The Nation Newspaper

Tag: boko haram

  • Protesters to Jonathan: we want abducted girls back

    Protesters to Jonathan: we want abducted girls back

    Scores march on Fashola’s office

    Chibok elders: Fed Govt has failed us

    Presidency may opt for dialogue

    Scores of indigenes of Kibaku, a community in Chibok, the troubled Borno State town where 234 school girls were abducted by Boko Haram, marched yesterday on Lagos Governor Babatunde Fashola’s office.
    The protesters, including women and children, under the aegis of the Lagos State chapter of Chibok Youth Association, pleaded with Fashola to pass on their grievances to President Goodluck Jonathan and Governor Kashim Shettima of Borno State. They should ensure the safe return of the abducted girls, the angry crowd said.
    The leader of the group, Mr. Yahaya Chiwar, said the decision to take their grievances to the governor was due to his outstanding track record in securing lives and property of residents of the state.
    Chiwar said the group was worried that 13 days after the girls were abducted, there had been no news from the government concerning their safety or any chance of their being rescued.
    He added that what was more alarming was that after the parents of the abducted girls searched the Sambisa forest, they located the camp where the insurgents were holding the girls and immediately reported to the appropriate authorities, but were dismayed when no action was taken.
    “Our parents had no choice than to come back home to inform the security authorities where the girls were been kept, but Your Excellency, their parents communicated with us yesterday (Sunday) and there is no information whatsoever that these girls have been rescued or at the process of being rescued.
    “Therefore, we as their brothers and we have sisters in Diaspora, we have resolved that we cannot remain silent; we are here because of your commitment to security of lives and properties in the state. We believe the nearest authority to us is you, who is not only the Chief Executive of the State, we believe we can express our grievances to you and you can forward our grievances to the relevant authorities, particularly to President Jonathan.”
    Presenting a letter to Fashola for onward transmission to President Goodluck Jonathan, Chiwar said: “We believe that you will help us to ensure that our voice will be heard.”
    Fashola, in an emotional voice, praised members of the Chibok Youth Association for their courage and selflessness to stand for their daughters and sisters who were unfortunate victims of the nation’s porous security system.
    He condemned the abduction of the girls, describing it as a clear act of hostage-taking, which is unthinkable and dehumanising.
    “One can only imagine the kind of horror and grief the parents of these girls must be feeling, I am a parent myself and I understand it. If my children are ill, I know the kind of frustration, fear and anxiety that I go through when they are ill, not to mention indescribable emotion that the parents of these girls are going through to know whether they are alive and where they are and what conditions they might be in. even the girls themselves, the kind of fear, it must be a traumatic experience for everyone involved”.
    Fashola, however, cautioned the protesters against nursing the thought that nothing was being done to rescue the girls, saying that it is likely that the authorities might be careful not to take steps that would harm the girls in the process of trying to rescue them.
    He encouraged the parents not to lose hope on the safe return of their children.
    Fashola promised to deliver the letter to President Goodluck Jonathan before the close of work on Monday.
    The presidency is weighing its options on how to rescue the abducted girls by Boko Haram gunmen, The Nation learnt yesterday.
    On the cards is a non-violent option, which will require asking some clerics and Northerners respected by the sect to prevail on its leadership to release the girls.
    There are fears that an outright military onslaught may lead to a high casualty.
    But for the death of his brother, Vice-President Namadi Sambo would have started consultations with some would-be mediators. Sambo’s younger brother, Yusuf, a pilot, died on Sunday in a road accident in Abuja.
    Some of those listed for intervention were said to be excited last night because of their “deep concerns” for the girls.
    “Even within Chibok, intelligence report indicated that some of those who abducted the girls were known to the locals. Therefore, there is possibility that the sect has a network base in the area where the school is located,” a source said, adding:
    “What the government is thinking is how to engage every citizen capable of assisting to rescue the girls. This is one of the options.
    “Some of those who can facilitate link with Boko Haram are already being consulted.”
    Replying to a question, the source added: “The ongoing collaboration with some neighbouring countries and intelligence sharing with international organisations is also another option.”
    Another source, who spoke in confidence, said: “I think the non-violent option might be explored because where the girls are kept is heavily fortified.
    “If the troops storm the place with their fury, it will lead to a lot of things, including tragic losses. At the end of the day, the target of rescuing the girls would not be achieved.”
    Contacted last night, the Director of Defence Information, Maj-Gen. Chris Olukolade said: “The search for the school girls is still on. For operational reasons, we cannot give the details.”

