Generation X: INSECURITY IN NIGERIA: THE RIPPLE EFFECTS OF SABOTAGE AND THE VINDICATION OF OJUKWU AND MAJOR GIDEON ORKAR (6)

Temple Chima Ubochi

Friday, July 19, 2013

Poverty is not only about income levels, but for lack of freedom that comes from physical insecurity (Jacqueline Novogratz)

Imperfect preparation gives rise to the thousand-fold forms that express physical and mental inferiority and insecurity (Alfred Adler)

It is the duty of the officials to prevent or suppress the threatened disorder with a firm hand instead of timidly yielding to threats (American Bar Association)

Continued from Part 5

s Nigerians were coming to terms with the latest Boko Haram’s mayhem where the insurgents killed 42 people, mostly students, in an attack on Government Secondary School in Mamudo, five kilometres from Potiskum, the commercial hub of Yobe State, what the police did was to claim that only 29 pupils and one teacher were killed in the attack, as if the number of the dead means nothing to the authorities. To a responsible government, even a death should be a cause for concern. At the same time, while many Nigerians were mourning the death of their children in that Yobe State, President Goodluck Jonathan found it worthwhile to commend the role played by personnel of the Nigerian Army in restoring peace to the three states under emergency rule. He said security reports reaching him from those states indicate that the people in those states were regaining their lives, while government services and business activities were gradually picking up and returning to normal. The president said the operational engagement of the Nigerian army and other security agencies in the troubled states has brought relative peace and restored the people’s confidence in the ability of the army to protect the territorial integrity of the nation from external enemies and secure the lives of law abiding citizens. Jonathan equally urged them to continue in their good works of protecting the lives of Nigerians and foreigners living in the country and promised his administration's continuous support to meet the demands of the military. This shows that the President is not getting the real pictures from those three states, but, only what the sycophants surrounding him want him to hear or see. Some of those sycophants are the Boko Haram apologists or the errand boys for the “big Ogas” sponsoring the deadly sect.

Emmanuel Nuhu Kure, who is the National Secretary of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria, PFN, and the pastor of Throneroom Ministry in Kafanchan, Kaduna State, was right when he said to Vanguard, that the north is taking advantage of Jonathan's weakness as far as Boko Haram is concerned. In his words: “That is why I will not be surprised the way things are now; the efforts of the military that is enforcing the law in those three states are undermined. I think that they (North) are just taking advantage of the president, taking advantage of his weakness. The politicians are holding him captive for his weakness on all sides, from the opposition, to the ruling party. As a Church, we pray everyday to break that hold on him because if Nigeria must move forward, the president must act drastically. And there is something people don't notice. When (elder statesman) Alli Mungono was kidnapped, something came out of it that the world didn't notice. The people who kidnapped the old man had great respect for him and they treated him with respect. But did you note what they said? They said they were not interested in his person; all they wanted was his contribution to the war effort. Did that not go far enough to let us know that there are very respectable people contributing to their war efforts? The elite in the North that we do not know of and we pray one day God will reveal them. But most of these people making noise and pressurizing President Goodluck Jonathan’s government, the truth is that they are the sponsors of this thing. They pay their tithes behind and come to make noise in the open. That is the only way they can keep themselves alive: by speaking openly against the government like they are doing while paying their tithes behind. How many of them have not contributed to the Boko Haram war effort? So it's all hypocrisy. They just heat up the polity in an attempt to destroy this nation. I think we should begin to read between the lines in those matters. The president once said his administration had been infiltrated by agents of Boko Haram, but strangely he has not been able to do anything about it”.

The Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Lt Gen. Azubuike Ihejirika, on Wednesday June 26, 2013, declared that the efforts of the federal government to flush out insurgents from the country are irreversible. According to the vanguard, Ihejirika, while reviewing the performance of the Nigerian Army in the on going war against terrorism, said the country was winning the war. According to him; "The state of emergency declared in three states of the northern part of the country had ensure significant achievements in the war against terrorism. Although the Nigerian Army had lost some men and equipment in the fight against the Boko Haram insurgents, the nation is winning the war”.

