On the use of force
Obviously, officialdom in Nigeria has a very short memory. Soldiers and police of the Joint Task Force seemed to have all forgotten all about the fact that the whole of the current mayhem going on in the nation was caused by extrajudicial killings committed by some of their members. And it was only after their […]
Obviously, officialdom in Nigeria has a very short memory. Soldiers and police of the Joint Task Force seemed to have all forgotten all about the fact that the whole of the current mayhem going on in the nation was caused by extrajudicial killings committed by some of their members. And it was only after their failure to cover up the deed or obliterate the evidence that they were finally forced to accept the fact of their crime; and they then engaged in the grand window-dressing trial of the accused officers in the hope that that would placate the aggrieved.
Since then, matters have only deteriorated; and even if the charge is not made, security forces, in common with all other Nigerians who routinely cut corners in their areas of operation, will and do cut corners in theirs. But in fact this time, the charge has time and again been made. For a very long time, the people in Maiduguri and for some time even people in Kano and other affected places have complained and cried out that it was a hundred times better for them to live under the threat of Boko Haram than to live under the so-called protection of the Joint Task Force. That ought to have given some indication that some things are amiss; and if handlers of the president wanted to know the reality on the ground they shouldn’t have continued to listen to and rely only on the word of chiefs who are themselves briefed only by men of the JTF.
And if they thought the long-long-suffering people of Maiduguri unreliable and liable to exaggerate their suffering, and this might explain the reluctance of the government to do anything about the situation, it wouldn’t be difficult to understand, but visitors to Maiduguri and other dismayed watchers have spoken of the same matter in the same vein.
Then at last Borno Elders broke their silence. Not only did these leaders, elders and fathers who have lived and are living through and whose sons and daughters and people have borne the brunt of the crisis speak, they came all the way to Abuja to lay their complaint and request before the president. Other than the truth of such a charge with respect to the crisis, what on earth could have taken General Muhammadu Shuwa to Abuja to appeal to the government; but other influences prevailed and the nation was the unhappy witness of nothing tangible being done. This certainly is a government that doesn’t seem to know how to handle expression of loyalty or goodwill from people who have been given reason to withhold it.
Yet, even if all these people were lying and even if the government was anxious not to demoralise its troops, the preponderance of these reports ought to have forced it to conduct some discrete official investigation into the matter. But instead of ordering an investigation into the affair, the president finally got less busy from attending more important state functions, at least enough to go to Maiduguri, where, instead of warning soldiers the dire consequences of molesting innocent civilians, he warned that he would not tolerate the loss of a soldier. And true enough, when a soldier was killed by Boko Haram last Thursday, soldiers took their cue. When finally, the dust began settling, even initial reports spoke of a hundred and eighty five people dead.
This time, the president acted swiftly: he said he would conduct a probe into what happened. But, unfortunately, a government-appointed administrative probe is exactly what is not needed in this case, because all it will probably do is to confirm what is developing into a cover-up. What is needed is a full judicial commission of inquiry to unravel what happened, if only for the government to save itself from having to see its officials dragged before the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
Luckily, the president himself had said that the soldiers had their rules of engagement; but whether the JTF had or followed these rules of military engagement, only a commission of inquiry could determine that—as well as the level and proportion of culpability and the identity of those involved in the massacre.
But if indeed the JTF had followed such rules of engagement, would it really have had any need to keep people away from and out of Baga after the operation? Nor indeed would it have had any reason to try to suppress the fact and extent of the killings, in which, according to its commander, Brigadier General Austin Edokpayi, a soldier, six civilians and 30 insurgents lost their lives; but which according to sources within Baga, had claimed more than 300 lives, and which only the visit by Alhaji Kashim Shettima, the governor of Borno State, to Baga, brought to light.
Surely, the toll that this nation has allowed the crisis to take on it has really gone too far. Though they be similar to official operations, some acts, by their nature, are not dissimilar from revenge; and how unfortunate it will all be if they are. Borno of course is General Sani Abacha’s ancestral state, and Kano his adopted home state by domicile; the latter is the periphery and the former the epicentre of tragedy. What a coincidence!
In the end, therefore, it is all a question of attitudinal change that will save this nation from itself. And for starters, it is this seeming lackadaisical Federal attitude of ‘let the Northerner kill themselves’ that must first stop before any meaningful headway can be made in tackling the problem; and so also must the equally unhelpful Northern attitude of ‘let the Kanuri kill themselves’ stop. This is not a Kanuri problem, and it is not a Northern problem; it is a national tragedy and a shame responsibility for which lies squarely on the shoulders of an administration of such astonishing incompetence.
But even if attitudes do change, so long as this operation remains its so-called goldmine to those whose approval is needed to bring it to an end, which, incidentally, the whole nation knows it does remain, so long will this tragedy continue, so long will the misery linger, and so long will the drift of this nation to an avoidable precipice continue.
In the end, the nation will be the loser, but so will the military. The military is a noble profession, as they say; and it is, but this nobility is to be earned and not to be taken for granted. It is not inherent in the profession: it is to be manifested in the conduct of its professionals. And it is nobility that comes with a grave responsibility—to wield the power of life and death over others but be disciplined, friendly and respected. It is difficult, no doubt, but it is by free choice; nobody forced or drafted anyone to become a soldier—to don the uniform or pick up the government’s gun and become defender of the nation. Their honour is only in serving the people and in being true to the military creed, and not in having the power to kill.
And whoever accepts to do so must accept to live by the rules, which for the military, are their test for accountability—to hold power and wield it in the public interest. Of course, rules of engagement do not tell soldiers, or in the case of the JTF, soldier and police how they must achieve any particular result or any kind of victory but they do clearly indicate what actions may be unacceptable; and they determine the circumstances, set the conditions, spell out the degree and manner in which force may be used to achieve lawful, national objectives—to prevent crime, effect arrest and maintain law and order.
And this nation should never accept that anyone or any one profession has the right to kill innocent people because a member of their profession has been killed. We will not accept collective punishment under any circumstances; and more so in the case of Baga where the punishment was directed at innocent village folk—women, children, old people and men. Surely, today, it must really irk professional soldiers to see their calling debased and politicised thus; and it should also disturb the rest of us; for, this is the profession on whose past and in whose future the destiny of the nation lies.
The government must put now seek to rise to the level of statesmanship demanded by the current national circumstances, put greater and more serious effort in the search for solution to security challenges; so that the nation’s soldiers will have time to rediscover their true mission of patriotic service to the people, of apolitical defence of the realm and working for national unity through true professionalism.
A commission of inquiry into the Baga affair will be one of the best ways to show the military the limit at which it must always stop and the rules to which it must always adhere in discharging its constitutional responsibilities to the nation. And the government must accept that it will not achieve anything by trying to cover up what happened in that unhappy town.