The Nation Newspaper

Category: Dele Agekameh

  • This Frankenstein Monster

    This Frankenstein Monster

    It is basically a war of attrition: “you kick us, we kick you”. This is how best to describe the current situation in the country. These days, the Boko Haram terrorists seem to have broken loose – targeting schools, isolated villages and security officials, ambushing, killing and capturing people, using weapons and tactics that have shaken the country’s defence and intelligence establishments. Already, there are fears that the terrorists may even resort to using chemical and biological weapons, especially as Governor Gabriel Suswan of Benue State recently cried out on the activities of the bandits operating in the Benue-Nasarawa states axis. With the spate of bombings and attempted bombings now rampant all over the place, we must pray fervently against some more devastating weapons falling into the hands of these terrorists. It may sound impossible or even incredible to believe but, looking back, would anybody have thought that this rag-tag hoodlums could go this far?

    Although there is no definite research literature on causal factors and diverse goals that drive people to resort to carrying out terrorist acts, multiple reasons are listed, some of which seem to be more applicable than others while some others tend to go together for identification of more or less convincing causal factors. Probably the most contested justification for terrorism is given by those who see terrorists as an aggrieved group resorting to violence over poverty and economic disadvantage, to make a statement. A more important factor may be the social stratification and inequalities in the distribution of scarce resources. In simple terms, this is the poverty argument. When a group is absolutely or relatively deprived, they rebel. However, in an attempt to solve the Boko Haram menace, we need to examine, critically, the real motive why the terrorists are up in arms.

    Several suggestions have come up in the past. The terrorists themselves came up with an initial propaganda that they were out to enthrone Islam and Sharia law all over the country. Some other people have argued that the Boko Haram thing is a political weapon by a section of the country to wrestle power from other parts of the country. While the religious dimension may no longer be tenable in the face of indiscriminate attacks that have consumed both Christians and Muslims alike, the political angle may subsist in view of the constant attacks on state institutions, especially the concentration of attacks on targets within the nation’s capital, Abuja. The point is that among the multitude of causes that may lead a person or a group of people to resort to terrorism, there is none that conclusively links a sole cause to the act. Ethnicity, tribalism, poverty, economic disadvantage, lack of true democracy, extraneous interests, dehumanisation and religion all have arguments confirming a possible existing link, as well as reservations against a causal relation.

    We must try to find out why a group would suddenly decide to bear arms against the country. From my own findings, it is almost clear that the Boko Haram terrorists are engaged in a violent revolt against the perceived injustice of the political class and the aristocracy in that part of the country. This is evident from the selective annihilation of notable political figures as well as the undeclared war against the aristocracy as manifested in the killings of traditional rulers and village heads. The thinking among the terrorists is that some of their people, especially those earlier mentioned, are directly or indirectly responsible for their backwardness and woes. Why is this so?

    For many decades, the aristocracy in that part of the country has enjoyed certain privileges which are denied the majority of the population who have been sentenced to mere subsistent existence. While the children of the aristocrats are born into wealth, with good education within and outside the country, the rest of the population wallows in abject poverty, deprivation and want. Their children are deprived of the basic necessities of life, including access to good education as they are easily dumped in Quranic schools where they form the bulk of Almajiris or homeless youths, roaming the streets and scavenging the refuse dumps. At the end of the day, the children with aristocratic background acquire all the education that is available under the sun and come back to be lords and masters over these deprived children and their subsequent generations. It is probably this obnoxious, retrogressive and debilitating scenario that the poor, who forms the bulk of Boko Haram foot soldiers, are out to correct willy-nilly.

    Another causal factor is seen in the political dimension which may have gone awry. Prior to the 2011 general elections, events in the country had pointed to the fact that a section of the country was desperate to monopolise state power. The prelude to this was the ‘internecine’ war that engulfed Aso Rock Villa in the wake of the death of former President Umaru Yar’Adua, who passed on, on May 5, 2010. The choice of a successor to Yar’Adua almost led the country to a great constitutional crisis as hawks within the corridors of power mapped out strategies on how to side-track the constitution to deny the then Vice-President, Goodluck Jonathan, the right to assume the mantle of leadership as enshrined in the country’s constitution. As a result of this, the whole country was driven into the precipice. This was later resolved by the “doctrine of necessity” enacted by the National Assembly.

    This constitutional breakthrough notwithstanding, some elements in a section of the country would not be pacified. The electioneering that followed provided a good platform for these disgruntled elements to ventilate their anger and resentment for losing power so easily. It got to a stage when some of the dramatis personae openly threatened to make the nation ungovernable if any of their own did not emerge as President of Nigeria. In any case, what they were trying to say was that Jonathan should only spend the remaining one year to complete his principal’s (Yar’Adua’s) first term of four years in office and vamoose from the scene. Constitutionally, it was wrong, and Jonathan refused to be cowed. He also had the support of quite a large spectrum of Nigerians who believe that the Presidency of Nigeria was nobody or group’s birthright. Nevertheless, the animosity persists. The results of the Presidential election in 2011 drew blood in certain parts of the country. Many lives were lost in the carnage. Surprisingly, those perceived as brains behind the violence were never apprehended. They are still going about with their baggage of anger and another election is around the corner.

    Truly, the ongoing terrorists’ war has greatly impacted negatively on our collective endeavour to build an economically strong, politically stable and militarily formidable nation that would have been the cynosure of all the nations of the world. That is why all of us, irrespective of ethnic, tribal, religious, political and other primordial differences, must play a major role in helping to put an end to this senseless carnage that is threatening to obfuscate and obliterate our country from existence. This, we can achieve by reconstructing our polity and reviving the country’s economy, apart from restoring the cultural and political relationships among all the ethnic cum tribal groups, which had been based on secular principles. This is necessary because there are reports of the involvement of ‘well-trained terrorists’, who are out to create communal discord in the country to achieve their selfish end. The methods they use and the inhuman tactics they employ are trademarks of a trained terrorist organisation bent on creating discord and disharmony in a country where Christians and Muslims have always lived in peace with mutual respect for each other.

    In essence, the Boko Haram crisis, which escalated in July 2009, has continued to grow into the Frankenstein monster it is today because some entrenched interests are busy stoking the fire. Our leaders should stop playing the ostrich, thinking that, suddenly, one day, the problem of Boko Haram will be over. This is not possible. Since the causative agents are a combination of factors, only a holistic approach would solve the problem. Certainly, not finger-pointing; not the heaviest military armaments!

  • The ‘forgotten’ girls of Chibok

    The ‘forgotten’ girls of Chibok

    On Saturday, May 10, Wole Soyinka, professor and Nobel laureate, appeared ontheBritish Broadcasting Corporation’s programme, Hardtalk and added his voice to the growing international discourse on Nigeria, especially the issue of the disappearance, on April 15, of more than 250 schoolgirls from the Government Girls’ Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State. Among other things, Soyinka said: “The Nigerian nation-space is poised on a knife’s point; it is failing, but not beyond redemption. The rescue of the abducted Chibok schoolgirls and the outcome of the National Conference would help define the country’s future.”  Today, more than one month after, the opinion canvassed by the Nobel laureate remains fresh in our national psyche as the issue of the abducted Chibok girls remains unresolved.

    The country has been thrown into one huge, dramatic macabre dance since that midnight hostage-taking by the Boko Haram terrorists. The incident has drawn both the anger and dagger of civilised humanity all over the world who have continued, in no unmistaken terms, to condemn it as sordid and barbaric. Regrettably, two months down the line, what we have been witnessing are empty talks and promises of a phantom rescue operation to free the girls from their captors who are in no way ready to relax their stranglehold on them. With various pressure groups mushrooming daily all over the place, the whole thing has now ascended a crescendo of pulsating emotional gyration, ventilation of anger and global condemnation. Perhaps, for the first time in the history of Nigeria, the entire global community is united in solidarity with the country.

