The state of insecurity in our country is mind boggling, there is renewed Boko Haram offensive in parts of the North particularly in the Northeast leaving thousands of Nigerians dead and valuable property destroyed including millions displaced from their homes because of the activities of terrorists. Nigeria has never had it so bad in terms of insecurity. It is against this background that the sacking and replacement of Service Chiefs ought to be x-rayed considering the monumental challenges on governance precipitated by increasing wave of terrorism in the land.
Given this scenario, how can the threat posed by Boko Haram insurgency be confronted and Buhariadministration deliver on its promises on the economy, infrastructure, corruption and security?
This intervention is meant to offer ideas to the new service chiefs on the way forward having regard to best practices including international standards and models for dealing with terror.
Studies particularly findings sourced from international organisations and agencies including United Nation Office on Drugs and Crime, Global Terrorist Database (GTD), Global Terrorism Index (GTI), Country Reports on Terrorism complied by the United States Department for States, Global Study carried out by the London based Institute for Economic and Peace and United Nation’s Global Counter Terrorism Strategy 2006, 2008, 2010, 2012 and 2014 and various international conventions to counter terrorism including, the Legislative Guide to the Universal Anti-terrorism Conventions and Protocols have recommended five major measures generally associated with terrorism prevention and control. These five measures are hereby recommended to the new service chiefs for dealing with the Boko Haram scourge in the belief that all measures to wear down the terrorists must be deployed in the interest of the Nigerian state.
The recommended five measures are as follows: i. Measures aimed at addressing the planning and preparation for terrorist activities.
ii.Measures to counter financing and perpetration of acts of terror. iii. Countering terrorism by ensuring the criminalisation and penalisation of acts amounting to terror. iv. Ensuring international cooperation in the area of controlling terrorism; and
v.Establishing mechanisms for periodic reviews and strategic monitoring of the compliance regime with international counter-terrorism measures.
Under the first measures, what is contemplated is addressing conditions conducive to the spread of terrorism, including the Boko Haram insurgency. This implies investigating the root causes of the Boko Haram insurgency and deploying mechanisms and institutional support to address those root causes including local grievances. The security chiefs may have to in collaboration with institutions of governance address the nature of conflicts in Nigeria particularly the extent to which such conflicts creates conducive environment for the growth and development of terrorism. The focus should be on issues bordering on marginalisation, fiscal federalism, resource control, poverty, religious extremism, ignorance, illiteracy, disease, collapsing infrastructure, discrimination, structural inbalances, corruption, impunity, treasury looting and other factors capable of precipitating the formation and development of terrorists groups in Nigeria. It is in this sense that investigation by way of sociological study proposed by Mr. President is timely, urgent and relevant.
The second measures also require the deployment of intelligence gathering and technique with precision, monitoring and efficiency. It is important to investigate the sources of funding of these terrorists. Who are their sponsors? What is the source of their funding? Where did they get their arms and ammunitions from? And who are funding these sources and supplies? Where did theyprocure their vehicles and equipment and who is paying for these services? Unless the service chiefs focus their searchlight on the financing of Boko Haram activities and deploy energy and resources to block these sources of funding, the quest to rid the country of their activities may remain illusory.
The third measures recommended to the service chiefs are ensuring the criminalisation of acts amounting to terror. This will involve placing the investigative, prosecutorial, adjudicatory agencies on red alert to deliver maximum punishment to terrorists act including ensuring adequate mechanism for prompt diligent and swift punishment of those involved in these mindless acts of terrorism against the Nigerian nation and its peoples.
The fourth category of measures is the element of international cooperation which is very critical and fundamental. The service chiefs must ensure cooperation and collaboration first with the diverse entity that make up the Nigerian federation because except Nigerians unite to fight this course rather than indulging in blame game and politicization, our efforts would come to naught. It is not useful to conceive Boko Haram as merely religious, political, economic or acts of mere sabotage. It is perhaps useful to see it as a combination of all of these and more. In summary, it is more useful to see it as evil and deal with it as such – evil against progress, evil against humanity as a whole. Beyond these, we need to seek the cooperation of our neighbouring countries such as Niger, Chad, Cameroon and other countries within the West African Sub-region in terms of sub-regional task forces and the sharing of intelligence and information. Cooperation must also be enlisted at the regional level, at the level of the commonwealth and at the level of the United Nations. Unless international cooperation is enlisted, it will be difficult to trace and prevent movements of terrorists, movements of finances and supplies of equipment and other instruments of warfare deployed so savagely by the terrorists.
The fifth category of measures entails establishing mechanisms for periodic reviews and strategic monitoring of compliance regime with international counter-terrorism measures. These categories of measures are important in that terrorist methods and tactics are constantly changing with implications that counter-terrorism measures must also respond to these changes as they unfold. These responses cannot be effective and efficient in the absence of periodic reviews and strategic monitoring. These would ensure that Nigeria is in tune with international standards and best practices in dealing with the scourge of Boko Haram.
It is in this sense that we need to keep close contact with the United Nations Global Counter Terrorism strategy which reveals responses for dealing with terrorism every two year interval. In our own situation since we are dealing with daily attacks, the service chiefs may need to constitute a standby task force and think thank that would be thinking twenty four hours on their feet and offering suggestions and alternative approaches for dealing with the scourge
It is also suggested that without prejudice to the foregoing, authorities should endeavor to put all options on the table without foreclosing the deployment of any of the options if Boko Haram is to be brought to a standstill. The options that could be explored include: dialogue, offer of amnesty, negotiations and the use of military force depending on situations and circumstances.
The realization that security is the major item on the agenda for now may be the key to our collective survival before we start addressing other governance issues.
Fundamentally, the service chiefs in prosecuting the war against Boko Haram ought to be guided by international standards and best practices including respect for the international rules of engagement, international law, international humanitarian law, international refugee law and international human rights law.
In summary, the service chiefs may wish to be guided by the elements of a book titled ‘The Present’ which I have just read providing for the following salient fundamentals:
The service chiefs should forget the past happenings but learn from those happenings as a matter of strategy and tactics.
The service chiefs should then be guided by the present realities meaning they should always focus on the present problems and how to deal with them.
The service chiefs should plan ahead drawing lessons from previous occurrences and focusing on the most important problems and challenges of the present.
Lastly, the service chiefs should regularly review developments and priotise strategies to deal with these developments as they emerge.
Finally, the Buhari administration is advised to redesign, reconfigure and retool its developmental agenda to emphasise security, security and security.
