Bishop Josef Bassey is President of Cross River State Christian Leaders’ Forum and Bishop of God’s Heritage Centre, Gloryland Calabar. He spoke with Sunday Oguntola on terrorism and other issues. Excerpts:
One has not heard from you lately. Are you hiding or something?
No, we are not hiding. We are doing our job. We are speaking but probably you have not been in places where we talk.
How is the church doing?
We are doing well, trying to look at our core values. We are trying to restore our core values of humanity.
Are you in support of the proposed amnesty programme for members of the Boko Haram sect?
Amnesty for Boko Haram? What is Boko Haram? What cause are they fighting? They burn churches and kill Christians yet we are talking about amnesty! Is it because of the utmost restraint that kept Christians from retaliating? So, if there is amnesty for Boko Haram, what becomes of their victims? The government that pledges to protect the existence of the nation should not be giving amnesty to a group that threatens the very existence of that nation.
But don’t you think since the sect has done its worst, isn’t it time to just forgive them and move on?
Yes, they have done their worst but we are missing something. While they were killing and burning churches, a lot of efforts were going on on the part of Christians to pacify and restrain them from avenging. It takes two to have a war situation. What they have been doing is a direct attack on Christianity; they were burning churches and bombing worshippers during services. All that was required was a response, which we did not do.
We are not cowards and it is not as if we are incapacitated. There is no religion that has monopoly of violence. There is enough provision in the scriptures for us to fight and protect our faith. That we pursue the path of peace at a great cost, trying to protect the nation and keep it as one, does not mean we are timid. So, when you turn around to grant amnesty without justice, then you are really provoking us.
Some people are saying since Christians preach forgiveness all the time, isn’t it time to demonstrate it?
Amnesty is not forgiveness. When government begins to grant amnesty without qualifying it, then there is a problem. There are prisoners who are repentant across the nation, they are the ones government should grant amnesty to, not unrepentant terrorists. Boko Haram members do not deserve amnesty because they are bloody terrorists.
I hear people saying the Niger Delta militants and Boko Haram members are similar. I beg to disagree. What the Niger Delta militants were fighting was well known. If you have a people who are being unfairly treated by the deprivations and degradations in their environment through explorations, they deserve to protest.
But I agree how they protested was wrong because there were killings and kidnapping. But we all knew what they were fighting for; we knew the cause. Then, the struggle did not begin one day. The likes of Isaac Boro and Ken Saro- Wiwa died during the struggle. So, let Boko Haram articulate its cause; let it be appreciable and genuine, then we can talk about amnesty, provided they are willing to dialogue.
But these people are fighting a religious cause. They are aggrieved because they want everyone to be Muslims. They believe non-Muslims are infidels and unfit to live.
But isn’t it time to give peace a chance having taken them on militarily?
No, they haven’t really taken them on militarily yet. You need to know what happened in the case of the Niger Delta. There was war in the entire region. There were shoot-outs for days. Many villages were run over by the Armed Forces. None of that has taken place in the north. There has been no meaningful military engagement in the north up till this point and then you turn around to say there should be amnesty? Please, the whole exercise is unfair and painful. In the Niger Delta case, it turned to guerrilla warfare. And there was wisdom because the soldiers were killing people of an entire region without much success. Ordinary people were also buying into the struggle. So, they needed to halt the offensive attacks. But we don’t see that in the north.
So, the situation is totally different with Boko Haram. These people are pursuing total Islamisation of the nation. We have been seeing this pattern before independence. Boko Haram is just an offshoot of that agenda.
I admit we have good Muslims who do not believe in their extreme agenda. Some of us believe there are many good Muslims, which is why we are engaging them. These Boko Haram guys are giving Islam a bad name and we believe Islamic leaders should call them to order. They should dissociate themselves from these blood-thirsty jihadists.
So, amnesty will not work?
It is a failure in progress. It cannot work. What these people want is impossible to achieve. They want Islamisation at all costs. And that will not work. There will always be Christians and Muslims in this country. Boko Haram members do not believe in amnesty. It is like asking Christians to deny their faith at the point of death. That will never happen, no matter what. It is the same with these Boko Haram members. You don’t dangle amnesty like a carrot before them. They don’t believe in it. They have an agenda and will not back down. No amount of inducement or appeasement will deter them. Amnesty is bound to fail.
What will work then?
I believe it is up to Islamic leaders to talk to these people. They are the ones that can dissuade them. They have to engage them and show them how what they are doing is denting the Islamic faith. That is the only way I see it. They are their subjects and should be able to debrief them from the radical views they have embraced.