  • Chibok elders: Fed Govt has failed us

    Chibok elders: Fed Govt has failed us

    Elders of Chibok community in Borno State, where 234 girls were abducted by  Boko Haram gunmen,  yesterday alleged that the Federal Government had failed in its responsibility of rescuing the girls, two weeks after they were taken hostages.
    Leader of the Chibok Elders Forum (CHEF) Dr. Pogu Bitrus, said 43 girls  escaped from their captors; others are still being held in the forest by suspected insurgents.
    He said: “As the Federal Government has failed to rescue these abducted girls, we as elders; have now handed our case over to the Almighty God; because government has already dashed our hopes on releasing the girls immediately and unconditionally to join their parents, who are still grieving with “hopelessness and fear”.
    Bitrus said last week’s expanded security meeting hosted by President Goodluck Jonathan yielded no result even after expressed commitment to securing the release of the girls.
    Bitrus said: “We are not also aware of any serious effort to secure the release of the girls. We heard that the military moved troops to the forests days back but we don’t know what they are doing.”
    The Chibok elders said rumours that the insurgents were marrying off the girls to themselves may be true because of the report they got from those who escaped and joined their parents last week.
    “All we know is that 234 of our daughters are in captivity. We are waiting on government, which is supposed to provide security and welfare for its citizens, to get them released and return them to their parents,” he said.
    He added: “Government has not provided succour to the parents and to the girls themselves by getting them released. It is very disappointing when I read in the newspapers that America is trying to assist. What is wrong with Nigeria? We have a lot of unanswered questions and, as parents, we are still waiting for what the government will do to its citizens… these poor girls in their schools who were kidnapped. It worries us and this is now getting to two weeks.”
    Speaking on parents’ mood, Bitrus said: “All parents are traumatised and since the parents went into the forest in search of their daughters before they were warned not to jeopardise the lives of their children and themselves, they retreated.
    “We started having hope when the President hosted the expanded Security Council meeting where they said they were all committed to seeing that the girls were released, but up till today, nothing has happened, because we have not heard anything relating to the release of any of the girls .
    “We are still waiting and we have surrendered everything to God, but the government should know that it has the primary responsibility to its citizens to secure the girls and return them to their parents.”
    The fate of the abducted school girls also yesterday attracted the attention of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC).
    Vice-President of the NLC, Comrade Lucy Offiong speaking in Abuja yesterday during a Pre-May Day briefing described the security situation in the country as worrisome, saying groups willing to participate in the workers’ Day march past must undergo pre-accreditation.
    On the abduction girls, she said: “The fate of these teenagers represents the future of our dear country. If a country cannot account for the whereabouts of young school girls who were, as reported by the news media, taken by armed men dressed in military uniforms in a convoy of several vehicles, then the universal belief that our collective future is in the hope that children will grow to do better that what older people are doing is hollow and hopeless.
    “Our government and its security agencies must work round the clock and exert more energy to locate and rescue these children in record time before any harm is done to them as such harm should be considered as collective harm and a blister to our collective quest for progress and national greatness.”
    She added: “The current siege on some parts of the country has had a lot of implications for both our economy and freedom to life and also the right to work. It has not only threatened lives and properties, it has also threatened productivity as workers now find it difficult to get to work and when they do, they conduct themselves under excruciating fearful circumstances,” she lamented.
    On the May Day event, she said vehicles would park over 200meters away from the venue.
    “Everyone coming to the venue must not carry bags because of the security situation. Vehicles should be parked at least 200meters away from the the Eagle square. We are also saying that as part of those measures, we are not going to allow just any group to come to the arena, and come and take part in the march pass.
    “We have said that any group that wants to march that day at the arena should come and register with the protocol committee of this 2014 May Day so that they will be properly identified and accredited for security reasons.”
    The theme of the 2014 May Day, according to her, is “Building enduring peace and unity: panacea for sustainable national development.”
    She described the explosion at the Nyanya bus station as “the most  devastating among several others, given the location and timing.”

  • Okonjo-Iweala: Govt has special development plan for Northeast

    Okonjo-Iweala: Govt has special development plan for Northeast

    •Says Nigeria ‘not at war’

