Baga’s message to the Nigerian State
First, power moves from the centre to the periphery as those in power in the centre are too busy defending themselves from attacks by their colleagues to exercise power in the countryside. Secondly, the central government loses its power base as it can no longer respond to the needs of its power base – which […]
First, power moves from the centre to the periphery as those in power in the centre are too busy defending themselves from attacks by their colleagues to exercise power in the countryside. Secondly, the central government loses its power base as it can no longer respond to the needs of its power base – which withdraws its support. Thirdly, the centre then retreats to an innermost trusted clique. Fourthly, government malfunction deepens as it avoids making difficult and urgent choices leading to a governing crisis. Fifthly, there is no political agenda as incumbents only practice defensive politics – fending off challenges and reducing threats through repression and concessions. Finally, the ultimate signpost is that the centre loses control over its own state agents, who begin to operate on their own account – exacting payments for their own pockets. Law and order break down as police and army units turn into gangs and brigands.
Although the Zartman essay was written way back in 1995, it describes quite accurately the indices we are observing about the Nigerian State today. As insurgency grows in the country and the method of state intervention is sending the army to fight wars through military led Joint Task Forces (JTF), we are witnessing the transformation of our armed forces into gangs and brigands against the people. Baga is only the latest example of large scale way against a community in the name of restoring law and order.
Following the atrocities, the state Governor came out to say about 183 people had been killed and 2,000 houses destroyed in the operation. The JTF commander, Brig General Austin Edokpaye had responded by saying only 30 houses were destroyed and the Defence Headquarters had informed Nigerians that the death toll was 26, one soldier and 25 insurgents. This contrasts sharply with the report from the Senator representing the area Maina Maaji Lawan, who described horror scenes of “four kilometres of continuous carnage” Daily Trust, 28/4/13). His own estimate of the carnage is 228 killed and 4,000 houses destroyed.
Immediately after the announcement of limited damage by the JTF, Human Rights Watch published satellite images taken before and after the carnage showing 2,275 houses destroyed in the operation. It was not possible for human rights organisations to go in immediately after the operation to verify the death toll because of the JTF cordon. Thanks to Human Rights Watch, we now have detailed images of the attack on Baga, which show an extremely high level of intense war against the people of Baga. The age in which the military can commit atrocities and deny them is gone because the whole world is today under constant surveillance. From numerous accounts, the reason for the attack is that insurgents have attacked soldiers and killed one. For this act, the whole community must pay a high price. It had happened previously in Odi and in Zaki Biam for the same reason.
Given the signposts of state collapse indicated above, we must respond to these issues in a strategic manner. Before addressing the strategic issues however, it is important to get the reports of the investigation promised by the National Human Rights Commission so that those who committed atrocities against the people can be punished appropriately. Meanwhile, it is urgent that we address the specific threats to state legitimacy and authority posed by the “normalisation” of JTF interventions in different parts of the country.
The military is trained for war and not for responding to internal insurgencies. Their ethos and skills are oriented towards destroying the enemy and when an armed civilian attacks and kills a soldier, the cognitive category they have been trained to know as “bloody civilians” becomes the enemy who must be destroyed. That is why Odi, Zaki Biam and Baga happened. The military are therefore doing what they have been trained to do. The original sin was of course sending them to quell violence in civilian communities.
There is however a reason why the military was sent in. The capacity of the police to respond to such situations was weak and their own records in terms of respecting rules of engagement based on the principles of the rule of law was very poor. In that context, it might have been considered wiser to send in the military that are better trained and have more fire power. We all know today that it is a mistake because of their “routine” reaction to civilian attacks. The key problem with the military is that the longer they remain involved in such operations, the further they are from civilian control and they have a greater propensity to apply military solutions to delicate political situations which require conquering hearts and minds rather than destroying communities.
My second concern is the medium term impact of deploying JTF on the new ethos of the armed forces. In 1999, the Army High Command committed itself to keeping the military in the barracks, purging itself of political engagement and submitting itself to legitimate civilian authority. If we continue to use the armed forces in the manner we are doing currently, this new ethos will be corrupted. As they engage in more “wars”, military culture comes back to the fore. The problem with our 30 years of military rule was that the soldiers got their hands dirty in the politics of pillaging our resources. What JTF is now exposing the military is two sources of pillaging the nation? One is the very high budget lines that are being attributed to security logistics, feeding soldiers etc which are managed by the military high command. The second is the great temptation of racqueteering the populating and already there are concordant reports about arbitrary arrests of people who are released after the payment of a specified amount of money. The danger here is that both the military high command and soldiers in the streets develop vested interests in continuation of the conflict because of the vast fortunes being made from operations.
I believe that the military, the political class and we ordinary citizens have an interest in maintaining the new military ethos and for that to happen, they must return to the barracks where they belong. This means that we must develop a time frame for training and equipping the police so that it can take over its legitimate functions. The training must take on board re-orienting the police on rules of engagement that are respectful of the rule of law and human rights as well as giving sufficient fire power to effectively combat the insurgents while keeping innocent citizens safe. That is Baga’s message to the Nigerian State.