If Nigeria is winning the war against the insurgents, why is it that the result is not showing? Why then did the Borno State Governor tell the Senate Joint Committee on Defence, Army, Police Affairs and National Security and Intelligence that the promises from President Goodluck Jonathan and his service chiefs to curtail the criminal activities of the Islamic sect in the state have not yielded any result? According to the Sun of June 27, 2013, Governor Shettima said that "the state government is spending between N200 million and N300 million monthly on maintenance of the JTF troops, even when the Shehu of Borno and the Deputy Governor of the state were attacked by the sect members, nobody came to the state to commiserate with them over the incident unlike when the Emir of Kano, Alhaji Ado Bayero, was attacked. The economy and education in the state had been grounded due to the activities of the Boko Haram sect. I had several interactions with the President and the service chiefs who assured that the activities of Boko Haram would soon be a thing of the past (but the sect is still indefatigable till now)”. Providing further insight into the composition of the Boko Haram, Gov. Shettima said "They are made up of three elements (I) The criminal elements that send text messages to individuals to extort money (II) Political Boko Haram who sought to advance their political interests and (III) the real Boko Haram which is made up of two elements-(a) the moderate elements that are prepared to dialogue with government, and (b) the crazy religious elements who are diehards and are not ready for compromise."

Another blunder on the part of the government is its resolve to compensate the terrorists who embraced the amnesty, but, has nothing for the victims of their onslaught. Victims have been waiting for succour from the government all these while (although no amount of compensation can replace the lives lost, the pains inflicted, the trauma experienced and the property damaged). It’s only now that the official government’s position has been made know as a presidential committee, which must be speaking with presidential authority, said that there will be no compensation for Boko Haram victims. We read that many Nigerians who lost their loved ones and property to Boko Haram attacks and their families would not be compensated. The Chairman, Presidential Committee on Dialogue and Peaceful Resolution on Security Challenges in the North, Tanimu Turaki, the same man who claimed that Boko Haram declared a ceasefire before him, said that the government would only support the victims. He said, however, that soldiers who died in the conflict will be compensated. Turaki even confirmed it that Boko Haram has killed more Nigerians than the government can compensate when he added that "Government will not have the capacity to give compensation because of the number of victims involved in the insurgency incidents". It could still be that the government has no data as regards to the number of victims of Boko Haram’s attacks. As the publisher of nigeriaworld puts it, “[Whose side is Jonathan on?.....FG paid compensation to family of Boko Haram leader, they used it to make more bombs to kill more victims; Jonathan releases captured Boko Haram suspects, they return to kill more victims]” This Presidential Committee should heed to the words of Human Rights Watch that "Boko Haram members have committed heinous crimes. Justice for the gravest abuses, whether by Boko Haram or security forces, is essential for victims and building of long-term peace in Nigeria. Rather than granting amnesty to those known to have committed such "serious crimes that violate international human rights law", the committee should hold any person, including members of security forces, that are culpable, accountable for their actions. Those responsible for these crimes should also be held to account".

This government’s position may have informed what happened to St. Theresa's Catholic Church, Madalla, Niger State, after it suffered a deadly bomb attack from the extremist Boko Haram sect on December 25, 2011. According to the Punch of Saturday, June 29, 2013, Life has been tough for the church since after. The bomb attack, which claimed over 44 lives, damaged the church building and other houses in the neighbourhood. However, the congregation may not quickly forget that the Federal Government did not lend a helping hand to the church in its time of need. The parish priest, Rev. Fr. Isaac Achi, according to the Punch, stated that the Federal Government did not assist the victims of the blast and that the church received only building materials from the National Emergency Management Agency. According to the cleric, the government did not help those that lost family members, cars, property and businesses that were destroyed by the bombers. Achi said that the church struggled all alone to assist affected members spiritually and materially, noting that the rehabilitation of the bomb victims was a serious burden on the church. In his words, the Priest said "It is not easy for somebody to see his house and church destroyed. There are some people behind Boko Haram and we need to find out why they are destroying places of worship and killing people. Up till today, the government has not done anything to rebuild structures destroyed by Boko Haram or compensate those whose houses and businesses were razed by the insurgents. But the government is talking about amnesty for them. We have to see how we can compensate victims. Some policemen were killed; some went to work and didn't come back, so why should the government be talking of granting amnesty to the perpetrators while the victims were given nothing?"

