Wanted: National Security Emergency (II)

Some of the options to counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency need to be debated, especially if my proposal on a state of emergency, which I still believe is a tenable option in the seeming cluelessness of the state over the frightening security crisis of the land. The President of the country has set up a committee, as […]

Some of the options to counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency need to be debated, especially if my proposal on a state of emergency, which I still believe is a tenable option in the seeming cluelessness of the state over the frightening security crisis of the land. The President of the country has set up a committee, as we noted last week to proffer solution to the Boko Haram terror raging in the country. Some have said that if it was aiming at the option of granting them amnesty as a counter terrorism strategy, it would not be an enduring solution, judging from the fact that the Niger Delta example seems to have ended up as a mere palliative as all is not totally quiet at the southern shores. The amnesty programme put on the laps of militants which occasioned the disarmaments of various militant groups in the Niger Delta has not ended militancy in the region.  Recently, the army discovered the growth of a regrouping camp of militants on the creeks of Delta State. This was said to have been ‘promptly’ demolished by the Joint Task Force’s Operation Pulo Shield. Nobody should be under any illusion that this prompt and welcome action of the army will finally terminate militant actions on the Niger Delta, much as we all wish it would. In any case, some suspected Boko Haram spokesmen have proposed that it was the Federal Government that required amnesty and have gone ahead to justify this seeming sarcasm by the Baga and Taraba (Wukari) rampage (even though the Taraba experience has not been claimed  by it). Even among clerics, there is no unanimity on the amnesty option. While the Most Reverend Moses Okikiola, head of the Aladura Church, world-wide cautions government against granting amnesty to Boko Haram as such a step will not be in the best interest of the country, the Catholic Bishop of Sokoto, Matthew Hassan Kukah, one of the most popular and serious-minded clerics of this country gave amnesty an unequivocal support recently as a viable option. For whatever it is worth, and I am not always moved by the kind and nature of conditional support Nigeria gets from the international community in troubled times (even as the United States which has called on the open probe of the Baga incident states its strategic partnership and relationship with Nigeria, yet threatening to withdraw military assistance to the country on account of ‘various human rights violations’ by the security forces—and it is certainly a covert reference to the Baga incident), external frown on amnesty is considerable. The statement credited to the United Nations categorically rejecting the Federal Government’s plans to grant amnesty to Boko Haram group, even though the United Nations’ office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (UN-OHCHR) from another hideous art of the mouth supports the setting up of a committee ‘to open talks with Boko Haram’is a case in point. Where do all these leave the Amnesty option, to which the government’s committee is partly preparatory to?
The Baga situation has truly provoked unmitigated outrage and the military is at pains to offer relieving explanations regarding the extent of its mop-up actions. The Joint Task Force castigates the media for its ‘blatant’ over-exaggerated reportage of the ‘rampage’. In an effort to calm the nerves of the Federal Government who is under severe pressure to explain the action of the military in Baga, locally and internationally, the High Military Command made a preliminary report to the President over its confrontation with Boko Haram in Baga. It stated that the media started reporting the incident in a delayed fashion; doing so three days after the event had started and thus carrying late and incorrect news. It said that the operation began on April 16 while the media began to carry the story three days after. In this belated involvement, the press reported 185 dead and 3000 houses razed. Meanwhile, the military’s account found ‘only 30 persons’ dead and that the total number of houses in Baga, prior to the incident were about one thousand. In any case, it was not the soldiers that burnt the houses. It was, the report claimed, the fleeing ‘Boko Haram terrorists’ who burnt down the affected houses. Apparently, Mr. President was quite satisfied with this report and gave full kudos to the military and to the National Emergency Agency (NEMA), while at the same time welcoming the plan by the National Human Rights Commission to investigate the incident independently. No doubt, there is more to this than meets the eye. The fleeing Boko Haram must have plenty of fleeing leisure to be able to carry out arson on the individual houses in Baga while the military was hot on its chase! The yawning disparity in the figures of death offered by the media, partly because of its belated entry into the incident ( an ignoble characteristic feature attributed to the media of recent) and that of the military, (185 to ‘only 30’) certainly requires further, independent investigation. We are talking of human beings and property here—not a thriller episode.
Most analysts have canvassed a non-physical solution to terrorism in Nigeria—as there are numerous other options, including socio-economic ones. The example of the intervention of the Joint Task Force in Baga has further affirmed that position—that we have to look beyond the monopoly of violence for resolving insurgency and terrorism in the country. While we seek dialogue or/and amnesty, there is an urgent need for developmental programmes aimed at rapid job creation/ employment drive, improved living conditions for the restive, teeming youths of this country that fuel the army or armies of insurgent groups and a structured growth and development effort in this country.