    •IG: we’re at war

    Nigeria is preparing a special development plan for its poor, violence-hit northeast and increasing spending to counter revolt there that could dent the growth in Africa’s No. one oil producer if it worsens, the finance minister said.
    Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala told Reuters that although the impact of the five-year Boko Haram insurgency had cut half a percentage point off Nigeria’s GDP last year, she believed it could be contained and insisted the country was not facing a wider conflict as it heads for elections next year.
    “There is no war … there is an insurgency,” Okonjo-Iweala said in an interview conducted on Sunday in her car in Abuja as she headed to the airport to fly to New York, United States
    “We are not in a Colombia situation,” she added, rejecting comparisons with the Latin American energy producer which has battled for decades with a major left-wing insurgency that often affected large swathes of its national territory.
    Okonjo-Iweala said Boko Haram insurgents, who have raided schools, churches, government offices and security posts in their fight to carve out an Islamist enclave, mostly affected around 5 per cent of the nation’s territory, the northeast states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa.
    But she acknowledged Boko Haram had shown it could strike further south. A bombing at a bus station this month killed at least 75 people on the outskirts of the capital Abuja, which is hosting a World Economic Forum on Africa next week.
    “The WEF is still going on,” Okonjo-Iweala said. To host the “African Davos”, which has previously been held in cities such as Cape Town and Addis Ababa, Nigeria was mounting the largest security operation it had ever staged for an international summit, deploying 6,000 soldiers and police.
    President Goodluck Jonathan’s government had increased spending to tackle the Boko Haram threat, including more army recruitment, the minister said, without giving specific figures.
    Okonjo-Iweala said it included a programme for the northeast aimed at lifting the area out of poverty and underdevelopment.
    “We recognise that this is an inclusion problem … the fact that the human development indicators in that part of the country are among the lowest,” she said. The government was working to obtain backing from donors for the programme.
    Boko Haram’s attacks have stopped farmers from growing crops. Several thousand people were killed in the insurgency last year and at that rate it could hurt Nigeria’s GDP in 2014, which is estimated to grow by nearly seven per cent.
    “We think we can absorb it, but of course, if like last year, it continues, then we have to make an estimate of the impact,” Okonjo-Iweala said.
    She added that investors looking more closely at Nigeria since a GDP rebasing last month made it the continent’s largest economy ahead of South Africa did not appear to be turned off by the security challenges.
    “Nobody who is making an investment has so far said they will not make one, that we know of,” she said.
    A mass abduction of teenage schoolgirls from a northeastern school by suspected Boko Haram gunmen on April 15 has outraged Nigerians and raised fears that the insurrection, coupled with persistent inter-communal violence in the Middle Belt, could strain Nigeria’s unity.
    Okonjo-Iweala said Boko Haram was receiving “cross-border” backing from supporters in Cameroon, Niger and Chad.
    “We need to look at the source of this financing,” she said, adding Jonathan was working to obtain regional cooperation to remove Boko Haram’s support from jihadi groups in the Sahel.
    Okonjo-Iweala could not rule out that domestic political forces were also stoking the Boko Haram insurgency ahead of elections in February
    “We tend to notice when the electoral cycle comes in, all these things heat up,” Okonjo-Iweala said.
    But she said Nigeria had halted insurgencies before, such attacks against oil facilities by Niger Delta militants in the past decade, and that Boko Haram did not pose the same threat as the Biafran War that split the country from 1967-1970.
    “What we are going through now is democracy in raw form, because people are fighting for power and they will use anything to get there … and to win the election,” she said.
    She hoped politicians would heed the president’s appeal for unity made on Thursday when he met the governors.
    “Everybody has now come together and said this is ridiculous, crazy, unacceptable, for our children to go to school and be sleeping in their bed at night and for some people to come and abduct them,” Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala said, referring to the schoolgirls’ abduction in which dozens are still missing.
    “Nigeria as a nation will overcome this,” she said
    Inspector General of Police Mohammed Abubakar said yesterday that Nigeria is at war.
    Speaking at the police officers mess in Ikeja, Lagos yesterday at forum to discuss the country’s security situation, he said: “We are in a war situation and we need to mobilize. We want to urge all of you to be more security conscious,” he said.
    The IG who was represented by the Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG) in charge of ‘D’ Department (Investigations), Peter Gana, said Criminals including terrorists were spirits but human beings”You are our eyes in the community and you should give the Police information because we are always there for you.
    “Everyone is supposed to Police whereever he lives .It is better to raise a false alarm than allow the worse to happen. We are happy with the Lagos State government that has highly mobilised the Police, so whenever you suspect anything ,contact the Police immediately.
    He advised the hospitality industries to educate their staff on security issues.
    His words:  “The hotel management can help us police the state by reporting any suspicious customer. Private security operators and National Union of Road Transport workers (NURTW) can help us Police the state by giving us information.”
    The DIG who was with the Assistant Inspector General of Police (AIG)zone 2,Mr Mamam Tsafe and the Lagos State Commissioner of Police Umar Manko, said the Police High Command was willing to take advise from the members of the Public.

  • Abducted girls: youths protest in Lagos

    Abducted girls: youths protest in Lagos

    Scores of indigenes of Kibaku, a community in the Chibok town, where 234 girls were abducted from the Federal Government College by Boko Haram sect, yesterday staged a peaceful protest to the Alausa, Ikeja office of the Lagos State Governor, Mr Babatunde Fashola.
    The protesters, mostly women and children, under the aegis of the Lagos State chapter of Chibok Youth Association, pleaded with Fashola to convey their grievances to President Goodluck Jonathan and Governor Kashim Shettima of Borno State to ensure the safe return of the abducted girls.
    The group’s leader, Mr Yahaya Chiwar, said the group was worried that 13 days after the girls were abducted, there had been no positive news from the government concerning their safety or their chance of being rescued.
    He express dismay that after the parents of the girls searched Sambisa forest, located the camp where the insurgents were holding the girls and reported to the appropriate authorities, no action was taken.
    “Therefore, we have resolved that we cannot remain silent; we are here because of your commitment to security of lives and properties in the state. We believe the nearest authority to us is you; we believe we can express our grievances to you and you can forward our grievances to the relevant authorities, particularly to President Jonathan,” he said while presenting a letter to Fashola for President Jonathan.
    Fashola praised members of the association for their courage and selflessness to stand for their daughters and sisters who were unfortunate victims of the nation’s porous security system.
    “One can only imagine the kind of horror and grief the parents of these girls must be feeling, I am a parent myself and I understand it. If my children are ill, I know the kind of frustration, fear and anxiety that I go through when they are ill, not to mention indescribable emotion that the parents of these girls are going through to know whether they are alive and where they are and what conditions they might be in. even the girls themselves, the kind of fear, it must be a traumatic experience for everyone involved,” he said.
    Fashola encouraged the parents of the girls not to lose hope on the safe return of their children. He promised to deliver the letter to President Jonathan before the close of work yesterday.

