Civility of civil war
On Saturday evening, when I first read about his statement at the special Ahmadu Bello University convocation in Zaria that Northern Nigeria is in the middle of a civil war, I ran to the window and lifted the curtain. All I saw at that point was a creaky old tipper truck lumbering up the road. […]
On Saturday evening, when I first read about his statement at the special Ahmadu Bello University convocation in Zaria that Northern Nigeria is in the middle of a civil war, I ran to the window and lifted the curtain. All I saw at that point was a creaky old tipper truck lumbering up the road. Five labourers sat in the tipper truck’s back, its cargo of wet sand dripping water as it went. It was not what you call a beautiful sight but boy, I was glad to see that tipper instead of some APCs rolling down our street.
Never mind my melodramatic reaction to General Danjuma’s speech. I was only emulating the late American Congressman Samuel S. Stratton, who represented New York State’s Albany and Schenectady area for 30 years from 1958. Stratton was a very hawkish member of the House Armed Services Committee during the Cold War. He was a champion of the B-1 bomber, the MX missile and the neutron bomb. On one occasion during a debate in Congress, Stratton warned his colleagues that “the Russians are coming!” He then rushed to the window and lifted the curtains to see whether Soviet T-90 tanks had already crossed the Beltway.
In his speech after accepting the Doctor of Science degree, Danjuma said Nigeria’s founding fathers would be appalled that the country they sacrificed so much to build is in anarchy and that the North is in the middle of a civil war. Certainly the founding fathers would be appalled by many things happening in Nigeria today, but they may not describe it in the same terms that he did. Elders and statesmen are known to pick their words very carefully.
The former Army Chief and Defence Minister said, “In their time, our founding fathers placed emphasis on merit and self-reliance. They sought to create a united and self-reliant society based on respect for human life and respect for the rights of others irrespective of tribe or religion. They would certainly be appalled that today the nation is in total anarchy. Human life is very cheap and impunity has become the norm.”
He added, “In the case of the North, the danger is very real indeed. We are in the middle of a civil war in northern Nigeria. There is no defined front in this particular war and worse still the enemy is faceless and unknown. There is no immunity for anyone. Moreover, this war is highly contagious. Needless to say, the social and economic cost is incalculable.” No one around here is proud of Boko Haram’s campaign, the efforts of armed bandits in the forests of Birnin Gwari and southern Zamfara State or indeed of communal warriors and assorted reprisal attackers in Plateau, southern Kaduna State and Wukari. It is the choice of the phrases “total anarchy” and “civil war” that is in dispute here. Never mind General Danjuma’s regret that he had no solution to suggest; I sympathise with that one because no one else seems to have a ready formula.
Personally, I do not see how exaggerating problems can help in solving them. Such an approach could lead to a case similar to Ben Tre, when the commander of American soldiers that utterly destroyed a South Vietnamese village explained that “we had to destroy the village in order to save it.” Save it, that is, from falling into Communist hands.
In talking about total anarchy and civil war in Nigeria, TY must be thinking of armed robbery, Boko Haram and inter communal carnage in Jos, southern Kaduna State and lately Wukari. How correct is it to say there is total anarchy in Nigeria when there is still a [epileptically functioning] Federal Government? In fact all three tiers of government are still in place in Nigeria, however inefficiently. We still have in addition a sprawling bureaucracy, a highly stratified judicial system, a huge army and police force, numerous other security agencies, 37 parliaments that still pass laws however worthless, hundreds of traditional rulers that exercise a lot of influence over the people, in addition to highly structured churches, a million companies and a lot of internal commerce with thousands of trucks ferrying goods and people up and down the country every day. Total anarchy does not describe this scenario.
Now, if it is Boko Haram, last Saturday was the first time that anyone used the term “civil war” to describe the situation in Nigeria. Certainly General Danjuma knows more than most Nigerians what a war, civil or uncivil, is. Boko Haram could meet the dictionary definition of civil war, which requires that the warring groups must be from the same country, fighting for control of the political centre, a separatist state or to force a major change in policy, and also where at least 1,000 people have been killed.
Yet, to a Nigerian, mention of civil war recalls the events of 1967-70 when major geo-ethnic blocs of the country engaged in an all-out struggle. In comparison, Boko Haram is a skirmish less eventful than Colonel T.Y. Danjuma’s advance on Enugu through the Udi Hills in 1967. Before a term as weighty as civil war could be used, it is good to consider the psychology and history of the audience. How does it sound to a visiting Afghan to say there is a war going on in Nigeria, or to tell a visiting Somali that there is total anarchy here?
The Boko Haram insurgency has gone through many phases, from the killing of bulamas and politicians to the killing of stray security officers, exploding IEDs in city streets, attacking military convoys, raiding banks, bombing churches packed with worshippers, attacking a newspaper house, attacking emirs, killing health workers, killing foreign workers and abducting foreign visitors. No one can say for sure which of these acts were carried out by Boko Haram sect and which ones were carried out by other criminals. The important thing is that, through it all, no mass demonstration ever took place anywhere in the North in support of the sect. No one so much as addressed a press conference or even issued a press release in support of the sect. At most, some people called on government to dialogue with the sect. As such, there is nothing here that remotely resembles the kind of national split that heralded the civil war.
Even with respect to armed robbery, at least from what I can see in the newspapers, there are fewer robberies in Nigeria these days than there were 30, 20 or even 10 years ago. I am not making this observation to please anyone. I recall that in 2005 when I lived in Kaduna, armed robbery became so rampant that military administrator Lawal Jafaru Isa had to call a meeting of all community leaders to address the issue. Certainly, there are fewer robberies on the Abuja to Kaduna highway now than there were 10 years ago, and fewer robberies on Lagos-Ibadan express road than in the 1980s. As far as I can see, the police force today is much larger, much better armed and much more mobile than it was 30, 20 or even 10 years ago. It is still inadequate and it is still corrupt, but that is a different story.
How civil is this talk of a civil war? It reminds me of a small event that happened early last century when an elderly veteran of the American Civil War was walking on a Southern street and he heard a youngster singing praises to “the glorious battlefields of the civil war.” The old man paused and said, “Wait a minute, brother. What was civil about that war?”