By John Okiyi Kalu
Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau
Following the publication of my short note yesterday titled “Between Boko Haram and a leader once termed “weak and clueless”, I received some messages on the amnesty program. Principally, people want to know if the President has scrapped the proposed amnesty program which was largely unpopular. I thought it is better to share my thoughts with all of us so we can discuss.
Permit me to state that I have never worked for any government directly or indirectly and have no way of knowing what was discussed by governments. All I do is read and listen to those who work in/with govt and then match it against patterns. It has helped me to predict correctly the direction and thoughts of those in power, at least more than 90% of the time. Of course pattern study is not an exact science so people like me who practice it fail sometimes. While reading this, bring your salt close by and decide for yourself when to take a pinch, spoon or bucket. You are on your own. The amnesty program is still very much on the table. More so now than before the SoE and war on terror. In my view, the current war on terror was meant to achieve 2 things:
1. Destroy foreign elements that have hijacked the local command of the original Boko Haram. Since the bombing of UN Abuja building and police headquarters, it was always obvious that there are foreign terrorists imported into the country by either powerful politicians or jihadists of Northern Nigeria. Only a fool will believe that a group that was originally anti-western education will muster the logistics needed to bomb high security targets like UN and police Headquarters at Abuja. After presumably traveling all the way from Maiduguri to Abuja with bombs loaded into vehicles. Na lie….! Those operations had the hallmark of Al Queda and other foreign terrorists. Or even a foreign country with a rogue government.
The use of untraceable emailing system, YouTube videos, advanced telecommunication evasion techniques and use of sophisticated weapons including bombs, anti-aircraft guns, large quantities of AK 47 weapons, advanced military tactics and general operational efficiency confirms an organization that is by far different from Mohammed Yusuf’s Boko Haram of 2002-2009. It is therefore laughable when people make simplistic analysis of the situation and suggest that hunger and religion were behind the insurgency.
Hungry men don’t buy AK47 with what they have. International terrorists have no religion and don’t care about any religion. They merely exploit religious sentiments to unleash terror. Unfortunately, any religion that discourages education opens itself up to exploitation by miscreants who will “educate” the adherents with their own adulterated and poisonous doctrines. The foreign fighters destroyed Baga and Bama. They attacked Kano twice and have long built training camps in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe for training of the locals. They also imported a lot of fighters from Libya, Mali and now Chadian rebels. Each of these nationals had issues with Nigeria. Be it our stance against Ghaddafi, war against terror in Mali or pushing back Chadian rebels, they all had reasons to destabilize Nigeria.
Add to the fact that a Nigeria currently fighting within cannot effectively fight in Mali or continue to support UN in pacifying trouble spots in Africa. On the other hand, Boko Haram sponsored by vanquished politicians were responsible for Madalla Church bombing and the targeted killing of Ndigbo in the north. Members of the original Yusufiya group are still mainly in Maiduguri and they mostly target police. They still have not accepted Western education and hence cannot do what some attributed to them. They are the real targets of amnesty. Local anger of late Yusuf followers mixed with anger of Jonathan vanquished politicians provided needed support to the foreign terrorists. Most of the vanquished northern politicians still retained military and political leverage, albeit downgraded. They willingly assisted in offering intelligence and political protection to the Shekau-led invaders. They must have believed that making the country ungovernable will force Jonathan not to contemplate re-contesting in 2015. They also wrongly believed that once power is returned to them they can easily identify and defeat the terrorists, as usual.
I am sure they didn’t know that the terrorists have already raised their own flags and would have destroyed all of them first if not for Jonathan. Terrorists and Islamists hate corrupt politicians like the ones anchoring the “ungovernable” plot. It would have been a matter of time before the new leaders of the planned Islamic Republic execute all of them. (Those men should go and thank Jonathan). Before you can give amnesty you must destroy the foreign terrorists with their weapons. That makes the current military campaign necessary. We can’t give foreigners amnesty and if we give only the local terrorists, the foreign fighters will continue recruiting and attacking us. We must make Nigeria “uninhabitable” for Alquaida terrorsts and their affiliates before giving oil money to our home grown terrorists.
2. The other reason why the current war is necessary is to soften up the real Boko Haram and bring them to the negotiation table. All that talk about Boko Haram rejecting amnesty was simply because they thought the government could not muster the political will to go all out and attack them. Now they know better and will now be more open to amnesty, if they survive the next 10 days. (I don’t think the full scale military operation will last more than 2 weeks). There is nothing strange about “softening up” before amnesty. TheYaradua govt used similar tactics against Niger Delta militants. While Government Tompolo, Boyloaf, Ateke Tom etc were flexing their militant muscles and poo pooing the offer of amnesty, Yaradua simply engaged the armed forces to soften them up. By the time Camp 5 and others were leveled, Tompolo was begging for amnesty from his hiding place in Ondo. This won’t have a different outcome. Shakau will beg for amnesty if he remains alive for another 10 days. Even their political godfathers will beg for amnesty. The state is stronger than any individual regardless who he/she thinks he/she is.
