No Oritsejafor, I don’t agree

Conductor to a passenger in a bus: Wey your money? Passenger: I be staff Conductor: Which kind staff you be, police? Passenger: No Conductor: You be soldier? Passenger: No Conductor; Then wetin you be sef? A beg pay me my money jo. Passenger: I be Boko Haram All people in bus: Whaat! Conductor, you don […]

Conductor to a passenger in a bus: Wey your money?

Passenger: I be staff

Conductor: Which kind staff you be, police?

Passenger: No

Conductor: You be soldier?

Passenger: No

Conductor; Then wetin you be sef? A beg pay me my money jo.

Passenger: I be Boko Haram

All people in bus: Whaat! Conductor, you don mad? Oga Boko, sorry sir, we beg no vex, we go pay for you sir…..’

I had a good laugh the first time I read Oga Boko and once again I saluted the Nigerian spirit which makes us rise above our daily travails to make light of even deadly situations.  But the joke still conveys the gravity of the situation we are in. And the simple message is that no one should mess around with the phenomenon called Boko Haram, whatever it is.

It is with this mind-set that I welcomed the news that some prominent Muslim scholars were trying to establish dialogue between the so-called sect members and the federal government. I thought such a step was long overdue because people have paid with their lives and personal liberties a high price. But to my consternation all sorts of Southern voices rose to say the government must not consider negotiating with the sect. When we are after peace and an end to bloodshed, must we mar our chase with regional sentiments?

It is obvious that government has failed in whatever containment strategy it had adopted towards the group. All that excess militarisation of the frontlines, the excesses of the joint task forces through their serious, sometimes deadly infringement on personal liberties of residents, have not stopped the sect members from carrying on their deadly activities. Whenever they struck, like genies with supernatural powers, they disappeared into thin air, in most cases leaving no traces to be followed. Even while we were yet to recover from the way Boko Haram had jumped from being a North-eastern affair to becoming an FCT scourge, we were rudely reminded that they can strike anywhere they wanted, when the Kano and then the Kaduna attacks took place.

The most depressing news item I read in recent times was the story that the scholars trying to initiate dialogue between government and the sect had withdrawn their participation because certain terms of the deal had been violated. This is unfortunate. But equally depressing is the fact that the Southern notables calling on the government not to dialogue with Boko Haram are increasing. The latest entrant, Pastor Oritsejafor, president of the Christian Association of Nigeria, had added his weight to the no-dialogue call by arguing that Boko Haram members are killers who had no regard for human life. What were the youths in the Niger Delta when President ‘Yar’adua decided to dialogue with them and even grant them amnesty? Were they not killers, kidnappers and economic saboteurs?

And just in case Pastor Oritsejafor would like to say that Niger Delta youths were fighting a just economic war against the Nigerian state so they should be listened to, I would gladly take him down memory lane to the first time the Nigerian government not only negotiated with but actually pardoned terrorists who killed in the name of religion by attacking unarmed worshippers while they prayed. In 1992, a retired general led his army of ethnic bigots to launch an attack on innocent Muslims at Friday prayer in Zangon Kataf in Kaduna state. The court found Major-General Zamani Lekwot guilty of masterminding and actually taking part in the cold-blooded massacre of Muslims in their mosque at Zango town in 1993.

But just before ‘stepping aside’ in August of the same year, then military president General Ibrahim Babangida, was prevailed upon by powerful members of the military establishment to grant pardon to Lekwot and his murderous cohorts. Their death sentences were eventually commuted to 5-year jail terms. Today Zamani Lekwot is a fully rehabilitated community leader and politician in his native Kaduna state. But what led to it all? The mind-set of a president who was willing to dialogue and make concessions in the interest of peace.

Whoever wishes President Jonathan well will advise him to tread the path of these two Northern Muslim statesmen who, in the interest of peace, jettisoned other considerations and negotiated. Dialoguing with Boko Haram does not mean agreeing to some of their outrageous demands like the introduction of Sharia law all over Nigeria, how can that be possible given the multi-religious nature of the country?   Even Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) did not impose Sharia on the non-muslim population of Arabia during his time. Indeed his rule over Jews and Christians in Hijaz showed a deliberate attempt to respect their religious and personal freedoms. A verse of the Qur’an supports his position by declaring that ‘There is no compulsion in religion’ Chapter 2 verse 257.

It is only by having a dialogue with this group that we will get to bottom of their motivation and even their true identity. Pastor Oritsejafor claims that there are up to 26 such jihadist groups but that it’s only the media that lumps them up into one name. Well here is the chance to know this large coalition of Nigerian terrorists some of whom we’ve long found out to be made up of Christian members. Take the case of the attack at COCIN church in Jos. A man who came into the premises in the same car with the bomber somehow escaped being killed when the bomb detonated but the incensed mob couldn’t care less that he made it out of the car alive. They went ahead and lynched him. When he was later identified as a known church member the story changed overnight. A suicide-bomber’s accomplice suddenly became an innocent church member who ‘came to church in the company of his wife and children’ the big question here is; What was he doing in the passenger seat of a suicide-bomber’s car?

Of course the legendary Boko Haram rose to the occasion by issuing a claim of responsibility for the COCIN Jos attack. And we’ve long since established that such claims can come from anywhere and are not provable in any case. But that put paid to any helpful clue that might be unearthed had we followed the church-goer/bomber’s accomplice angle. Still a diligent security apparatus will not abandon such an angle. Whatever abracadabra was done to facts at the Jos axis couldn’t be done at the Bauchi branch of the same church when eight Christian men were caught trying to bomb it at Miya Barkatai village. May be the same demon that possessed Lydia Joseph to attempt bombing St. John Catholic Cathedral in Bauchi was what possessed them. This can only be established when the police in Abuja have finished their interrogation of them.

This whole no ‘negotiation with terrorists’ battle cry is a line out of the United States’ past rhetoric on the same issue. But the Americans have since eaten up their words in more ways than one. When they said so against Hamas in Palestine and then saw no progress at all in the Middle-East peace process, they made a U-turn and began to talk to Hamas through intermediaries, the Egyptians. They made the same boast with regards to the Taliban but after 10 years of needless bloodletting and proving to the world that they are worse terrorists than the Taliban ever were, they are now desperately seeking to dialogue with them. So desperate are the American to sit at the negotiating table with the Taliban that they actually begged them to open an embassy in Qatar.

Nowhere in this world have two parties to a conflict ever succeeded in attaining peace without a negotiated settlement. Unless one group succeeds in vanquishing the other, the conflict can only drag on and on at the expense of the common people. As we have clearly seen government has been unable to conquer Boko Haram, and the poor residents of many northern states are the ones paying the price. If our Southern compatriots are not joining us for the call to dialogue, then let us make it a northern affair. And if Northern Christians refuse to join the call, because churches are being attacked, then I say let’s make it a Northern Muslim affair. But whatever we do we must not let the opportunity to talk with Boko Haram pass us by because some distant terror-masters have said we must not dialogue with terrorists.