  • Abduction: Boko Haram moves school girls to different camps

    Abduction: Boko Haram moves school girls to different camps

    •DHQ floats Frontline Operation Base to liberate them
    •Security agencies probe school roll, quiz principal
    •Ex-Governor Modu Ali speaks out on insurgency

    The Islamist sect, Boko Haram, may have moved the over 100 students of the Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State, it abducted two weeks ago into several of its camps as part of the strategy to use them as human shield, according to indications last night.

    The girls are believed to have been originally taken into the sect’s fortress in Sambisa forest but following the directive to the military high command on Thursday by the National Security Council to rescue the hostages, it was gathered yesterday that Boko Haram leaders had split the girls into groups and moved them into different camps.

    The Defence Headquarters is not relenting in its own efforts and has put in place a Frontline Operation Base for the assignment.

    Sources also said yesterday that security agencies have quizzed the Principal of the school and a security guard who survived the terror attack, on how the incident occurred.

    The agencies are vetting the school’s roll with a view to ascertaining the actual number of those abducted.

    Some parents said recently that up to 234 were taken away by the gunmen.

    Former governor of the state, Senator Modu Ali Sheriff has condemned the insurgents for holding the girls hostage.

    Investigation by our correspondent revealed the Frontline Operation Base will be used for the tactical engagement to rescue the school girls.

    A top source said: “The troops are already in the Frontline Operation Base but they are doing necessary reconnaissance. There is assurance that the girls will be rescued with minimal casualties. A team from the Defence Headquarters spent three days at the base during the week.

    “Even the sect was aware that the troops were closing in on them, through the base, to liberate the girls. In fact, the sect made spirited efforts to abort the mission of the troops.

    “The killing of 40 insurgents during an encounter with soldiers in Bulanbuli was part of the botched attempts by Boko Haram to attack the Frontline Operation Base.

    “We will ensure that we embarked on constructive engagement to set free these girls.”

    Another reliable source said the troops have not attacked the suspected location where the school girls are kept because of fresh intelligence report that the sect might have split the hostages into different camps.

    The source added: “We are trying to verify this intelligence report that the insurgents have redistributed the girls into camps to use them as shield.

    “Whatever the case, we are monitoring their movement . Wherever the girls are, we will do our best to rescue them alive.”

    On the verification of the school population, a different source said: “Security agencies have actually quizzed the Principal of the school and a guard on what transpired when the sect invaded the school.

    “These agencies are looking into the real school roll as at the time of the incident. This exercise will include seeking answers from the Principal as follows: What was the total roll of the school? How many were in final year? How many of the girls have concluded examinations when the incident happened? Did any of the girls leave school after writing examinations?

    “Security agencies may also interact with the cooks to know how many plates of food were served that night. They expect class masters and dormitory masters to assist too.

    “One bend these agencies are looking into is the high probability that those in the school were not up to 234 girls as at the time the abduction took place.

    “These agencies are seeking the dossiers of the 234 students to locate their parents or guardians one by one to confirm if their daughters were among those abducted or not. Fortunately, most of the girls are from Chibok.

    “The security agencies are suspecting that some of the girls might have returned to their parents but they do not want to come out to admit because Boko Haram might go after them. Some of those who abducted the girls were said to be locals who are members of the sect.

    “Whatever the case, if Boko Haram is holding one girl or 100 girls or 234 girls, the military is determined to liberate them from captivity.”

    Meanwhile, a former Governor of Borno State, Senator Modu Ali Sheriff yesterday asked the nation to rise against what he termed as “madness” by the insurgents.

    In a statement which he personally signed, Sheriff accused Boko Haram of trying to destabilize the country.

    Nigeria, he said “must rise up against this sheer madness and affront.”

    He added: “It is the height of insensitivity for innocent school girls to be taken out of their learning environment and be subjected to the criminal livelihood of these insurgents.

    “As former governor of Borno State, I am saddened that our people are being subjected to horrific experiences occasioned by the condemnable activities of the Boko Haram, which agenda is to destabilize the country and subject Nigerians to undeserved conditions.

    “I am confident that Government all levels are doing everything possible to get the roots of the matter and bring this madness to an end, but suffice it to say at this juncture that all Nigerians must rise up in unison to condemn these people and offer useful information on how they can be contained.

    “My heart goes out to my people every time one life is lost, or any citizen subjected to unbecoming experiences, and I have always condemned such acts in my heart. We must intensify prayers and rededicate ourselves in these trying times, so that Nigeria can progress.”

     

  • Culprits will pay for Nyanya bomb blast, Jonathan vows

    Culprits will pay for Nyanya bomb blast, Jonathan vows

    • Takes abduction of 234 girls to God

    President Goodluck Jonathan vowed yesterday that the brains behind the April 14 bomb blast at Nyanya, the Federal Capital Territory, would pay for the mass murder, no matter how long it takes the long arms of the law to catch them.

    He promised government’s support for the bereaved and the injured.

    President Jonathan spoke at the fourth Presidential National Prayer Breakfast session in Abuja.

    The security agencies, according to him, are not only working to bring the perpetrators of the evil act to book, but also to forestall further attacks in the country.

