Jonathan, learn from the late Yar’adua – Bishop Kukah

Nigerians are now living in fear. Is it unfounded?   In the Christmas message that I delivered at the Christmas carols organized by the Nigerian Television Authority and Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria, I chose the theme ‘Do not be afraid.’   I really think that it is important to place this feeling of insecurity in […]

Nigerians are now living in fear. Is it unfounded?

 

In the Christmas message that I delivered at the Christmas carols organized by the Nigerian Television Authority and Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria, I chose the theme ‘Do not be afraid.’   I really think that it is important to place this feeling of insecurity in its proper context. I think we have been a relatively peaceful nation and I’m also very much gratified by the fact that the part of Nigeria that makes up my diocese has been reasonably very peaceful. Until recently, a lot of people were anxious about the PDP primary in Sokoto. It came and passed peacefully. I think the lesson to learn from that is, our people are extraordinary peaceful and that what we call insecurity is more or less an external agency that is not really in keeping with who we are. It doesn’t define us as a society.

But   how do you situate the ‘Boko Haram insecurity’ in the country?

I don’t know what the government has done, but clearly if you are treating a disease and it seems to persist, either it is because your diagnosis is wrong or your cure is wrong. I think that we probably have not done much to understand what it is that these conflicts are all about. I do not believe the problems of insecurity in Nigeria are purely and simply the result of Boko Haram. I do not think that we have properly and sufficiently understood the psychological disposition of those who behave the way they behave and those who have taken on  the kind of issues that we now refer to as the insecurity manifested by Boko Haram. I think this thing goes beyond just security agencies. They require a lot of more input from the academic community in terms of what are the issues, circumstances driving what we are witnessing. If it is something that we can associate with religion, then every Muslims will not be safe, and also all Muslims will be interested. But eighty percent or 90 percent of where Muslims live is unaffected by Boko Haram.  Clearly, we need to address the issue. If you say you have stomach ache, the nurse would probably ask you how long you’ve had it. What I am saying is, if you are a little bit more careful, we will, at least, ask ourselves where these people come from. Is there a history that is associated geographically and otherwise by the location where these events have taken place? What are these people really saying?  What are the circumstances that have become favourable to their growth? Are you dealing with a problem that is of a religious nature? Is it a cultural problem? Is it an economic problem? Is it a psychological problem? Is it a historical problem? Is it a sociological problem? For me, these are very, very deep questions. I am not sure that we have been properly answered them because had they been properly, the Boko Haram issue would not be escalating.

What would you advice on the issue

It is to say that, first of all, we need to ask ourselves how other people have dealt with this problem. Suicide bombing is not new to the world. Some five years ago, suicide bombing was quite prevalent in places like Tel Aviv and other cities in Israel. Palestinian youths were blowing themselves up and so on. It didn’t take long before the state of Israel came up with a solution. It seems to me that in  our own case government seems to be too pre-occupied with firepower, aiming and shooting, as opposed to looking a little bit more  creatively about the basket of grievances that people might be expressing. Like I said, Boko Haram is just one out of so many. If you look at the way that the American government has dealt with this issue, you ask yourself, are there lessons for us to learn? Although we are a slightly different society, are there lessons for us to learn? America set up a Homeland Security Department, for example, to deal with this issue. But it also brought in a range of people with academic qualifications who understood what these issues were all about. If you look at the way the CIA and all the various agencies in America came together to tackle the issue, you will know that it is not just about the police and the military and so on. In my view, I think that had we given this thing a much greater review outside the politics we may have had a clearer understanding of it. A lot of people see it as a political problem. Clearly, the point I’m making is that it is a problem with many faces; we have not done much to look very closely at it. Too many grievances have been left unattended to; too many people left unpunished. There’s also the lack of a very clinical and forensic approach to dealing with issues of causes and effects. This means that people have become increasingly belligerent.

You worked hard and participated in bringing an end to the Niger Delta crisis. How would you want the current Boko Haram crisis to be tackled, drawing from your experience in the Niger Delta?

I am not sure there is a relationship, but there was an advertisement in a newspaper recently. I read it very carefully, whether it is true or not.  The person was talking about the fact that during the crisis in the Niger Delta, there were some Muslim youths who joined the struggle and that they perceived that they were not compensated after the amnesty.  It’s a rather mischievous advert, but, for me, if I were a member of the intelligence community, I will not take it lightly because the guy, in my view, is trying to make a connection between the persistence of what is going on in some parts of northern Nigeria and what happened in the past. Again, one must be fair to the late President Umaru Musa Yar’adua and the way he concluded the amnesty programme was unprecedented. A man who is more powerful, the Commander- in- Chief of the Armed Forces, is not expected  to go seeking for peace from a bunch of people that he could easily wipe out. I think that that is a telling lesson. If you compare them with where we are now, and how Boko Haram has been handled, it is not so much a question of whom are we to speak to (although in fairness you might say that the issues of Boko Haram have not been structured in a way and manner that you can identify what needs to be done).  But I don’t believe in all the saying that this group is faceless and so on and so forth. They definitely are not from the air.

You are now dealing with a situation in which bombs are being manufactured by people who are living in communities, as it happened in Kaduna.  We all have to become far more alert because it is not as if there is no country that can have policemen or soldiers moving around everybody’s house, but we now realize the problems we are dealing with require our collective support and it also means we should be willing to identify strange movements, particularly individuals who are living with us. If somebody is living in your compound and the door is permanently locked or somebody who decided to stay awake at night, for whom day is night and night is day, if we have these kind of people, it means we should now become far more concerned. But what we are really dealing with is that citizens are severely limited in what they can do. It depends on how the government perceives and wants to deal with the problem.