The ripple effect of sabotage in the war against Boko Haram is that the sect is well and kicking and has led to:

President Obama preferred to visit Senegal, South Africa and Tanzania instead of Nigeria due to the insecurity crisis over there. Obama preferred to speak to Nigerian youths and others from far away South Africa, instead of coming to Nigeria.
Previously, many weeks before Obama landed in Africa, the U.S. issued a travel alert on Nigeria warning its citizens not to travel to Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states because of the state of emergency in the states.
The crumbling of the northern economy: Recently, the Niger State Governor, Dr Babangida Aliyu, lamented that the economy of the North has crumbled due to insecurity unleashed on the region by Boko Haram insurgents. Aliyu also regretted the huge army of unemployed youths in the North pointing out that there was urgent need for the revival of the Northern economy and job creation. Aliyu said that creation of jobs for the unemployed youths in the region would stop them from being used as thugs by mischief makers. Governor Aliyu made an incontestable point when he said according to the Vanguard: “The Boko Haram is a manifestation of a problem and to solve it on a permanent basis, their sponsors should be identified and punished because although they have not taken arms against the country, they are more dangerous than those fighting the nation whom we know”. He, however, called for true federalism in the country saying, "where the federal government is too strong and intolerant of other people's views, we will be creating another problem”.

United States has posted a price tag of $23million, an equivalent of N3.3 billion, on the head of top Al- Qaeda-linked terrorists in Nigeria and West Africa. Nigeria's Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau, attracts the highest reward of $7 million (N1.1 billion) for anybody that can provide information that can lead to his capture, after he called on Islamists in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq to join the bloody fight to create an Islamic state in Nigeria. The United States thinks that some members of Boko Harem have connections with Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, a group already designated as a terrorist organisation by the US. Shekau was placed on a U.S. blacklist last year, but why didn’t the US Government designate Boko Haram a foreign terrorist organization then? Even the Nigerian government has consistently shown lack of support for moves by American officials and lawmakers to tag Boko Haram a terrorist organisation, because, the northern elite and elders opposed such a move, and Jonathan’s government, in order to please them, didn’t want to antagonize them through that move. Even the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) asked that the sect be tagged a terrorist group, but, the Federal Government's position indicated otherwise, as the administration's officials felt Nigerian travellers might be persecuted. The CAN President addressed the US House of Reps members, and asked that the sect be tagged a terrorist group, but, the northern leaders sent a powerful lobby against the move, and the Nigerian government wasn’t in a supportive mood here. In 2012, some US lawmakers: Senators Scott Brown, Saxby Chambliss and Jim Risch, said that Boko Haram is a threat both to the international community and US national security. The senators wanted the US State Department to designate Boko Haram as a foreign terrorist organization, FTO, a formal move that would trigger automatic sanctions against the Islamist militant group. The three US senators introduced a bill that would have forced the State Department to take a decision, because they felt that Boko Haram is "becoming increasingly lethal and forging closer ties to Al-Qaeda and Al-Shabab", an Islamist militant group in Somalia. But, nobody was listening then, because of the forces against the move.

But, now, the Americans are seeing what many have seen and experienced, and they, the Americans, are singing a different tune. For record purposes, Boko Haram’s goal has been to establish an Islamic state in Nigeria, including the implementation of a sharia legal system across the country. The members said they are "people committed to the propagation of the prophet's teachings and jihad." Even the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) also accused Boko Haram of engaging in crimes against humanity. According to the Guardian, the ICC, in its report of preliminary examination on the sect’s activities dated November 2012, said its investigations had shown that the group was involved in murder and persecution. “The office has determined that there is a reasonable basis to believe that crimes against humanity have been committed in Nigeria, namely acts of murder and persecution attributed to Boko Haram”. Therefore, the prosecutor has decided that the preliminary examination of the situation in Nigeria should advance to phase 3 (admissibility) with a view to assessing whether the national authorities are conducting genuine proceedings in relation to those who appear to bear the greatest responsibility for such crimes, and the gravity of such crimes," the report said”.