    “Our prayers are with the victims of Boko Haram and their families and loved ones. The last tragedy of this heinous ideology occurred while we were preparing to mark the resurrection of our Lord at Easter, bringing sorrow to many families ,” he said.

    “The government is offering all assistance to support the affected families as the security agencies work tirelessly to unravel the scourge of this evil and to forestall further senseless desecration of our homeland.

    “And of course, no matter what the government does, we cannot recover the dead but one thing we promise is that all those who took part in that act will surely pay for it.”

    He asked all Nigerians to “come together and have faith to combat the ignorance, intolerance that may lead to this unwarranted hatred and continued violence because we are all children of God.”

    Continuing, he said: “As we celebrate Easter, it is no wonder that we are overwhelmed by the mercy of the awesome God. His love for us is so deep and inspiring. We need to rely on Him to pursue peace and overcome the enemies of the nation.

    “My message to you this morning is a sincere appreciation of your prayers. Your love for our country gives me hope and encouragement to do more for the good of our country. I urge you not to relent in your prayers and dedication because overcoming the present challenges we face may look impossible with men, but with God all things are possible. This is clearly seen in the scriptures and this is my article of faith. And of course, this is one of the things that make me smile whenever you see me.”

    “By the grace of the Almighty, Nigeria will overcome the evil of terrorism.”

    Prayers were also said that God might intervene in the effort to rescue the over 100 students of the Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State who were abducted two weeks ago by the Islamist sect, Boko Haram.

    President Boni Yayi of Benin Republic specially prayed for the children’s release, stressing that Boko Haram and its collaborators are not needed anywhere in the African continent.

    “No one has the right to destroy what God has created .Good will always overcome hatred and wickedness,” he said

    A minute silence was observed in memory of the victims of the Nyanya bomb blast.

    The guest speaker at the session, Professor Vincent Anigbogu, urged President Jonathan not to be distracted by the prevailing threats to nation-building, and said that Nigeria is not the first or the last to experience obstacles in its stride to development.

    Quoting 2 Peter 3:8, he said: “All great visions for Nigeria must move forward. Just like the threats of Herod in the Bible were made insignificant, the threat of Boko Haram shall be insignificant. If your desire is to change this nation for better, God will honour it.

    “Many leaders faced similar challenges and overcame them. You are not alone, Sir.”

    Using the Singapore experience as an example, he said: “During threats we must focus on our goals. Don’t allow distraction. Nigeria must remain a multi-lingual, multi-cultural and multi-religious country. No single organisation can derail this country. We must arise during this season and be extraordinarily tough.”

    He also harped on the need to for Nigeria to be free of corruption.

    “Our talents should not be targeted at how to go to the moon, but let us create jobs for the youths. We must establish first class infrastructure in the country.”

    At the prayer session were Governors Godswill Akpabio (Akwa Ibom) and Willie Obiano (Anambra), Deputy Governor of Ebonyi State, Dave Omehia, Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Chef Anyim Pius Anyim and Christian leaders from different parts of the country.

     

  • Shehu Sani: Involve Datti Ahmed, others in negotiations with Boko Haram

    Shehu Sani: Involve Datti Ahmed, others in negotiations with Boko Haram

    •Fears use of force may turn tragic

    One of the early facilitators of peace talks with Boko Haram, Comrade Shehu Sani, yesterday warned the Federal Government against the use of force to free the over 100 students of the Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok, being held by the sect.

    He said recourse to force might turn tragic.

    He asked the government to raise a panel to open communication channel with the sect for the purpose of freeing the girls.

    Sani, who is the President of the Civil Rights Congress of Nigeria, suggested inclusion of the President of the Sharia Council of Nigeria, Dr Datti Ahmed, selected insurgents currently in detention and a few journalists from Maiduguri whom the insurgents will listen to on the panel.

    The panel, according to him, should be mandated to open a channel of communication with the insurgents and “secure the release of our children held hostage.”

    Time has come for government, he opined, to source for the right people to open discussion with Boko Haram.

    He said: “Some of us have made independent efforts and made countless pieces of advises towards ending the insurgency and restoring peace to our country which was ignored.

    “Some credible peace makers I know of were frustrated, blackmailed and threatened to the point of giving up. The insurgency in Nigeria is sustained by merchants of war who profit from heavy security budgets and merchants of peace who profits from costly, false and misleading dialogue funded by the government.”

    Sani specifically warned against the use of force because it could turn tragic for the innocent girls.

    He said there is nowhere in the world where force has been successfully used to free hostages.

    He alluded to the fact that the sect was already using the girls as shield to prevent counter-attacks by troops.

    He added: “The Chibok girls and other children in the custody of the insurgents can be freed, should be freed and will be free. The use of force or the threat of the use of force to free them can only lead to a tragic outcome by putting the lives of the innocent children in greater danger.

    “The use of force or threats of the use of force is not meant to free the children of Chibok but to save the face of our security forces, the government and the nation. The children of Chibok are clearly hostages and any attempt to free them must be through channel that will not put their lives in further jeopardy.

