Boko Haram: Making sheriff a scapegoat?

Even as both the federal and state governments probe the incident, there are disturbing signals that some people want to play politics with the issue. Events before during and after the incident suggest that some people want to use the crisis to settle scores, with Governor Sheriff. The governor may be facing one of the […]

Even as both the federal and state governments probe the incident, there are disturbing signals that some people want to play politics with the issue. Events before during and after the incident suggest that some people want to use the crisis to settle scores, with Governor Sheriff. The governor may be facing one of the greatest challenges of his life trying to explain his actions, before, during and after the outbreak of the sectarian violence known as Boko Haram. At a time when people should be sympathizing with him over the mass massacre of his citizens either as victims or participants in the saga, some people are pointing accusing fingers at him and his government as being negligent or even culpable.

While everyone seems to agree that the summary execution of leaders of Boko Haram negate conventional procedures, I do not agree that it was meant to cover up possible expose of the culpability of government. Rather, the exigencies of that time made the elimination of Mohammed Yusuf, the leader of the sect most convenient if only to morally weaken his followers who were determined to over run the government of Borno State.

Since the outbreak of the violence, government at all levels, agencies involved in maintenance of peace and security and in fact individuals in positions of authority have tended to exonerate themselves from responsibility in the apparent mismanagement of the issue by shifting blames to others. Apparently searching for a scapegoat, people have been shifting blames to state governors where there were records of Boko Haram activities. Both the federal government and Bauchi State Governor, Malam Isa Yuguda seem to indict the Borno State governor, but it was also obvious in his own explanations that Sheriff had iron cast alibi on the issue of Boko Haram, given that he had caused the leader of the sect to be taken to Abuja thrice only for the man to return.

Sheriff may not be my hero, but having demonstrated the courage to move against the Boko Haram even before the outbreak of violence makes me as a citizen of Borno state  raise my voice in defense of the man. Few weeks since the crisis started, there had been a lot of misinformation going round to the effect that the leadership was portrayed as incompetent. I am worried that some people, for sheer political reasons are trying to sway public sentiments to their whims and caprices. I am aware that many people have axes to grind with the governor. I may not be in the position to explain what he has done or failed to do but stand to be corrected in this assumption that the fault was more with the higher authorities than they were with the state government.

Going by the spontaneity with which the sect carried out its activities in different parts of the North, coupled with their widespread tentacles and their equally widespread intended victims, one will be right to surmise that Boko Haram was a calamity far beyond a particular state governor. Again, if the submissions by the Director General of the State Security Services, SSS, Mr Afakirya Gadzama, to the effect that the man, Mohammed Yusuf was arrested several times but released on the orders of some powerful citizens in Abuja are anything to go by, one will be temped to look for the godfathers of the sect leader beyond the shores of Borno State.  

I had the privilege to listen to and watch video clips of some of the sermons of the late leader of the Boko Haram sect, and I know that the man hated Sheriff with a passion. I have also read and listened to Sheriff explain his encounters with the leader and members of the sect over the years, including attempt to cajole him into joining. I have heard the testimonies of people, including renowned clerics who had cause to encounter the late sect leader, and I am convinced that there was never love lost between Yusuf and the governor.

Borno State governor, Sheriff was the personification of the institution Boko Haram was fighting. It will sound rather absurd to say he was hobnobbing with people who wanted him dead.  It is on record that he was one of the people on the hit list of Boko Haram. It is a known fact that as the governor, had several encounters with the sect which led to their pronouncement on him as an infidel.   

One question I would have loved to ask is whether as governor and supposed chief security officer Sheriff has powers to order the police and the army to move against the late Yusuf and his followers. Every Nigerian knows where the orders to crush the sect eventually came from. Even with the orders from above, Nigerians still feel it was too harsh for Yusuf to be killed. I do not believe that Yusuf was killed to cover up any possible leakages of links with the state government, rather, those who killed him were too angry with him at that particular time, and did not want to take chances by allowing him to be flown to Abuja where he may be released again.

It is true that Buji Foi was a commissioner in Sheriff’s government, but the fact that he left the same government when his extreme views could not be tolerated was enough indicator for people to appreciate that their ways had parted since then. If the governor had any sympathy for the sect, I doubt if he would have put in place a joint security task force that had always remained at logger heads with followers of Yusuf.

I also feel that the only way the truth will be known is when people testify before the panel that has been appointed or may eventually be set up if only to let the world know who did what while the menace of Boko Haram lasted. Before we hear from those who know what we may not have known, I feel it will be of great service to government and people of Bono State if people stop the smear campaigns targeted at making Borno less attractive to outsiders. It does not matter who is the governor at any particular time, the fact remains that if allowed to gain currency, such insinuations that tend to undermine government efforts will have trickle effects on the state for long.

Bwala comments from Abuja