Northern governors should work with the DSS to flush out Boko Haram sponsors
There is no terror without money. This seems the maxim that has informed the decision of the Northern Governors Forum to inaugurate a committee to flush out Boko Haram sponsors in the North, especially in the Northeast.
Under the chairmanship of the Borno State Governor, Alhaji Kashim Shettima, the forum that comprises 19 states has drafted the attorneys-general and commissioners for justice of the member-states as members of the committee.
“The days of the deadly sect are numbered, considering the current bombardments of the insurgents by the troops,” commented Governor Shettima when the committee was being inaugurated.
We commend the establishment of the committee. Though a bit late in coming, it is better now than never. This is because we expected that this committee should have revved into action years ago, especially when the fanatics were making quick work of the cities and villages in the region. Many families were displaced. Infrastructure was paralysed and the effectiveness of government was curtailed as the bandits roared from town to town and hoisted flags.
The committee has been given a two-month deadline to accomplish its tasks. Although the identification and mechanics of funding of the sponsors form its major assignment, the committee will also extend its searchlight to the ancillary surge of evil in the region. They include cattle rustling, armed robbery and kidnapping.
The Borno State governor-chaired committee would also analyse the “various emergent security challenges confronting the northern states and determine how best to incorporate them into the penal code for proper and effective administration of justice.” But it is not intended to conflict with the 1999 constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
This involves, according to Governor Shettima, a review of the Penal Code with a view to identifying the weaknesses and strength of the existing arrangement of the criminal justice system. He noted that while the committee should “look at the condemnable activities of the sponsors of the insurgency,” it should “come up with legally pragmatic, appropriate and proportionate punishment.”
The committee is also expected to probe the complicity of families. Said the Borno State governor: “The committee should also focus on parents who because of some pittance sacrifice their children as suicide bombers. Such parents must be made to face the full wrath of the law.”
During the Jonathan administration the issue of who backed the insurgents never enjoyed any systematic attention. Rather, it fell into the web of politics and ethnic recriminations. So while politicians and tribal warlords bickered over who fuelled the militants, the innocents in the region groaned. Many women were whisked away from their homes and numberless maidens raped and taken as wives. Young men were drafted into their ranks while the reach of government power shrunk.
Governor Shettima was at odds with the Jonathan government and he was made to look like an alarmist when he observed that the insurgents were better armed than the Nigerian Army. This disconnect between local politicians and the Jonathan administration that hardly visited the region could have partly explained the belated setting up of the committee.
Now that the committee has swung into action, we expect results. There are good signs from the recent campaigns of our military. The President, Muhammadu Buhari, moved the command from Abuja to Maiduguri. That has perhaps explained the successes so far, and the military has set a deadline to dispatch the goons.
Still, the insurgents seem to be regrouping. They have found it difficult to coalesce into standing armies and can no longer conquer territories and dislodge the Nigerian Army. So they now resort to guerrilla tactics. Suicide bombs have become their new staple.
The twin bomb blasts in Abuja; and the double bomb blast in Maiduguri, killing 42 worshippers during evening prayers on Thursday October 16, and a follow-up attack on Friday morning, on October 16, underscore the need for the Nigerian political elite and governments to rejig strategies for dealing with the scourge.
But while the state governments in the North have a responsibility to examine the roots and whereabouts of the sponsors, the real tasks lie with the federal intelligence agencies, especially with the Department of State Security (DSS). It is their duty to monitor, track and locate the sponsors.
But from arrests made in recent months, it is clear that a variety of persons in the North back the terrorists, and that shows that a lot of work needs to be done to root out the collaborators. In August, for instance, 30 shop owners were arrested in a raid at Benishiekh and Mainak towns of kanga Local Government Area of Borno state.
More recently, one Mohammed Maina was arrested with money and stimulants. These arrests should be not be ends in themselves but means to an end. They can be used to track their comings and goings and their associations so as to reach their centres of organisation.
The Northern Governors Forum has done a good thing, but they have to work with the intelligence agencies to subdue the insurgency.
