MY STAND (Tim Mathais) Mine is a simple attempt to contribute to a profession I hold close to my heart - journalism. I have worked for a number of years as a journalist and most recently as a freelance correspondent of an international media organisation. Although I am currently an academic, I hope my journalistic experience will reflect more each time I comment on a subject-matter. I am, therefore, more than happy to welcome comments from readers. Wednesday, 16 May 2012 Azazi, Boko Haram and Security Challenges in Northern Nigeria By Aliyu Musa National Security Adviser General Andrew Owoye Azazi’s recent damning statement linking the ongoing Boko Haram violence to the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) is currently, not unexpectedly though, generating a lot of heat. But being a typical Nigerian thing it will only be on the front burner for a few days before the matter evaporates into thin air. Before that happens, perhaps, it will help to carefully examine the issues in contest as well as those raised by Gen Azazi in his speech at the South-South Economic Summit last week in Asaba, Delta State. General Azazi had traced, ab initio, Nigeria’s escalating security challenges including the Boko Haram violence to PDP’s undemocratic politics of isolation, which in any case contravenes the constitution of the country. In 1999 the party had in a bid to ensure one’s ethnic or regional background does not prevent one from having a shot at any political office introduced the zoning of its major positions including the office of the president. This was particularly hailed as a milestone and a pivot for redefining political relations in the country. Whatever was gained through the policy, President Goodluck Jonathan’s decision to stand election in April 2011 has since rubbished it all. That, probably, could be the actual issue Azazi’s speech confirmed although that part too needs to be subjected to serious scrutiny. Azazi was quoted by all sections of the media present at the event as saying “…that PDP got it wrong from the beginning by saying that Mr A can rule and Mr B cannot rule, according to PDP conventions or rules and regulations, and not according to the constitution. This created the climate for what we have witnessed in the society.” One thing that clearly comes out of the statement is the claim by the retired General that the problem of Boko Haram could have been averted if only PDP had not introduced zoning. Put differently, if there was no zoning no one would think they had been outsmarted by the incumbent president’s insistence to contest in the April 2011 polls. Recall that the late Umar Musa Yar’adua’s presidency terminated prematurely after his death in May 2010. Based on PDP’s zoning policy it was still the north’s call to produce its next presidential flag bearer. But that was jettisoned by Jonathan, who bullied his way through while arguing zoning did not apply to his situation at the time. What followed is all history now. By asserting that zoning’s the main problem Aziza has only regurgitated the dominant thoughts in the south of Nigeria, including those by highly educated but very tragically biased persons like Nobel laureate Professor Wole Soyinka. Some of these people have openly opined that the Boko Haram monster was invented by politicians who, having lost out in the power battle to Goodluck Jonathan, elected to render the country ungovernable. Such analysts often cite the statement by former vice Atiku Abubakar that ‘those who make a peaceful change impossible make a violent change inevitable’ to substantiate their claim. So, Azazi was merely rehashing that script as he asked rhetorically ‘How come the extent of violence did not increase in Nigeria until the public declaration of the people that were going to contest in the PDP?’ at the Asaba summit. Azazi’s memory needs to be joggled back to the events of July 2009 in the north-east where the Boko Haram uprising was brutally quelled under the watch of his principal’s predecessor, Yar’adua, a Muslim from the north. That today the problem has snowballed out of proportion is not because a non-northerner in the person of Jonathan is the president of the country. It is simply because the problem was badly handled in 2009 and is currently appallingly managed; it was swept under the carpet after treating the symptoms with overdose prescriptions. It is also because a highly incompetent regime runs the affairs of the country. Boko Haram’s re-emergence in 2010 has plainly put a lie to previous insinuations that they had been humbled. They have come back stronger, sterner, deadlier and much more determined. They have successfully defied Nigeria’s intelligence network and made a mockery of the security apparatuses. Their success is, therefore, attributable to a number of factors