthy of respect with a minute silence at the centenary celebration that opened about twenty-four hours later. Till date, President Goodluck Jonathan has not thought it worthy to visit the school. Also, on the night of April 14, 2014, two hundred and seventy six female students were abducted in Chibok, Borno State. This particular infamy drew the outrage of the world because there was deafening silence by the government concerning this unfortunate incident for about a month. Later on, the insinuation from the Federal Government was to inelegantly impugn the veracity of this abduction. It was clearly a disingenuous way to play politics with a national calamity! Quite unfortunately, it took the visit of the Seventeen-year-old Pakistani girls’ rights activist, Malala Yousafzai, in convincing President Jonathan to agree to meet with the parents of the abducted girls. Over one hundred days after the abduction, the girls have not been safely brought back to their homes.
It is the desire of the teeming population of the Nigerian people that enough of playing dirty politics with the problem of insurgency in the nation. Whatever political gains expected to be garnered are not in comparison with the unimaginable damage already inflicted on the Northern part of the country. The humongous losses in human lives leave sour grapes in the mouth about the unbecoming show of insouciance at the nation’s seat of power. After last Wednesday’s bombings in Kaduna, the former military president Ibrahim Babangida admonished that the bloodshed in the nation should stop NOW. Whether this will create a kindred spirit in us and bring about the needed peace, time will tell.
May the Almighty God grant us respite from these self-inflicted travails, as we pray for the nation’s virility.
God bless Nigeria.
Rotimi Fashakin (Engr.)
Monday, July 28, 2014