    Many foreign countries have offered and are still offering assistance in several ways to help the country in its bid to rescue the abducted girls as well as defeat the terrorists who are now holding on to the country’s jugular. Everybody seems to be eager to get the girls out of the gulag. Unfortunately, days have turned into weeks and months, and nothing tangible or cheering has been on the horizon about the girls’ return to reunite with their loved ones. For the parents and relatives of the unfortunate girls, hope has turned into despair, and a big nightmare with no end in sight.

    While all these are going on, the military, saddled with engineering the release of the girls, appears to be stuck. On May 26, Alex Badeh, Air Marshal and Chief of Defence Staff, told a curious nation that the army have located the abducted Chibok girls. He said this while addressing members of the Citizen Initiative for Security Awareness (CISA), a non-governmental organisation (NGO), who were on a solidarity campaign to the Defence Headquarters. He assured themthat everything was being done to ensure the girls’ safe rescue but he quickly chipped in that the military would not use force in the rescue operation. His words: “We want our girls back, I can tell you our military can do it, but where they are held, do we go with force? Nobody should say Nigerian military does not know what it is doing. We can’t kill our girls in the name of trying to get them back. So we are working. The President has empowered us to do the work and no one should castigate the military”.

    Good talk. Except that many weeks after this promise, there is hardly anything to show that those girls are getting nearer to their freedom. In the first instance, many people opinethat what Badeh said was very unprofessional in that it was tantamount to playing to the hands of the enemy. Or else how does one view such a statement which is like giving away what could have been a closely guarded secret while the army strategises to free the girls? Why announce to the whole world that the army was aware of the location of the girls? The terrorists’ response will be to simply relocate the girls further into the wilderness to avoid any surprise from the army. This is why people believe the statement was either totally uncalled for or grossly lacking in military diplomacy.

    Just like Badeh has said, the issue of using force to free the girls may not be feasible. But what are the options available now to achieve that aim? Many people, including Shehu Sani, the human rights activist believed to have a channel through which the leadership of Boko Haram could be reached and engaged, have advocated dialogue as a way of breaking the logjam. Sani, it was, who facilitated the interface between former President Olusegun Obasanjo, the family of Mohammed Yusuf, the slain leader of the sect and other surviving leaders of the sect in Maiduguri in September, 2011. Although that visit generated a lot of controversies and even led to the death of some of the leaders of the sect who met with Obasanjo during the visit, it has, so far, remained the only serious interface anybody, either within the government or outside of it, has had with the sect.

    Now, the former President has come up with yet another suggestion that he could reach out to Boko Haram on the fate of the school girls, but regretted that the federal government has not given him the green light to act. In an interview on the Hausa service of the British Broadcasting Corporation last week, Obasanjo said: “I have ways of reaching them (Boko Haram) but I have not been given the go ahead”. The former President expressed fear that some of the schoolgirls may never return home but added that the terrorists might free those found to be pregnant or have given birth. He also expressed worry that the girls might have been separated and kept in different locations.

    As if giving government’s reaction to Obasanjo’s statement, Mike Omeri, coordinator of the National Information Centre, recently created to brief the public on the war against the terrorists, said the former President didnot need any clearance from President Goodluck Jonathan before engaging in dialogue with the Boko Haram sect. Hewondered why Obasanjo would be waiting for any formal clearance from President Goodluck Jonathan when hehad unfettered access to him (Jonathan). He expressed surprise at the development and said: “The government has not stopped any individual who has access to the sect not to come forward and intervene in this matter.”  This is playing politics with lives.

    Earlier last week, some newspapers reported that the parents of the abducted girls had become disillusioned about government’s efforts to free the girls. In fact, some of the parents are said to have died heartbroken, while others have relapsed into all forms of depression as a result of the continuous absence of their loved ones. As they say, he who wears the shoe knows where it pinches. But for how long would these parents remain traumatized? This is why the government should consider the proposal for dialogue as a way of putting an end to the nightmare created by these girls’ kidnap. After all, the US government recently exchanged one prisoner, who was even a deserter, for very senior five al-Qaeda leaders who had been in Guantanamo prison for years. For the exchange to have taken place, they must have been talking.

    What this implies is that there is need for dialogue. It does not appear that the country can free these girls by using force. There is nowhere in the world where that has worked. We have wasted precious time after the abduction before embarking on a rescue mission while the terrorists have fully settled down with the girls in their dungeon.  As things stand now, it will be most appropriate for the government to explore dialogue, whether put together by Obasanjo or any other person, to get the girls out before it is too late. It is really getting late. Like Obasanjo said, right from day one, I have always had this feeling that not all the girls may come back alive. That is the bitter truth. We must move quickly to forestall a high casualty rate among the girls as well as avoid turning them into the forgotten girls of Chibok.

  • The Devil’s alternative

    The Devil’s alternative

    It is most apt today for this column to open with the timeless saying “Those who the gods want to destroy, they first make mad”. Otherwise, how would someone describe the unpalatable development that has been going on since the early hours of last Friday across the country? Last Friday, the Nigerian press came under a coordinated assault by security agents who had laid ambush for the daily newspapers on the highways and distribution centres. The assault bears all the trappings of the dark days of military dictatorship as soldiers claiming “orders from above”, intercepted, seized and, in some cases, destroyed newspapers on sight.

    According to reports, soldiers who laid ambush at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, confiscated copies of the The Punch, The Nation, Daily Trust and Leadership, while , in some cases, wrappers and cover pages of The Punch were damaged. In various statements issued after the early morning rampage, Leadership reported that soldiers intercepted and destroyed copies of the day’s publication at the Kaduna toll gate. The Nation too saw its vans ambushed in Abuja, Benin-Warri Road, Port Harcourt, Kaduna-Kano Road and Nasarawa-Jos Road. In Benin, Edo State, soldiers stormed the Nigerian Union of Journalists Press Centre to disrupt activities as they stopped vehicles, hunting for some national dailies. And this is still an ongoing thing.

    Giving excuse for this brazen travesty, Chris Olukolade, major-general and Director of Defence Information, DDI, attributed the ugly development to a “routine” security operation.  According to him, the military was acting on an “intelligence report” that “materials with grave security implications” were being moved across the country “using the channel of newsprint-related consignments”. And in spite of public outcry, the DDI has vowed that this uncivilized operation will continue until the Army is satisfied. Satisfied that the papers are ruined?

    The excuse given for this action appears not only hollow but very shallow as well. Assuming that, indeed, there was any intelligence information that incriminating materials were going to be concealed and transported by newspapers’ distribution vans across the country, the honourable thing, in my opinion, that could have been done would have been to get in touch with the managers of the newspapers and put them on notice. This, nobody did. Instead, they chose to enact a satanic plot to throw the newspapers, their distributors, vendors and advertisers into unnecessary pandemonium leading to loss of revenue. Of course, that was uncalled for, more so, as we have not been told that anything incriminating has been found. The whole exercise is suspect.

    By the nature of their job, journalists have remained faithful to the Nigerian people by sticking out their necks every day to hold government accountable to the more than 180 million descendants of Homo sapiens that, incidentally, form the largest concentration of the black race anywhere in the world. That, indeed, is the job of any journalist worth that name. Although, like any other profession, particularly in this part of the clime, there may be some bad eggs here and there, a greater majority exist who can stand their own anywhere in the world. Basically, the press exists to serve the people, not the government or any of its agents. That is why when government buries its rickety skeletons, it is the duty of the press to exhume them and showcase them as exhibits before the court of the people. It is regrettable, however, that right from independence, through all the period of military interregnums and civilian rule (or misrule), journalists have always had security agents bloodying their nose for having the audacity to uncover the many evils being perpetrated against the people.