    “Anywhere in the world where children are used as human shield by gun men, use of force has always proven to be fatal. We must not bow or surrender to terrorism but we have a moral duty to free those children we failed to protect earlier and deliver them safe and alive to their parents. Every new day the children spent in captivity, we as citizens of this generation share the collective guilt for our inaction.

    “The anger and pains in the minds of those girls now in the grip of the insurgents is not just against a government with a constitutional duty to protect them but also against the nation with a moral responsibility to free them.”

    The CRCN president blamed the nation for not being proactive against insurgency.

    He said: “The abduction of the over 200 girls from Chibok by the insurgents is not the first time girls or children were abducted by the insurgents. As a nation we simply hesitated to take preventive action when it happened earlier in other schools until Chibok happened on a larger scale.

    “We have failed as a nation to protect ourselves, end the insurgency and now we have failed our children. Each day spent by the Chibok girls and other children held in the custody of the insurgents, our heart bleeds and our spirit is chained down. Our future generation has become innocent victims of the ineptitude, docility and infamy of the present generation.”

    He said the nation has failed to protect its young ones and “now we are denying them the opportunity to live a free life. If the nation had taken serious lessons from earlier brigandage by the insurgents, we could not have been talking of the use of force to free our children. For over three years, the insurgents have been burning schools, killing teachers and abducting children, why did our outrage wait for Chibok?”

  • Does Jonathan need these meetings to function?

    Does Jonathan need these meetings to function?

    WITHOUT prejudice to whatever useful measures the expanded meeting between President Goodluck Jonathan, his security chiefs, the 36 governors and a number of other highly placed personalities might map out to combat Nigeria’s security problems, especially the Boko Haram insurgency, it is hard to justify the need for these meetings when the president, with all the powers vouchsafed to him by an exceedingly generous constitution, can independently apply himself decisively to tackling national challenges. The meetings, however, come in handy because the presidency was at its wits end. By vacillating interminably on whether to fight or not fight Boko Haram, the Jonathan government, by default, obviously allowed the problem to fester badly.

    But what is even worse is that as Boko Haram repeatedly wrong-footed the presidency, the response from Aso Villa was as confused as it was feeble. Tragically, the government’s resolve on military and policy battlefields, on the few occasions it exhibited it, has been underscored by more brawn than brain. With a declaration of state of emergency in three states, deployment of more troops and hardware, and the application of more financial resources, it was expected that the insurgency would abate. The insurgency has not only remained vicious and potent, it has become even more audacious. Brazen Boko Haram attacks on targets located far and wide are followed by abductions of schoolgirls that mock the president’s avowals to fight, and render the country impotent and hopeless.

    It is in these tragic circumstances that the president has called for more meetings with diverse groups, some clearly irrelevant to the war, and all amounting to showy exhibitionism. Instead of meetings and more meetings, which give the impression that the president might be fishing for consensus on unpopular measures of doubtful efficacy, let him boldly take intelligent and efficacious measures to rein in the insurgency threatening the unity of the country. The team he has saddled himself with at the moment can’t take him far. If he can’t realise that simple fact, then he has not started the anti-terror campaign, let alone the anti-terror war he and the military purport to be fighting.

  • Sambisa: Forest of a thousand myths

    Sambisa: Forest of a thousand myths

    Not many Nigerians know much about the Sambisa Forest. Our Maiduguri Correspondent, Bodunrin Kayode, in Maiduguri gives readers a glimpse of this mysterious forest which was once a game reserve.

    AMBISA Forest.

    Perhaps a few weeks or month, back the name Sambisa Forest meant nothing to many Nigerians. Not anymore. It has come to signify terror and home to the terrorist group Boko Haram. The forest is now a myth for so many people within the Lake Chad basin who have come to align the complex north eastern vegetation to the home of Boko Haram instead of the game reserve the colonialist meant it for. The colonial government had marked the forest out as a game reserve!

    Today, Sambisa has become one of the strongest bases of the Boko Haram insurgents who run back into its dark recesses anytime they have finished their slaughter of harmless citizens. Others in this part of the country rightly associate it with wicked and poisonous reptiles such as loud hissing rattle snakes and giant crustaceans crawling underneath the forest vegetation which is not more than sometimes 1.5metres in some areas while some areas could be as high as two metres depending on the size of the shrubs growing in that section.

     

    Homes to wild animals

    To Mohammed Bagoni, it is a forest where elephants used to stray in from Central Africa through some game reserve corridors. According to him, he remembers seeing those mighty beasts in the forest as a kid when his uncle worked inside the reserve while it was under the state government. The thick skin of elephants and camels make the animals to be immune to the characteristic thorns of the Sambisa Forest vegetation which is why they can go through unhurt even feeding on the very thorns which the uninitiated mortals fear and which makes them call the place a forest. For many young people who have never travelled beyond Damaturu, Sambisa is the only forest they have seen in their life time. Apart from these patches of forests the north is generally a vast land where one can drive endlessly without seeing much vegetation.

    For so many young people outside the savannah, it is indeed very strange to find a ‘forest’ in the middle of the savannah vegetation. How would a ‘forest’ be found in the north eastern axis of Nigeria? Are they not living in a desert full of sand from the great Sahara which has encroached badly from the receding Lake Chad region due to global warming?