Note the arrogance of Prof Ango Abdullahi when the government commenced action against the terrorists. “It is very sad to see that the President has easily changed direction from dialogue and reconciliation to war in his bid to end the cycle of violence in the north.
“The volte-face by Jonathan amounts to undermining our agreement with him on peace and reconciliation and we are disturbed that he has opted for force rather than peace to end the violence. What the President has done has now justified the fear of those who rejected membership of the Boko Haram amnesty committee on the suspicion that he was not sincere in setting up the panel and that it was programmed to fail so as to justify military action against the north. We hereby call on the President to immediately disband the so-called Boko Haram amnesty committee, as there is no need to continue to waste public funds on a matter, whose purpose has been deliberately truncated by the very person who initiated it.”
Can you beat that arrogance from a Professor? Even Professors mess up when they are not well informed or understand patterns. He thought he was addressing a “weak and clueless” President that he and his fellow elders believed they are holding in his “blocose”. Behold, a new Jonathan has risen. Soon, Ango will beg for amnesty for surviving Boko and may be for himself too. Unless he does not know, the government is
already after him and very soon “terrorists will run into his compound”. No government will tolerate his intransigence and unguarded statement during a time of national emergency (or that of a section of Nigeria). Real leaders maintain studied silence at times like this but Prof
Ango has played his hands and showed the world that he prefers Boko Haram to Nigeria. Security agents know what to do under such circumstances. Only someone who does not understand elementary security operations will be surprised that “10 Boko Haram was killed in Buhari’s Daura”.
Fact is that security forces have always known about their presence in Daura but waited till now and used them to force Buhari to shut up and behave like a statesman. If in doubt, find out for yourself whether or not people were killed in Katsina and Daura during the 2011 post election violence. Who do you think did the killing? Innocent rioters?? Na wa for you. Every riot that involves loss of life or mass killing is engineered. What the engineers do is to keep a sleeper group of violent men and inject them into the “spontaneous” protest against one thing or another. They will start the killings and direct the mob towards the targets given to them by their “engineer” or sponsor. In the case of Northern Nigeria, you may choose to call them Almajiri or Boko Haram but the nucleus of the killing machine is same. Until they are totally identified and removed by security forces, killings (religious or political) won’t end in the north. The so called Boko Haram in Daura were likely a cell of the northern killing machine already known to the security forces. During June 12 debacle, an identical group made up of alaye and motor park touts were used by NADECO to make the demonstrations violent. They even went as far as bombing Lagos as a way of mobilizing anti-federal government sentiments.
Contrary to popular belief, Abacha never bombed Lagos for once. NADECO fighters bombed Lagos. I read a book by one of them detailing how they started their militant arm and even arranged the “self kidnap” of Frank Kokori that thoroughly embarrassed Abacha and forced Mustapha to make mistakes. Ordinary people like me and you don’t kill during riots and demonstrations. There are people whose job it is and violent individuals and politicians hire such people for a fee. You misght choose to call them Boko Haram, Almajirin, OPC or Alaye, but anywhere violent killings occur during demonstrations, there are organized terrorists in that location. Whoever controls the “terrorists” will be the leader in that location. Use your teeth to count your tongue. Whatever you arrive at, don’t tell me please.
Under the cover of SoE, the government through the security forces will try to take out as many Boko Haram operatives as they can identify. Some will flee the country while others will go into hiding. After the military action, the survivors will get amnesty while Borno, Adamawa and Yobe will get billions in reconstruction funds. And then we will have peace for some time with Jonathan being re-elected as Nigeria’s President in 2015. That will effectively settle the issue of “born to rule” and “power must be with us or there will be no Nigeria” syndromes. It appears to me that whichever way it goes, a new Nigeria will emerge in 2015. Either a new Nigeria without some states or a new Nigeria where everyone respects the other and does not believe in his/her ethnic superiority. The latter Nigeria will be the Nigeria of merit and love while the former Nigeria will be enmeshed in more wars. The choice remains with us to tell Ango Abdullahi and the political supporters of Boko Haram to shut up for once. If they shut up, Boko will beg for and accept amnesty. In that way the political sponsors of Boko Haram will also get to enjoy some of the “amnesty” dividends enjoyed by Edwin Clarke and others.
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