    With all that have been going on in recent times in the country, what is happening now is symptomatic of the fact that, once more, the cycle of anomie is returning even in a worse dimension. Rather than face the “Axis of Evil” encapsulated by Sambissa forest and rescue our innocent young girls who have been turned into sex slaves, hewers of wood and fetchers of water, our security agents have adopted repression of the press as a deliberate policy to muscle opposition to their lethargy and misrule going on in the country at all levels. When the vocal and irrepressible journalist, Dele Giwa, was assassinated on October 26, 1986, almost 28 years ago, the nation was gripped with shock and disgust, especially because of the novel fiendishness of the device employed to silence him – the parcel bomb. That was the first clear indication that Nigeria would become a more violence-prone nation in the foreseeable future. That future is already here.

    From the inglorious, locust years of the late General Sani Abacha’s tyranny, when bombs literarily planted by his security goons exploded everywhere like Christmas bangers, to the present day, it is as if it has become an accepted norm to use bombs to settle political scores in the country. What this signposts, to borrow a line from one of the lyrics of Wyclef Jeanelle Jean, the Haitian-American hip hop artist, is that Nigeria “is in trouble, really big trouble”. But unlike Wyclef’s plaintive cry for someone to help him call 911, Nigerians have no one to call to rescue them from the brutal terror of state agents, who are always eager to go on the prowl to hunt real and imaginary enemies of the state. Consequently, the country has now been turned into one huge war zone without defined battlefronts. Whether in the North-east, North-west, North-central, South-west, South-south, South-east or what have you, crooks, miscreants and other agents of darkness, full of demonic intent, are reaching out to everybody – man or woman, young or old. Even innocent children usually insulated from such inhuman treatments by conventions are now vulnerable.

    It is as if our politicians do not appreciate the enormity of the problem confronting the nation today. The economy is still marooned in the dead zone, and unemployment among the young educated Nigerians has reached an intolerable crescendo. When this cheerless news is combined with the many social maladies afflicting the country, you end up with this sort of prevalent dangerous situation. A young, vibrant and significant segment of the population is feeling betrayed, ignored, abandoned and very angry indeed. And violent crimes, which we now witness, provide an outlet for them to ventilate their anger, make a statement or a living as the case may be. With a decrepit security forces whose structures creak in every joint, every day brings fresh reminder that, in this country, you are simply on your own in respect of security, just as in virtually every other thing. Nobody is safe anymore, not even high officials of government who are provided with all manners of security.

    It is no longer in contention that the military is in tatters, no thanks to the many years of military dictatorship and the rapacious corruption that came with that era and subsists till date. The depth and breadth of the rot has been amply demonstrated by its lacklustre performance so far in the war on terror and terrorists now threatening to overrun the country or at least a section of it. Nigerians are scandalised by the shallowness and cowardice of most of the officers and their amazing capacity for fibbing. Nothing explains this more than a recent submission by Mark Welsh III, a United States general and US Air Force Chief of staff, who said that the Nigerian military is becoming afraid of engaging the Boko Haram insurgents. He said this while testifying before the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee. According to him, “We’re now looking at a military force that is, quite frankly, becoming afraid to even engage”.

    The stage seems set for the total subjugation and emasculation of the press. But come to think of it, I don’t really know what now remains of the once great country that used to be called “the Giant in the Sun”! Everything has been turned upside down and inside out, and now the iron boots are getting prepared to march on our collective psyche. As this is going on, the blunders and plunders continue unabated while the hope of a glorious dawn continues to dim like a receding star.

  • The cyber frontier in crime

    The cyber frontier in crime

    The advent of mobile phones in the early 2000 brought great relief to Nigerians. However, the revolution in communication also brought with it some pains as some unscrupulous Nigerians quickly cashed in to peddle their nefarious trade – fraud. This was followed by the e-mail, a communication system that has now relegated the old system of posting letters to the background. E-mail is faster; with the speed of electrical current you get your message across and also receive a response within minutes or even seconds. But, as it is, it is as if the more the growth recorded through technological advancement, the more sophisticated the criminals around becomes. Hardly will a day pass without you receiving five, 10 or more scam messages on your Blackberry phone, all designed to make you fall a “Mugu”, the underworld term for foolishness.

    On December 19, 2013, I had my first raw deal with these crooks. I was in my house in Lagos sleeping when, at about 1:30am, I opened my eyes and saw my blackberry beeping. I quickly reached out to it. What I saw jolted me. My bank in America had sent me a mail to the effect that there was an “unusual activity” on my small account. Apparently, some smart alecs had cloned my Debit Card and were on a spending spree that night in far away New York city. I quickly called their information desk, which immediately put a lien on the account. Though the bank promptly did a refund and changed my card within a week, I am sure the whole thing originated from Nigeria and I seriously suspect someone who is very close to me as the brain behind the scam.

    That was not all. Five months later, precisely on May 1, the crooks were at it again. This time, my e-mail account was hacked. This was purely a criminal act aimed at extorting money from people on my contact list, a commonplace occurrence in today’s digital world. Ordinary criminals with advanced to minimal computer know-how and time to spare can, in the comfort of their homes, rake in millions of other people’s hard earned money with the use of a simple computer and an internet connection. It is a reality of our world today.

    In this case, a generic message was sent to everyone on my contact list, explaining that I was stranded in Rome with financial difficulties that a thoughtful loan of 950 Euros can fix, if the recipient would only be so kind. These messages went out at around 2.00am while I was fast asleep, with no difficulty, at my home in Lagos, Nigeria. The following morning, I was woken up by endless calls from friends who had received the message, much to my surprise. Little did I know that more surprises awaited me from the cunning cyber-criminals.

    Promptly, the password was changed and the security questions reset, but it did not end there. Incoming mails had been cunningly re-routed to another email address set up solely for the purpose of this particular attack on my privacy, as I found out. My e-mail account is “dagekameh@yahoo.com” but mails had been set to be forwarded to “dagekarneh@yahoo.com” without even being retained by the original account. Attempts at signing into the compromised account proved abortive and may not have been possible but for the measures put in by Yahoo in such cases. It took answering security questions that were set back in 2009 to prove to the Yahoo mail service that the account was indeed mine, because it had been completely taken over by the criminals.

    It literally took hours to purge my account of the attackers’ imprint, and measures are still being taken to ensure that nothing else has been compromised. A large amount of mails in my inbox were lost however. It later became clear that this was the modus operandi of these cyber criminals who operate from multiple locations around the world and have syndicates spread across continents. The account activity log showed that the breach originated in Netherlands and the operation somehow shifted to South Africa in a matter of minutes where the larger part of it took place. For these people, it is obviously a full-time job considering the kind of delicate, victim-specific operations they carry out.

    Although Nigeria will make many lists of countries where most cyber frauds originate, there are worse countries on those lists like Egypt, Ukraine, Malaysia and even the United States (U.S.). It is a global phenomenon. The credit card rings are serious, and every financial institution in the world is a potential target. This, however, is a tip of the iceberg of cybercrimes, cyber-terrorism, espionage and cyber-conflicts in the modern world. Like in the physical world, where clandestine activities are not only carried out by criminals looking for ill-gotten proceeds, governments all over the world and other players are also involved in some of these activities on the internet.

    Indeed, modern warfare has expanded into cyberspace. A big example is the group known as the “Shanghai Group”, which is said to be an arm of the Chinese military that has targeted U.S trade and critical infrastructure, collecting data discreetly through electronic means. U.S gas pipelines access, its power grid and companies like Coca-Cola have been reported to have been victims of this group. The U.S itself has been involved in Cyber-warfare. In collaboration with Israel in 2010, it developed a malicious software called “Stuxnet” and launched an attack on Iran’s Uranium enrichment program. In 2013, the U.S also joined a cyber-terrorism group called “Anonymous”, in league with South Korea, to attack “critical websites” in North Korea, including the state-owned network station.