    The question many ask no one in particular is: Why the Sambisa forest still remains intact as a game reserve when many other green zones in the Sahel have been overtaken by global warming? What is it that makes Sambisa tick so much that the insurgents tormenting people of the north east have taken solace inside? Is it so dark underneath the vegetation cover that it can hide massive boa constrictors which can swallow a whole human who dare to hunt inside like we hear in the tropical rain forests of southern Nigeria? Is there any mystic charm or juju associated with the Sambisa?

    To some people in Maiduguri, the Sambisa is a real forest game reserve located not far from the state capital. From about 14 kilometers off Kawuri Village, along Maiduguri – Bama Road you will begin to see signs that you are close to the lowest thorny bushes of the reserve some as low as half a metre. It is not the typical forest one sees along some southern states which could be as high as a hundred metres creating a primary, secondary and tertiary scenario but a single dimensional forest which is visible driving through the main road that connects Maiduguri, Konduga and Barma. Actually it also graduates from as low as half a metre trees to the extremely thick areas where human skins cannot penetrate without being hurt by thorns if you do not have a cutlass or something to ward them off. That is the nature of the forest which is being manipulated and controlled by Boko Haram who have become masters of the savannah. A few people liken the ferocious sect to the animals who hitherto lived in the game reserve!

    According to Professor Umar Maryah of University of Maiduguri, the forest covers an area stretching approximately 60,000 square kilometers across the north east from Borno, Yobe, Gombe, Bauchi states along the Darazo corridor, Jigawa and right up to some parts of Kano State in the far north.

    It harbours a sizable population of wildlife, typical of savannah habitats worldwide and a conducive environment for animals such as monkeys, antelopes, lions, elephants, as well as bird species such as Ostrich, Bustard and a lot of those migrating species.There is no Sambisa without the sustaining Game Reserve for hunters and farmers. This means that a lot of animals in the Sambisa reserve contribute to making the land very fertile for farmers in the surrounding villages to make big harvest from the land. The forest reserve has been handed to the Federal Government through the National Park.

    To the south of the Sambisa is Askira local government area, to the south west is Danboa while to the west is Konduga and Jere local government areas. The reserve got its name from a village called Sambisa bordering the Gwozo axis of the area.

    On the eastern flank of the Sambisa is Gwoza Local Government Area which is also a notorious hide out for the Boko Haram insurgents. The Gwoza Hills, with heights of about 1300 meters above sea level provides scenery and is made up of ranges of mountains known as the Mandara Mountains. These Mountains form a natural barrier between Nigeria and Republic of the Cameroun, starting from Pulka. They over look the game reserves by meandering towards Mubi and beyond in Adamawa State. They equally have a connection with the Mambilla Mountain which is also home to the Gashaka Game Reserve at its foot, which is also a corridor connected to the Sambisa Game Reserve.

    According to a source in the Borno State department for urban planning, “The Mountains around Gwoza have several streams, ponds, springs dotting out into settlements by various tribes including the Gwozas. This mountain has varieties of attractive animal species which can be spotted when they are grazing. They graze mostly in the mornings, afternoons and evenings including nights for night breeding species.”

    Professor Maryah of the Geography Department of the University of Maiduguri said lots of villages surround the Sambisa making it conducive for farming which is practised by the people who are at the fringes of the Sambisa. The Sambisa village by the reserve has tribes like the Gamarabu, Margis also found in Gwoza and the Fulani who use the area as a grazing reserve. They live a lot on fruits and stem crops such as sugar cane and date palms which are very common in the Sambisa forest. No wonder date palm called ‘debino’ in Hausa has become a major fruit which is served to new initiates who agree to join the sect to fight propagators of western education.

    Vegetables such as spinach, onions and tomatoes are equally common in the place while grains such as wheat, sorghum, rice and millet are also present in the place. There are also root crops and nuts which are grown by locals and taken to Maiduguri and Banki in Cameroun. These include groundnuts, cow peas, sweet potatoes and cassava. For the area around Jere Local Government Area, they equally farm Irish potatoes which is a common delicacy in Borno even in the markets of the insurgents in the Sambisa. Gum Arabic which is grown all over the savannah is equally very common in the Sambisa. It has become a major crop grown by the people along the corridor.

    Master of the environment

    Members of Boko Haram are well knowledgeable about the enormous endowment of the Sambisa Forest and have capitalised on the fact that even if military tanks must be moved into the place to dislodge them, it must be done with knowledge and tactics.

    For now the people living along the Sambisa corridor are very careful while some of them have left their villages for Cameroun and Niger thus making the new landlords – Boko Haram- calling the shots.

    “As a matter of fact, Sambisa is not the only hideout of the insurgents, it is just that before the kill and run antics of the Boko Haram, nobody will expect that some human beings will be hibernating with a bunch of blood thirsty occultist Nigerians and their foreign collaborators in there.

    “Those who are still there are at the beck and call of the Boko Haram just like the teenagers of Government Secondary School, Chibok who have now become the latest sex slaves of the insurgents. To produce children that will finally be initiated into their cults. The girls will be moved tactically from one base to another mostly in the night so that they cannot recognize where they were. They will finally end up in Sambisa or Algoni, the two most dreaded bases remaining for the managers of the nation’s security to bring down

    “It actually took the intelligence services a long time to discover that the game reserve had become a hideout for the sect. They waited three years until several lives had been lost before acting reluctantly on the intelligence advises.”