which, in addition to the incompetence of leaders, include general nonchalance, often biased interpretation of problems along the ethno-religious gulf, increasingly worsening socio-economic situations and complicity of highly trusted persons and groups within the country as well as possible international links. Some of these issues were briefly mentioned in the NSA’s speech. Others have equally been substantially addressed to the point that repeating those is unnecessary here. At the point where Nigeria is today it is totally vain to go on deluding ourselves with the wrong diagnosis of our problems. The issue of insecurity cannot be treated in isolation of other happenings in the environment. The American government recently made public its opinion on the problem, agreeing that it has more to do with economic disempowerment than politics and/or religion. Truth is, extremism of the sorts we are witnessing only thrives where there is acute poverty. While economic progress is increasingly seen in the south, especially the south-west, the north’s case is a total trail. Poverty is rampant in the north-east where the rate is more than 70 per cent. While this might not be an excuse for taking to violence it creates a large room for vulnerability in the face of manipulative antics. And the fact that many people have long lost any hope for a future adds to their willingness to be recruited and used in terror campaigns as is the case today. President Jonathan’s incompetence in handling the matter is usually reflected in every of his utterances and those of the principal officers of his government. On a number of occasions they claimed to be winning the battle when the reality points to the contrary. Their statements always smack of contempt for the people of Nigeria who directly bear the brunt the violence. The president once said suicide bombing was a phenomenon Nigerians must learn to live with. On another occasion his chief of defence staff, Air Marshall Oluseyi Petinrin said the bombings will fizzle out whenever Boko Haram runs short of suicide bombers. And very recently Labaran Maku, Jonathan’s information minister, bizarrely canvassed media blackout for anything linked to the sect, including their atrocious acts I suppose, as a way of rendering them irrelevant. Maku needs to be reminded that in the scenario he is trying to construct it is the ordinary Nigerian that will get hurt most if attacks like those we see each day go unreported. As a student of conflict resolution I strongly subscribe to Azar’s suggestion that: ‘In resolving protracted conflict, a collaborative problem solving process can be utilised to overcome deep seated mistrusts and hatred. A problem solving approach conveys a view that conflict has to be treated as something to be resolved, not to be won through an adversarial process.’ Without any doubt Boko Haram’s ability to inflict maximum havoc is not withering away. Any bid for negotiation should take this into consideration and, against this backdrop, a space must be created for concession. Among the issues that must be addressed immediately is the empowerment of people. Some glimmer of hope, at least, needs to be given in the form of grassroots regeneration, targeting youths particularly. Ignorance, which creates a lush terrain for manipulation, must be fought headlong. But most importantly justice must be allowed to flourish, as a right and not some privilege that could be withdrawn at will. Postscript: Hobbes State of Nature The news of Comrade Olaitan Oyerinde’s murder in the small hours of today at his residence in Benin City, Nigeria comes to me as a rude shock, although there has been no shortage of reports of similar gory happenings over the past few months. He was until his death the Principal Private Secretary to Edo State Governor Adams Oshiomhole. Truth be told, Nigeria is fast becoming a failed state and it remains to be seen whether any attempt will be made to halt the drift. I won’t be in any hurry to forget our trip to Sudan in early 2004, how the slain comrade and I missed our return flight to Lagos and ended up spending the next 24 hours at the Jomo Kenyatta Airport in Nairobi. There was no dull moment in that long wait as we discussed Nigeria’s evolving crisis democracy. Not a moment did I think that today I will wake up to the dreadful news of his brutal assassination at a time Nigeria is clearly in tatters. Add this to the recent suicide bomb attacks on THISDAY newspaper and the threat issued on other newspapers, as well as the massacre of cattle herders in a market in Potiskum, Yobe State to mention a few, you get a depressing picture of what Thomas Hobbes referred to as a State of Nature, where wars were waged by all against all. That is how low Nigeria has sunk. Posted by MUSAALIYU
Posted on: Tue, 15 Jul 2014 04:45:42 +0000