    As cyber-criminals and terrorists are on the increase, countries around the world too are raising cyber-warriors to protect themselves and, it must be said, attack others. Even in the midst of this international cyber-warfare, there are yet groups of hackers whose scope of activities cannot be determined but have attained global fame for their successful activities against all levels of organisations and governments. An outstanding example is the Chaos Computer Club in western Germany that hacked into the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) network in the United States and remained undetected for three months. Its “Trojan Horse”, which is a malicious computer programme, was able to access over 135 computers across Europe. It is currently acting as a kind of non-governmental organization. In February, it filed a criminal complaint against the German government, accusing it of complicity with the U.S National Security Agency and British intelligence in spying on German citizens. The group also requested Edward Snowden, now famous (or infamous) U.S whistleblower, to be allowed a safe passage as a witness.

    In a world where countries now sponsor “Trojan Horses” and collect confidential information secretly, in addition to the activities of criminals looking to make a quick buck and non-state players like “Wiki-leaks”, one only wonders where African countries are positioned on this new frontier. Currently, Nigeria still imports 90% of software used in the country and the 100 plus IT companies in Nigeria mainly engage in integration, maintenance and customisation services for commercial packaged software for public institutions, banks, and energy and telecom companies. No recognizable government’s interest in developing an airtight cyber-security unit to protect government information and the privacy of citizens. Where are our cyber warriors?

    Nigerians who have picked up expertise and show promise in cyber security are picked up easily by foreign countries or have joined the criminals that have ensured inclusion of Nigeria on the least of countries with the most computer fraud cases. In saner climes, these individuals would be found, rehabilitated and drafted into the government efforts, where they exist, to protect the information of its citizens. On the new frontier of cybercrimes and terrorism, it appears that information is the currency, weapon and the target, and as such, its protection becomes the only concern. Now that banks, mobile communications companies and the government have stepped up efforts to collect information on users and citizens, the question is: Have they stepped up efforts to protect this data?

  • Still on Nigeria’s security policy

    Still on Nigeria’s security policy

    These days, whether you are in London, New York, Berlin or even nearby Johannesburg, the debates and discussions on Nigeria are most certainly centred on the rapacious corruption that has eaten deep into the fabric of the nation as well as bad leadership which has turned the country into one rudderless ship unable to navigate its way on the mighty ocean of life. At least these two factors have dominated discussions on Nigeria for a long time until terrorism increased the tally. Now, with a combination of these three afflictions, the country seems to be headed for Golgotha.

    Presently, more than 230 school children (their total number is shrouded in controversy) are marooned in an evil forest called Sambisa in Borno State, north-east of Nigeria. The schoolgirls were writing their final year examination, more than a month ago, when terrorists of the Boko Haram terror gang swooped on them in their dormitory at the Government Girls’ College, Chibok, near Maiduguri, capital of Borno State, abducted them and disappeared into thin air. The issue has since become internationalised with people across the globe calling for their release. Not only this. Following the lacklustre performance of the country’s security forces that have, so far, been unable to record a breakthrough in their efforts to free the abducted girls, a good number of countries have offered military assistance to the country to help in freeing the girls.

    Even with the presence of military assistance to the country, it thus appears that there is no let-up in the spate of terrorists’ attacks. The attacks have not only been brazen, exposing many chinks in security for which heads should roll, but also, we have witnessed some of the worst attacks in recent times. In the wake of the international outcry that greeted the Chibok abductions, the government finally got down from its perch and took a position. But the current inflow of foreign security assistance and the so-much-mouthed government’s determination to go the whole hog to rescue the abducted girls as well as defeat terrorism is seen not as a comprehensive strategy to combat Boko Haram, but more of a reaction to a situation. It is not something pro-active and well-thought out.

    Now that the government has indicated its willingness to act more decisively, it is relying on the security forces especially the military, to make and execute operational plans. That is the job for the military, of course, but the problem with the whole approach is that there is hardly anyone on the civilian side to understand such plans, much less analyse them critically. An operational plan is not just about acting out a script; it is also about assessing how the adversary will react. We must have a fair idea about their reaction. The Boko Haram’s asymmetric advantage is urban terrorism. Its affiliated groups in the northern parts of the country have enormous social penetration. There is no shortage of funds and motivation and they have sympathisers seriously embedded in the population. Besides, operating in the northern part of the country is somewhat easy. Against a determined, superior force, the terrorists will not hold ground. They don’t need to. An operation will also disrupt their lives for a short while, resulting in a reduction of their attacks. But it will be a brief reprieve.

    Just like the military, the terrorists also have contingency arrangements. The question is: does the government, including the military, have any plans to disrupt their contingency plans? The application of strategy is like a game of chess. The successful commander is the one who stays ahead of his opponent’s likely moves. Let me be more specific. Once the terrorists are smoked out of the forests of the North, they are likely to react by moving to the major cities. Does the government have the wherewithal to deal with that? It is quite unfortunate that military operations in the last one year have not succeeded in breaking the backbone of the Boko Haram terrorists. This is an important point that needs some clarification.

    Military operations have cleared and physically dominated the major cities in the North-east, thereby pushing the terrorists to the fringes – the border areas. That, in itself, is a success. But it is not the entire story. In the strategic triangle, physical dominance is only one end of the triangle. Any operational success hinges on securing at least two ends of the strategic triangle. In this case, the other ends, socio-psychological and fiscal-economic, have largely remained unoccupied by the government. Add to this the fact that the reprisals have come in the urban centres, including Abuja and last Sunday, in Kano, we then have a situation in which it looks as if the military operations have ended up doing nothing.

    It is as if the government has been reading the intentions and the ideology of the enemy wrongly, and many presume that these terrorists are merely reacting to a situation. While it is correct to say that the situation has given them a fillip, their motives and motivations are selfish and stupid. That is very clear from their statements, videos, and other materials available for anyone interested in constructing their narrative. Even so, in making one point, they are right, notwithstanding whether the point is made crudely or unwittingly. Thus far, we have been looking at the problem like the blind men figuring out an elephant. Fighting terrorism (or regular and irregular wars) is not a function of military operations alone. It requires the employment of the full resources of a country.

    What does this mean? It means many things. Most of all, it has to do with dealing with the whole rather than just the parts. Take urban terrorism, the preferred operational space of the enemy. The threat has to be handled through efficient counter-terrorism strategies. That presupposes an effective police force and a transparent and functional criminal justice system. As for the police and its counter-terrorism function, it is sad to note that the government has no plan to improve its capacity. There are other important aspects of counter-terrorism, which, are about the enforcement of everyday laws rather than any James Bond activity. The country needs an effective security policy. Improving the capacity of the police must go beyond a narrow definition of security and, by implication, a counter-terrorism strategy. The point is that counter-terrorism is not an isolated activity. It is woven in the warp and woof of a country’s laws, and presumes that a country can effectively enforce those laws at all levels. Effective enforcement presupposes that state functionaries are aware of the threat of keeping any activity under the radar. This includes those who do not have any direct affiliation with a uniformed force.

    Dealing with our internal threat is not about knee-jerk reactions. It requires a policy and a sustained effort. How? First, there must be a clear understanding and acceptance of the fact that we face a threat. If that requires a declaration, let there be one. Let the country say that Boko Haram and its affiliated groups, regardless of where they might be located, are enemies of Nigeria, and the country will not rest easy until it has rid itself of this threat. This would mean knowing that we are now in a state of internal emergency. Doing so would mean subjecting the political visage of these groups under laws relating to terrorism. Such an emergency will give the country the authority to track communication. Furthermore, government officials found involved in any activity that helps keep anyone below the radar must be dealt with as accomplices.

    Nigeria’s problem is not just terrorism. In fact, terrorism is the by-product of an extremist mindset which has seeped into some sections of the population. If the country wants to fight and win, it does not just have to deal with the terrorists but also with a mindset. In that, our existential threat is very different from that facing other countries. We sowed the wind; we now have to either reap the whirlwind or do something about it. Simplicita!

