In defence of Shettima

“I am an eternal optimist as I have always said, but I am also a realist,” Governor Shettima said. “Given the present state of affairs, it is absolutely impossible for us to defeat Boko Haram [because]…the Boko Haram are better armed and better motivated. Anybody who is following events in this country can attest to […]

“I am an eternal optimist as I have always said, but I am also a realist,” Governor Shettima said. “Given the present state of affairs, it is absolutely impossible for us to defeat Boko Haram [because]…the Boko Haram are better armed and better motivated. Anybody who is following events in this country can attest to the fact that they have a very smooth sail overrunning communities killing people.
“Have we ever succeeded in thwarting any of their plans?” the governor asked. “They went to Konduga and did what they wanted to do; they held sway for over four hours before they left. They were in Kauri, Izge…In a nutshell, what we are being confronted with is that we are in a state of war.”
And as if by impulse, Dr Doyin Okupe, a presidential spokesman, said the governor’s assessment of the situation and his view on the operations of the armed forces in Borno State were unfair and unprofessional and “that Governor Shettima does not have the expertise to categorise or classify the effectiveness of any weapon,” as if his own assessment or categorization could be any different; and then he offered the absurd explanation that the recent spate of attacks was due to the insurgents being dislodged. And so? If this great and horrendous toll was the consequence of what he called the dislodgement of the insurgents, wouldn’t it have been better if they were left where they were? Was the duty of the troops merely to wake the insurgents up and then take to their heels and leave the people at their mercy? And it was really not very clear whether it was an explanation or an apology.
Apparently not satisfied with this poor explanation, President Jonathan himself jumped into the fray, descending to the level of issuing threats to Borno State. “If Governor of Borno feels the military is that useless against Boko Haram I can pull out the military for one month and see what happens there, and after I can send the military back to take charge. The governor should be sensitive in his choice of words. It’s unfortunate,” the president said. And you wonder which is more unfortunate or less sensitive: an embattled governor stating the facts on the ground in his state, or a president threatening him in public?
So, this president can even think of pulling out soldiers, who have, in any case, probably all along been under kitted, from territory under threat? But by his very answer, the president was not giving the lie to the governor’s claim; he was in fact proving it. But, while governor seems to believe that the inferiority of the fire power of our soldiers and their motivation are mistakes that should be corrected, many people in the North believe they are deliberate. Many other things are still unclear.
They have spoken of air drop of arms for the insurgents by helicopters. If true, whose helicopters are they? Do they belong to the Nigeria Police Force or to the Nigerian Air Force? But how can the government that is deploying soldiers to fight the insurgents at the same time be arming them? Or, are they being armed by foreign countries then? In that case, how come our radar coverage doesn’t pick them? Why were the soldiers in Buni Yadi called off before the Boko Haram operation? Was that an unfortunate coincidence? But why didn’t they respond when the shooting began? According to Eli Lazarus, spokesman for the security forces in Yobe State, the culprit was problem with the telephone network. But why there was problem with the telephone network at precisely the very moment the attack was going on, he didn’t say.
But is the duty of our soldiers in Buni Yadi and other trouble spots to stay indoors or sleep until they are summoned by telephone calls to the theatre of conflict? After the attack at the agriculture college in Mamudo, no school in Yobe or Borno should have been without adequate, effective and alert security. Not only ought soldiers not to have been called off, they should have been beefed up.
In any case, whoever knew Buni Yadi would also know that the boom of a single gunshot at night would be heard everywhere in all directions. But for the better part of four hours, as our youths were cut down, no soldiers came to their rescue—because there was network problem!
It all started in Maiduguri: so far, Gamboru had been hit, so had Bama, Izge, Damboa, Konduga, Kauri, Banki and a host of other locations in Borno State. Damaturu, Potiskum, Mamudo, Buni Yadi and several other places in Yobe State had been hit. Governors Shettima and Ibrahim Geidam of Yobe State deserve all the understanding, pity and moral support they can get from the North. But to all intents and purposes, these two have been abandoned by the North.
This region with its four former heads of state is today unable to muster the united voice to say that something wrong is going on and must stop. This region with its powerful traditional rulers to whom presidents used to go has finally unravelled; because leaders have made themselves commonplace. Instead of worrying about the fate of their people, some of them prefer to display their support for the president in spite of what he is doing or not doing, and despite what is happening to their domain.
One could imagine this happening when Alhaji Ibrahim Dasuki was the Sultan. While the former Sultan might not stop the insurgency singlehandedly, he would have led the traditional Establishment to ask the right questions of the government—and insist on getting the right answers. People will not have been left feeling so leaderless. What really is going on? Why should the North sit with folded arms as some of the best of its sons and daughters are being killed and its economy being destroyed? What is leadership if not rescuing people from problems—moral, political, economic, and, especially, existential?
This is not an issue over which someone can say he has access to the president; this is an issue over which the people need the reassurance that someone is standing up against what bothers them, and standing out for them, fighting for them, protecting them, sharing their pain and doing everything possible to remove the source and cause of the pain. At the moment, this is not being done by the Northern leadership with the energy and seriousness it deserves. Neither the traditional rulers, who still have enormous moral authority with which they can get things done and undone, nor the former military rulers, who landed the region in this mess, are doing anything about the situation.
And the insurgency spreads: it is now in Adamawa. They say that a single picture is worth a thousand words: and the heart-breaking distress and sorrow on the faces of the women of Gulak, as captured on the front page of Daily Trust of Thursday, February 20, 2014, says it all. For them, it was as if there were no more men in the world and no government in the country to protect them. They were left to their own devices—but they had no device.
And where is the heart that didn’t bleed or the eye that didn’t shed a tear on taking in that horrendous, heartrending scene? In the end, you were left speechless and thoroughly defeated by your helplessness; and by the pain and incomprehension at the pitilessness that produced the pitifulness in that spectacle.
Perhaps because the Boko Haram crisis had the colour and tenor of previous crises that erupted in the North, there had been this persisting unfortunate tendency for many in the South to behave as if this was just a Northern problem; and for some people in the North to behave as if it was just a Muslim problem. Strictly speaking, it was neither the one nor the other: because it was, in effect, a national problem—if this nation were alive to its liabilities. With 42 student killed in a Yobe secondary school on July 6, 2013; 44 persons killed in Konduga on August 10; 40 in Mamudo on September 25; 106 people killed in Izge February 15, 2014; 60 in Bama on February 19, and 43 in Buni Yadi on February 25, if this nation knew what it was doing, it should be in deep mourning, and not celebrating any centenary.
But for what crime were those Gulak women being punished, and where we could run to in order hide our shame from the evidence that picture constituted against us: the tears and forlorn, red-eyed lament of frightened, mournful, wounded womenfolk—our disconsolate, vulnerable undefended weaker sex: women widowed and children orphaned, with their present ruined and a future of death or hopeless desperation before them, the symbol of a community endangered and abandoned?