From 2010 till date, Nigeria has witnessed about 400 bomb explosions, the head of Police Anti-bomb Squad of the Federal Capital Territory, OC Adigun Tajudeen, has revealed.President Jonathan and Lt. General Ihejirika claimed that the military is winning the war against Boko Haram, but, why is the sect still riding roughshod over Nigeria, despite the declared state of emergency? (Remember that it was on May 14, 2013, that President Jonathan declared the declaration of the state of emergency in Yobe, Borno and Adamawa states).
Boko Haram is still killing Christians: The Christian Association Nigeria (CAN), raised alarm over the continuous killing of Christians and burning of churches by the deadly Islamic sect, Boko Haram, in spite of the reported military onslaught against the insurgents, following the declaration of state of emergence in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states. The President of CAN, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, in a statement reported by Vanguard, in Abuja said the military operation were yet to effectively secure Christians and their churches, and urged the military to redouble their efforts to restore normalcy in the affected states and other parts of the north, where fundamentalists have continued to kill Christians.
Apart from the 42 students it killed in Yobe State few days ago, the Punch wrote that Boko Haram militants opened fire on a school in Maiduguri, killing nine students few weeks ago. This was the second deadly attack on schools in three days. An eyewitness, Ibrahim Mohammed, said he was taking exams in a classroom at Ansarudeen School when gunmen stormed the building and opened fire at random. In another attack, suspected extremists gunned down a group of fisherman on a river bank in Alau, located 20 kilometers outside Maiduguri. It was believed that 13 fishermen were killed during the attack. Most of the victims were relatives of people who have been arresting members of Boko Haram. "They said, 'Your children brought this fate upon you; they are busy catching our members and handing them to soldiers to be killed'," recalled one eyewitness, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.
Wives of clerics killed by Boko Haram claimed that they have turned to prostitution to survive. The National Secretary of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) and founding coordinator of the Throneroom Trust Ministry, Kafanchan, Kaduna State, Apostle Emmanuel Nuhu Kure, has said to Tribune of June 30, 2013, that the some wives of slain clerics who died during the religious conflict in the North have turned to prostitution in their bid to sustain their families after the exit of their husbands. Kure made this known while x-raying the performance of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), which he faulted over the way it has been handling ethno-religious crises in the country.
Vanguard June 29, 2013: Gunmen suspected to be Boko Haram, had on June 28, reportedly killed a soldier and abducted three others during an attack on the military in Potiskum, Yobe state, a military source revealed.
The Citizen of May 13, 2013: Senator representing Borno Central, Senator Khalifa Zanna has revealed that the Boko Haram has taken over 24 out of the 27 local government Areas of Borno State. Zanna, whose nephew, Shuaibu Mohammed Bama, an alleged Boko Haram kingpin was arrested in his house in October last year by the Joint Task Force (JTF), claimed that numerous young men in the state were now joining Boko Haram everyday. Zanna’s interview was monitored on Sahara Reporters’ television.
Vanguard June 23, 2013: Boko Haram insurgents in Borno State, dislodged by security forces in the wake of the emergency rule by President Goodluck Jonathan from their Sambisa Game Reserve camps, appear to be fighting back. Sunday Vanguard was made to understand that they have not only regrouped, they have, on June 22, also sacked at least two major towns, Bama and Gwoza, in the state. The sect gave ultimatum to Christians, civil servants to leave within seven days "The insurgents are moving from house to house, issuing threat letters that civil servants and Christians must leave Bama within seven days or risk their lives," one of the Bama residents who arrived Maiduguri (June 22), told Sunday Vanguard.
Vanguard June 22, 2013: The Borno State government has said that 50 primary schools were burnt down by suspected Boko Haram insurgents in various parts of the state since they started their activities in the state. The state Commissioner for Basic Education, Professor Tijjani Abba-Ali who made this known in an interview with newsmen also confirmed the killing of five pupils and six primary school teachers in last Monday's multiple attacks on public schools in Maiduguri, the state capital, adding that some suspected terrorists had raided some primary and secondary schools while students were sitting for the National Examination Council, NECO, killing some of them and their teachers.
Punch June 23, 2013: Fleeing members of the dreaded Islamic sect, Boko Haram, on Thursday June 20, attacked a Mobile Police transit camp located in Limankara village, Borno State, killing many people. The pastor of a local church was said to be among those killed by the gunmen that attacked the village.
Punch Wednesday, July 3, 2013: Corpses of the 10 traders murdered in Mugunu, Borno State by suspected Boko Haram members arrived at the Bodija Market in Ibadan North Local Government of Oyo State on Tuesday July 2. Their remains were first received by the executive of market union at about 2pm at the toll gate before being taken to the tension-filled market. The traders were on a business trip to the state when they met their untimely death.