     

  • The drones are coming

    The drones are coming

    At last, faced with the grim reality that the Boko Haram terrorists are bent on spreading terror everywhere in Nigeria, especially in their strongholds in the north-east of the country, the United States, Canada, Britain, France, China and some other foreign countries have decided to assist the country to fight the menace. Apparently, the world is united in wide condemnation of the recent activities of the terrorists who have resorted to large-scale abduction of children, especially schoolgirls. On April 15, more than 240 schoolgirls were abducted from their hostels at the Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State. Since then, the fate of the innocent, little girls have been subjected to mere apocalyptic guesswork.

    In a recent video posted on YouTube, Abubakar Shekau, the self-styled leader of Boko Haram, admitted that his group actually abducted the girls. He also boasted that the girls would all be sold out as there was a thriving market for the sale of women. Perhaps, it is this open admission by Shekau that has fuelled condemnation and indignation all over the world. Now, help has finally come for Nigeria. I am sure many people may be tempted to say that the offer by the international community, particularly the Americans, is coming a bit late. The reason is that Nigeria is America’s strategic linchpin. America believes Nigeria’s military could contain the spread of Islamic militancy. But for four or five years now, the country has been facing so many odds in its campaign against terrorists, especially Islamic terrorists operating in the North.

    Help may have taken time in coming because Nigeria has, in the past, rebuffed attempts by America to train its military whose history of shooting freely and widely has raised eyebrows in Washington and other places. This has, rightly or wrongly, led to a conclusion that Nigerian soldiers actually fuel the very terrorism they are supposed to counter by this operational blunder. Even at that, Washington has struggled for years to cement close ties with the Nigerian military. About nine years ago, the African Command of the US’ military invited the Nigerian military to participate in a joint military exercise codenamed “Operation Flintlock”, an annual multinational counter-terrorism exercise. Surprisingly, Nigeria’s generals balked at sending a large contingent of soldiers. The US later proposed setting up a specialised counterterrorism unit within the Nigerian military, but it floundered.

    However, since Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, otherwise known as the “Underwear Bomber”, tried to blow up an airliner approaching Detroit on Christmas Day way back in 2009, the US has been working with Nigeria on creating an “Intelligence Fusion Centre” for rapid sharing of information collected by various Nigerian security agencies. The US views this as an important first step to see whether Nigeria can handle security threats themselves. Unfortunately, after two years of effort, the plan has only inched forward due to mistrust among Nigeria’s security services reportedly over funding.

    Besides, as I said earlier, American officials are really worried that the Nigerian security forces’ free shooting ways may have worsened the security situation in the country. That is very true. Military and police heavy-handedness in the North is core to the story of Boko Haram’s emergence. In July 2009, Mohammed Yusuff and a good number of his lieutenants were summarily liquidated by Nigeria’s security forces even after they had been arrested and paraded on the streets. The effect of that brutality cannot be easily discounted from the mindless conflagration that has engulfed that part of the country.

    All the same, it is good that the Americans and others have decided to intervene and stop the naked madness of these terrorists who, as it seems, are determined to overrun a section of the country. It is almost certain that the American Special Forces which will participate in the operation might be deployed from the US Drone Base in Niger, the Gulf of Guinea, the sea of Somalia and other bases in Africa under the US Africa Command, while additional equipment required for the sensitive operation could come from the US Department of Homeland security. The US Military Base in nearby Niger Republic could provide drone surveillance, logistics and intelligence support for the operation. What this means is that the drones are coming.

    I am not sure the Americans may want to commit much or any ground troops for this campaign. This is so because after a decade of troop-intensive land wars that have strained the US budgets and left the country war weary, the Americans may rely on using Nigerian soldiers for the campaign. The only problem here is that the US and Nigerian authorities don’t fully trust each other. This may put a limit to cooperation against the present threat. The point is that the US officials are wary of sharing highly sensitive intelligence with the Nigerian government and security services for fear that it cannot be properly safeguarded. This is more so since it is almost glaring that the terrorists have informants within the government and security agencies.

    All these notwithstanding, one way or another, both the US and Nigeria must cooperate in this war against Boko Haram. Nigeria is America’s largest Africa trading partner and its fifth-largest oil supplier. Canada, Britain, France, China and other foreign countries also have interests in Nigeria. Furthermore, Nigeria has, by far, the biggest army in the region where Al-Qaeda’s influence is spreading rapidly. As a result of this, America, Europe and the world surely need Nigeria to curb the rising influence of Islamic extremists and this can only be safely done if the country can be extricated from the stranglehold of terrorism perpetrated by religious extremists. In actual fact, the bitter truth is that countries with common borders with Nigeria that are providing sanctuary for the terrorists and pretending as if nothing is happening   should realise that they will be the next target, once the terrorists are routed from Nigeria. I am talking about Cameroun, Chad, Niger and others.

    It is important to note that terrorism is used by extremist to scare the public into meeting their unfathomable or weird demands. They do this because they believe that if they can spread fear among the populace and cause some sort of panic, then they can exert force and have power over them. It is universally acknowledged that their tactics are generally extremely violent and they will do whatever is necessary to strike fear into the hearts of those they perceive to be their enemy. This now brings us to what can be done to combat terrorism. Is there any way that we can keep ourselves safe from these extremists?

    As we all know, combating terrorism is no tea party. It is a task that cannot be achieved overnight. It is a long struggle that could be quite dangerous as well. However, one of the basic things to do is to find out all of the methods that these terrorists use and understand their strategies. How do they launch attack? In what ways have they been most successful? If all the ways they may attack could be understood, it will be much easier to set up defences and stop them in their tracks before they inflict any harm. Once where they will attack is known, then strategies could be mapped out to either stop them or neutralise them.

    Above all, one of the greatest weapons that can be used to combat terrorism is to simply get citizens involved and make sure they understand how important it is to report anything that is out of place. That is what is called Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting Initiative in the US.  Having the citizens get involved is one of the most powerful ways to combat terrorism. It can give the authorities thousands of eyes and ears to watch for suspicious behaviours. In addition, terrorism is something that can be stopped. When a terrible act occurs, it is important that the act does not go unpunished like it happens in Nigeria. If the terrorists believe that they can successfully attack and escape without harm, they will become emboldened and more vicious. That is why Boko Haram has festered to this monstrosity.

  • Ambush on May Day

    Ambush on May Day

    May 1 or May Day of every year is a day set aside all over the world to celebrate the toiling and suffering workers who bear the brunt of sustaining global economy. Different countries have their unique styles of celebrating the day. In Nigeria, the tradition is a public holiday when workers congregate to undertake official march past and other forms of pageantry.

    So, ordinarily, this year’s Workers’ Day, which was marked in Nigeria last Wednesday, followed the same old tradition. At the Eagle Square, Abuja, where President, Goodluck Jonathan, was physically present, the leadership of the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, and Trade Union Congress of Nigeria, TUC, seized the opportunity presented by the occasion, to rub it in on the government that “unbridled political interests were hampering the war against terrorism”. It lamented that “despite enormous resources voted into maintaining security, the fight against terror has been far from being won partly due to the various conflicting political interests in the country”.

    In his address, Abdulwaheed Omar, the NLC President said, “In spite of government’s effort, the situation in the North-east is deteriorating. The initial gains of emergency rule clearly have been lost and the momentum squandered. Indeed, the choice of target, regularity of strikes, weapons used, co-ordination and sophistication of their operations make them not only the leading group to dread. We feel seriously concerned about the state of the nation’s security infrastructure”. According to Omar,   “It is immoral to play politics with the lives of the people. We are almost certain that if anyone was left in doubt about the universality of this war, the Nyayan bomb blast erased all of that”.

    Barely few hours after, as if to prove that they can never be cowed no matter what, the Boko Haram terrorists were on their devilish best as they hid under the approaching cover of darkness to, once more, detonate another lethal ware right inside the Nyayan Motor Park in Abuja. The first twin-bomb attack in the nation’s capital after about two years lull occurred at the same park in the early morning of April 14. The latest attack is coming on the heels of mass protests that have engulfed the country in the wake of the abduction of more than 240 schoolgirls from Chibok, Borno State, North-east of Nigeria.

    Recently, a surfeit of protests took over the nation’s landscape. From Chibok to Abuja, Lagos, Ilorin, Kano, Ibadan and other major cities, women in their hundreds brandishing leaves took to the streets to register their discomfort over what their leaders termed “government’s lethargic approach” to this nagging issue of mass abduction of innocent school children who were writing their final examinations. The women are right. So also are all Nigerians united in the clamour to free these school children from their captors and end the terrible nightmare their parents, siblings and loved ones are currently experiencing. But that is easier said than done. The ease, frequency and devastations of these terrorists’ attacks on hapless and defenceless Nigerians are creating more than enough worries in the country and in the global community.

    Let us look at the scenario like this. At the May Day celebrations in Abuja, the President had said that those who participated in the Nyayan bomb blast on April 14 would not escape justice. The same day, another devastating bomb blast erupted right inside the same motor park. What the terrorists simply demonstrated by this was that the President could continue to threaten hell and brimstone, while, they, in turn, would always have their way anytime, anywhere.

    A few days to the abduction of the Chibok schoolgirls, Abubakar Shekau, the leader of the Boko Haram terrorists had, in a video broadcast, confidently told a bewildered world that his agents were everywhere, including Abuja, ready to strike whenever the call for satanic exploits come calling. A few days after, his agents struck in Nyayan Park, killing about 80 people while close to 200 were either injured, some seriously, or maimed for life. That same day, his agents swooped on Chibok and forcefully made a way with more than 240 school children. Again, now, they have struck at the same spot in Abuja. This is a national embarrassment, a calamity of unquantifiable magnitude.

    The latest Nyayan bomb attack is eliciting various reactions from the government and other stakeholders, including, of course, the native settlers of Nyayan who can safely be referred to as the land owners. In the wake of the attack last week, a spokesman for the community expressed the frustration of the people over the spate of bomb attacks in the community in recent times and threatened that the community would mobilise and storm the National Assembly to register their disgust if nothing was done urgently to restore normalcy to the area.

    The threat by the Nyayan community underscores the general feeling of bewilderment in the country over the inability of the security agencies to stem the growing tide of killings. Perhaps, it was to assuage the feelings of the populace that the government held an expanded security meeting in Abuja last week. A fall-out of the meeting was the setting-up of a fact-finding committee headed by Brig General Ibrahim Sabo. The committee is saddled with the responsibility of providing the government with reliable information on the whereabouts of the abducted Chibok schoolgirls.

    The choice of Sabo, ex-boss of the dreaded Directorate of Military Intelligence, DMI, during the late General Sani Abacha’s Gestapo-like military dictatorship, is quite understandable. Under his watch as DMI boss, Sabo was like the lord of the Manor. At the beginning of the current Boko Haram crisis, suspicions were rife that a renegade group of the Abacha goons might have had a hand in the crisis in order to draw attention to them. This may or may not be true. But according to a Yoruba proverb: “Omo ina la n ran sina”, meaning “to get at a wild fire, you need to go through a lesser fire”.

    Without mincing words, the latest barrage of explosions in Abuja appears to be the handiwork of fifth columnists bent on destabilising the country through the instrumentality of chaos. In a speech some years ago, the President had alluded to the fact that the Boko Haram terrorism is a cankerworm that has spread its tentacles everywhere – in the government, security agencies and other places. The President may have exonerated his cabinet in his last Sunday’s media chat, but with all that are now happening; it is most certainly that palpable disloyalty exists among the President’s aides and within the security agencies.

    Perhaps, the time has now come for the President to embark on a general house cleaning in order to save him from consistent embarrassment and save the poor, innocent Nigerians who are daily being gruesomely massacred from avoidable deaths. Like the late Chinua Achebe said in his book, A Man of the People, “the thieves have taken enough for the owners to notice”. If I may apply this most appropriately in this context, the Boko Haram terrorists, their sponsors and or collaborators, have done incalculable harm to the country and humanity, so much that their  temerity should now be stopped by all available means possible.

    This is no time to engage in unnecessary finger-pointing; we have all failed this country. It is as if we are bereft of leaders in this part of the world, as everybody with the least opportunity to be in government now scampers for the filthy lucre rather than provide purposeful leadership designed to extricate the country from its present moral and socio-economic miasma. We can only defeat these terrorists if we all come together and say “enough is enough!” Without this, our children, our brethren, our generation and the entire country will be the worse for it. Nigeria has the potential to be great but this God-given opportunity is being frittered away on the altar of corruption and avarice. We have the manpower, the natural resources and everything to make us great, but our country seems to be operating a plethora of misplaced priorities.

  • Romancing terrorism … (2)

    Romancing terrorism … (2)

    In recent times, Nigeria has been bedevilled by all sorts of vices and problems so much that when the country is trying to solve one, another one or so many other new problems tumble in. The rapidity and speed with which these problems manifest on a daily, if not on an hourly basis, has become worrisome to the extent that it appears there is a deliberate machination by some people or a group of people to shuffle the country, Nigeria, into history. And then the whole issues of Nigeria, as we now know it, may become “Once upon a time” or in the true sense of it, something akin to the late Chinua Achebe’s most controversial book, ‘There was a country’.

    I am neither a Prophet of doom nor someone who does not believe in the indissolubility of Nigeria. If you ask me, I believe in one Nigeria, a country that is so richly blessed with human and natural resources capable of making the most populous country in black Africa, the envy of the whole world. Our strength lies in our diversity as a nation. However, recent events in the country, especially the ones being stage-managed by our so-called politicians, have tended to erode my confidence in the ability of this country to further carry on as one indivisible entity for too long. In short, it is like saying that the country is now being stretched beyond its elasticity and, when that happens, the possibility of breaking apart becomes very real like the dawn of another day.

    In years past, our worries were about bribery and corruption, nepotism and all that, which were the fulcrum of the January 15, 1966 coup led by Major Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu and some other middle-level officers in the Army. That coup infuriated young army officers from a section of the country who saw the mass killing of politicians by the coup makers as a ploy to eliminate notable figures from their section of the country to pave the way for domination by another section of the country as represented by the major actors in the January 1966 coup. It was this feeling of despair that eventually crystallised in the July 29, 1966 counter-coup, which invariably set the stage for the 30-month Nigeria Civil War that followed from May 1967 to January 1970.

    From what is happening now, it is as if the war was only meant to settle scores between a particular ethnic cum tribal group and another in the country. This argument is more germane because those vices, that is, bribery, corruption and nepotism, are not only still prevalent in today’s Nigeria, they have been elevated to a higher pedestal as they have now become a state religion which everybody, old and young, now worships. The worshipers are no longer the “10 percenters” as Nzeogwu puts it in his coup broadcast, they have moved far ahead to a thousand percent and even more. If we aggregate the level of stealing, pilfering, forgery, and other fraudulent activities and official corruption that pervade our system today, anybody who still has some dose of patriotism flowing in his blood stream will weep for this country. It is as if the country is on a free-fall to an irretrievable perdition.

    As if the monster of corruption in our body politic is not enough to asphyxiate us from existence, from 1999, particularly since the advent of the current democratic experience, the country has become vulnerable to all manner of crimes and criminalities previously unknown in this part of the world. While endemic corruption has taken over our public and private lives, those who are not opportune to hold public offices, which are now regarded as shortcuts to affluence, have devised various ingenious methods to acquire ill-gotten wealth. Perhaps, to rub salt into our festering wounds, in the last five years, a new sinister dimension has been added to the catalogue of woes confronting the country. These are the current rapacious, debilitating and devastating acts of terrorism which have now become a national cankerworm. Many a commentator on national affairs are quick to lay the blame on the extra-judicial killing of Mohammed Yusuff, the leader of the religious sect now popularly known as Boko Haram, which means “Western education is bad”, and scores of his followers in Maiduguri in July, 2009. Not much has been written about how the sect was nurtured, the leadership structure and all that.

    We have been told that the late Yusuff and his band of ragtag army actually confronted the security agents in Maiduguri in 2009, leading to several deaths. Many properties were also torched, looted or out rightly vandalised. For quite some time, we have been sentimental about the casualties and damages caused by the Boko Haram uprising that has now engulfed a large section of the country. But why will a so-called religious group turn so bloody in the propagation of their so-called religious ideology? As for me, what I see is that beyond this religious shroud is a political undertone which goes beyond fighting Jonathan’s Presidency. What is going on is a well-calculated broad-based agenda to completely take over this country by violence using religion as a veil. In the last few years, I have been talking to people within and outside this country who can see beyond the narrow prism of politics and decipher what is actually going on. One thing to note is that until late last year, no notable figure in the Northern part of the country has ever raised his or her voice to condemn, in its entirety, the brigandage being unleashed on that part of the country even though the rampaging sect had completely destroyed the little they had since 2009. Even then, what the few notable figures have done so far appears too little, too late.

    Today, we talk about the impoverished North. Who are those responsible for this impoverishment of the people? Of course, it is a documented fact that in the 54 years of Nigeria’s independence, elements from the northern part of the country have ruled the country for more than two-thirds of the period under review, leaving a miserable one-third of the period to the rest of the country to grapple with. Go through the records of the Federal Civil Service, you will find out that the list is top heavy with the names of people from a certain part of the country. In the few instances where others hold sway, they are more or less like figureheads as they are ensconced among these powerful people who virtually live on government and government’s patronage all their lives. That is one aspect of our national life, and this attitude is replicated in all aspects of our existence as a nation – a situation where everybody worships at the feet of a powerful few.

    Nothing quite illustrates the existential anomaly in the system more than what Bola Dada, a retired diplomat, unveiled in his recent interview in a national daily where he chronicled his experiences in international affairs as a former diplomat, especially his experience in Sudan. Titled “I was chased out of Sudan when I raised the alarm about Boko Haram”, Dada said, at a point during his stay in Sudan, a former governor of a northern state, now a senator of the Federal Republic, “was in Sudan for two weeks and underwent indoctrination.” He also said the former governor was “exposed to all the training camps of Osama Bin Laden,” who incidentally was Dada’s neighbour. According to Dada, “Osama Bin Laden also had many firms and industries which he only used as a façade because he was actually using those firms as training camps for Al-Qaeda. Among his trainees were many Nigerians from the North. They would leave Nigeria as if they were going to study but were at the training camps of Osama Bin Laden”. He said “the former governor got back to Nigeria and the following day, he declared Sharia. And from then, they were sending students for Jihadist training… As far as I am concerned, Boko Haram is an offshoot of Sharia”.

  • Romancing terrorism (1)

    Romancing terrorism (1)

    The dust raised by last week’s early morning bombing of the bustling Nyayan motor park located on the outskirts of Abuja, Nigeria’s federal capital city and seat of government, is yet to settle down. Surprisingly, as if to really demonstrate that they are actually in charge, after the blast in Abuja, the terrorist moved to Girls’ Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State and swooped on the students writing the ongoing West African Senior School Certificate Examination, WASSCE. There, they abducted about 129 girls. According to reports, the operation lasted for more than six hours – from 9pm till about 3am – without any challenge coming from the security agencies. The whereabouts of majority of the girls is still shrouded in mystery.

    With the recent developments, it is pertinent to reappraise the whole campaign against terror in Nigeria. The Boko Haram episode may have escalated in 2009 but the truth is that the whole thing was planned by Nigerians for a long time before the bloody skirmishes that eventually unfolded in 2009. Many of the foot soldiers and their commanders had received extensive training in some West African countries as well as some Middle East countries before that bloody encounter.

    Some years ago, the Chief of Defence Staff of Niger Republic had intimated the Defence Headquaters in Nigeria that they arrested about 600 Nigerians who were in their custody in Niger Republic. They were allegedly sniffed out of their training camps in Niger Republic. Regrettably, the Nigerian authorities did not follow up this piece of information, and when Niamey could no longer cope, she merely allowed the people to go their own way. At about the same time, in the wake of the overthrow of Muamar Gaddafi, the Chief of Defence Staff of Mali also inundated the Defence Headquarters in Nigeria that a whole brigade of Libyan fighters had taken over Northern Mali and cried out for help from Nigeria to confront them and chase them away. Again, the Nigerian authorities, as usual, turned a deaf ear.

    It was at this point that the French government was contacted and subsequently, French troops stepped in and rained bombs on them in the hills of northern Mali. By the time they were dislodged from Mali, they left Mali and settled in Sambissa Forest, from where they recruited a good number of fighters in the northeast of the country to wage war on Nigeria. Though they are using Nigerians as foot soldiers, most of their commanders are not Nigerians. Majority of them are Libyans, which account for the speculation in military circles that some of the dead bodies found at Sambissa forest after each military encounter, were more like bodies of people of Arab descent and other non-Nigerians. Besides, the Libyans and others of Arab descent now pillaging the country, many Nigerians have also visited such countries as Iran, South Yemen, Iraq and others for terrorists’ training. They usually go there under the pretence that they were going to study.

    Unfortunately, our intelligence network in this country is at best comatose. The Department of State Security that has statutory responsibility of carrying out internal surveillance and intelligence gathering seems not to be doing much. Instead, its lean manpower resources are being dissipated as VIP escorts for politicians rather than concentrating on their primary duties. It is sad to note that up till date, no single person has been fingered as one of the sponsors of these terrorists’ acts in the country. You only see the security agencies running after the inconsequential foot soldiers while the big guns are moving freely. I believe that the reason for this lackadaisical attitude is that somebody or some people somewhere don’t want to offend anybody and, therefore, are more inclined to cover up rather than expose those behind these devilish perpetrations.

    The other day during the Anambra State election, I saw SSS operatives with buses marked DSS and uniforms. I challenged anybody to tell me that he or she has ever seen any bus or operatives of the Central Intelligence Agency, CIA, going about in buses marked CIA or in uniform with CIA boldly written on the shirt or T-shirt. Today in Nigeria, every Tom, Dick and Harry, particularly politicians and even fraudsters have SSS escorts assigned to them. At the Nigeria Intelligence Agency, NIA, the story is worse. That agency is as dead as dodo.

    At the onset of the Boko Haram insurgency, the SSS members who were sent to spy on the sect members soon became more Boko Haram than the sect members they were detailed to spy on. Today, you have virtually all members of the security agencies – Military, Police, SSS, Customs, Immigration, Prison officers and others – who are active members of Boko Haram. That is why the ongoing war may be difficult to win. At present, the army is seriously overstretched in maintaining internal security. It has less than 88,000 men, the navy 12,000, the Air force about 11,000 while the police has 350,000 men or thereabout in its nominal roll. Since the incumbent Inspector General of Police withdrew policemen from checkpoints, what have they been doing to fight crime and criminality?

    The only way out of the present quagmire is to go back to the drawing board and like this column has always advocated, let us close our borders with Niger, Chad and Cameroun. These terrorists are domiciled in Northern Cameroun, which is far from Douala, the capital. That is why the Camerounian authorities are less perturbed. All these countries mentioned have fallen to the intimidation of these terrorists who may have simply told them: “If you don’t allow us to operate in your territory, we would turn our guns against you.” That is why all these countries that share boarders with us are not raising a finger against the terrorists. They are comfortable as far as the heat is not on them.

    I believe the best way to regain total control of Nigeria’s territory is for the military to embark on a grand assault of the hills and forests in the North-east. They could do what the United States did to Osama Bin Laden at Tora Bora in Afghanistan. They should engage in indiscriminate bombing of the hills and forests even if it means dropping napalm bombs ceaselessly for about a week. That was what the US did in Afghanistan and Bin Laden was forced to take to his heels when the caves where he had taken cover came crashing under the crushing weight of the devastating bombs. He fled to neighbouring Pakistan and finally pitched his tent at Abbotabad where the US Marines finally dealt him a deadly blow. So, the Nigeria Air Force must take up that role. If the terrorists are hiding inside the caves in the hills, they will collapse in the face of intense carpet bombing.

    Above all, there must be a joint information room for all the services so as to be able to properly coordinate this anti-terror campaign. The situation where the security agencies do not share information is bad enough. Even where, may be, the military gives information to the SSS, the service goes and takes the credit. As for the police, they are not known for sharing information with any sister agency no matter what.

    The other day, Alex Badeh, the new Chief of Defence Staff, said the role of the military is to confront the terrorists while the civilian authorities will do the politically-needful. He is right. Now, what is the role of emirs, politicians and elders in this fight? A closer look at the tactics of these Boko Haram terrorists shows clearly that they rely more on people drawn from the lowest cadre of the social ladder to fight their war. These are shoe shiners, mairuwa (water vendors), and other artisans. Remember that they used a firewood truck in the bombing in Maiduguri sometimes ago. The fact remains that the security agencies have as much information as possible at their disposal, what is left is the ability to piece them together and do the needful. May God help us; help Nigeria!

    • To be continued

     

  • Ogbechie Vs INEC

    Ogbechie Vs INEC

    I recently stumbled on a story in one of the national dailies. It was captioned “Journalist wins contract breach case against INEC”. The story reads: “For breaching the payment of N7.5 million to Godson & Godman Ventures Limited, a Federal Capital Territory (FCT) High Court sitting in Apo has ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to pay the firm the sum and a 10 per cent interest, running from the day of the judgment until the debt is liquidated. Justice U.P. Kekemeke gave the order in the case brought against INEC by Ken Ugbechie, a former editor of Daily Times, for the media consultancy and publishing firm. INEC was not represented in court.

    “Ugbechie had dragged INEC before an Abuja High Court over the agency’s alleged refusal to pay him for contract executed… In his statement of claim, Ugbechie said his company was, on January 19, 2010, awarded contract to inspire and generate expository articles, commentaries, news analysis, editorial and comments, among others, to sufficiently enlighten the electorate on all that the commission was doing to ensure a hitch-free 2011 general elections. He averred in an affidavit in support of the suit that the said contract was thoroughly verified by INEC officers after completion. According to him, despite repeated demands, the defendant has refused to pay the said N7.5 million due his company since the execution of the contract.

    “He added that after the receipt of the plaintiff’s solicitors’ demand letter, the defendant referred the matter to its Alternative Dispute Resolution, ADR, Department, adding that his lawyer also had a meeting with the director of ADR, wherein it was decided that the matter be referred to the Public Affairs Department for confirmation. According to him, the department had since confirmed that the contract was creditably executed by the plaintiff, but despite this, the defendant would not pay the said contract sum”.

    This is a landmark judgement delivered against a recalcitrant federal agency which had elected to trample on the rights of an individual who had no other option than to approach the court for protection. Many journalists have, in the past, fallen victims to this type of crooked treatment in the hands of highly placed individuals and government officials who take delight in “using and dumping” these professionals at their whims and caprices.

    Now, let us analyse this judgement. The “undefended list procedure” is a procedure within the Abuja legal jurisdiction and contained in the Abuja High Court (Civil Procedure) Rules. It is similar to the summary judgment procedure in the rules of the Lagos High court. The procedure is adopted in both jurisdictions to provide an easier and faster avenue to determine cases which are straightforward and not likely to go to trial as the defendant, in most cases, is expected to admit the claims brought against him.

    Basically, the plaintiff, that is, the party instituting the suit, believes that the defendant has no defence – hence the resort to this time-saving procedure. The plaintiff will state this in his affidavit in support and attach all relevant documents, which must naturally point unmistakably to the defendant’s liability for the claims against him. The matter should be so straightforward that an independent observer examining the documents can reach the conclusion that there is an obligation left to be performed by the defendant.

    The procedure is usually employed for cases of debt arising from simple contracts and monetary claims generally. However, the monetary claim must be liquidated or ascertainable by simple means, but in practice, plaintiffs will include the total figure for which they claim so as to save the court from making any arduous calculations. The snag here is that the suit cannot be initiated until the judge has read through the processes and is satisfied that it merits inclusion in the “undefended list”. Otherwise, it is sent to the general cause list, which is naturally for contentious matters where issues will be joined. In this case, Ogbechie must have had all his documents intact, which on the surface shows that there is some money to be paid and the judge must have been satisfied that it is a straight-forward debt recovery case and that the documents were sufficient to support his claim.

    According to the story, INEC did not make any appearance at the suit, even after it was served with notice of the suit. This is not unusual in this kind of cases. Ordinarily, the plaintiff must serve the defendant with the processes after the judge must have given leave to include it in the undefended list. The defendant in turn is expected to file his notice of intention to defend, together with an affidavit disclosing a defence within five days to the date on which the case is set for hearing. The judge will consider the affidavit and if it discloses a valid defence, the defendant will be granted leave to defend the suit and the case will be transferred to the general cause list.

    If the judge cannot find a valid defence in the filed affidavit, or the defendant fails to file anything before the date for hearing, the judge’s only duty is to grant judgment against the defendant on the said date, and no more. That is the situation in this case as INEC did not make any appearance at all; talk less of filing an affidavit disclosing a defence. The law is clear on this point. The judgment given will be valid and can be enforced just as any other judgment.

    It is not uncommon for the court to make an order for post-judgment interest when it gives a monetary judgment. This is done to dissuade judgment debtors from sitting pretty and dragging their feet over payment of a sum granted against them. However, for the order to be made, the plaintiff or judgment creditor must have included it in its reliefs. The court does not award benefits that are not sought. It was a good thing that the lawyers to Ogbechie included this in their reliefs and the interest continues to read for as long as INEC refuses or fails to pay the sum.

    ADR is a substitute to litigation which should be explored by disputing parties more regularly. It will help to clear the courts of many cases, especially frivolous suits that only require patience and understanding between the parties to resolve. People include this clause in their agreements but still run to the law courts at the first sign of trouble. Others do not honour the clause, or if other forms of ADR are adopted, they do not abide by the resolutions or decisions reached, leading them, eventually, to litigation.

    The case here is a classic example of a government agency which, according to the story, even has a dedicated ADR Department. Unfortunately, the department has little effect on the operations or the enforceability of any resolutions reached. The courts still had to be visited in this straight-forward matter of “A” provides certain services at agreed rate that “B” refuses to pay. Where government agencies rubbish the ADR process, how will private individuals be encouraged to adopt it? The ADR that is systematically being introduced by the courts themselves has not been received as well as expected by the same populace that decries the snail’s pace of justice.

    Government agencies should be at the forefront of the efforts to increase the acceptability of ADR procedures by their responsible adoption of it. As INEC has shown, that is not the case. One need not go into the list of cases against government agencies in courts. It will not be surprising if it is found that such cases constitute 30 percent of the case load in most jurisdictions. Individual citizens can be unruly and uncivil, but governments in Nigeria and their agencies, including the federal government, are at the forefront of uncivilised practices that include reckless disregard of the law and its machinery through incessant breach of contracts and trampling on the rights of private citizens. Certainly, there are lessons to be learnt from this judgement!