    The source added, “We in the intelligence were ready to penetrate the sect but they (the government) wasted too much time concentrating on irrelevances. Now it is too late, the intelligence guys are not ready to risk their lives any more after all the frustration from the managers in Abuja. We have given them all the information they need including the level of sophistication of the insurgents; it’s up to them to act.”

    The Sambisa Forest lost its innocence as a game reserve before 2006. The forest is believed to have super bunkers underneath the Sahel so that the new tenants (Boko Haram) will be well placed to complete their aim of taking over all the government houses in the north east after bringing down the few military installations created years back to protect the people of this region.

    The forest in many ways looks like the forest created by the Yoruba novelist D.O. Fagunwa in his novels. The question is: who will take the veil and the shrubs off the face of this forest of a thousand myths?

  • The endgame of the Lugardian state

    The endgame of the Lugardian state

    The funeral pyre has been aglow in Nigeria this past week. It portends the end of the Lugardian state as bequeathed by our colonial conquerors and as perfected by their neo-military inheritors and successors. Three incidents will suffice to illustrate this dire development for the Nigerian nation. Not surprisingly, they all have to do with the ongoing armed critique of the state and nation by the Boko Haram insurgency.

    First was the abominable slaughter of scores of early morning commuters in broad daylight by the sect in Abuja, the capital city of the nation. This was followed by the wholesale abduction of hundreds of students from a secondary school in Yobe State after which they were herded into waiting buses for onward transportation to the dreaded Sambisa forest. Without mincing words, this is arguably the most alarming case of hostage taking in the history of contemporary warfare.

    Last Wednesday, the super mullahs finally arrived at the supermarket, or almost. Lagos was gripped by fear and panic. There were unsubstantiated rumours that the dreaded nihilists were on their way to put the greatest conglomeration of Black people on earth to sword. This is as close to hell as it can get.

    Earlier, and in order to ratchet up the psychological offensive, the insurgents had issued a statement that they were already in Abuja. After the apparently well-coordinated Nyanya bombing, no one could pooh-pooh the claim as fanciful boasting. The Nigerian post-colonial state is on its way to becoming a historic casualty.

    A palpable fear enveloped everywhere. Maximum security was deployed. If the sect had Lagos within their rifle sight, then all is lost. Yours sincerely was caught up in the weird drama. Something will have to give eventually. Not even during the darkest moments of the civil war were state security forces subjected to this kind of nettling humiliation.

    Force — raw, unadulterated violence— has been the organising principle and coordinating co-efficient of the stentorian state. It was not without some historic justification. The main rationale was that since human beings are no angels, it was the bounden duty of the state to rein in the wilder and more anarchic impulses of people in order for meaningful progress and development to take place.

    This was the kind of menacing, authoritarian state bequeathed to an African continent already suffused with traditional tyranny. In the Congo, the state was known as Bula Matari, or the crusher of rocks. It crushed a lot of human rocks. From King Leopold who cut off their hand and limbs to Mobutu who smashed their brains and equally stole them blind, it was merely an exchange of monkeys for baboons. Ditto for all the colonial overseas possessions.

    You cannot give what you don’t have. In Western Europe, the old stentorian state ruled the roost for a long time. For centuries, the English state brooked no opposition or dissent until they started lobbing off the head of their kings. In France, Louis famously proclaimed himself as the state until the people asserted their supreme sovereignty in an orgy of violence.

    In Germany, the deposition of King Wihelm in 1914 marked the end of the old authoritarian state. For 40 years, General Frank Franco ruled Spain with an iron grip until biological coup d’etat intervened. So did Antonio Salazar in Portugal until the soldiers who bore brunt of the colonial wars in Africa began to abandon the shrine.

    In Greece as late as the seventies, some deluded colonels seized power but were eventually overwhelmed and punished for their temerity. In Latin America, the same wave of popular uprisings ended authoritarian rule rooted in the Iberian model, most notably in Cuba, Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela and Chile.

    Nothing lasts forever in human affairs. As societies progress, as new technologies develop, and as the clamour for more popular participation in governance increases, there usually comes a time when the aggregate of the means of violence and disruption available to certain non-state sectors equals or even surpasses the coordinates of violence and coercion available to the state.

    Wise states, reading the handwriting on the wall, normally divest themselves of a substantial part of their capacity for the production of violence, opting for more refined forms of coercion and compliance. In such circumstances, certain societal institutions such as the school, the family, the media and even religion serve as ideological sectors of the state providing both blackmail and subtle intimidation at the intellectual, spiritual and psychological levels.

    This is the norm in civilised societies. These social institutions constitute the first bulwark in the defence of the state against hostility and adversity. A lot depends on the intellectual cadres where and when it comes to humanising the state and making it amenable to the real needs of the people.

    But when an ethically and politically bankrupt state decides to meet force with force and violence with violence, it may eventually be overwhelmed and subdued, giving rise to a radical reconstitution of the state or the nation or both simultaneously. If we were running a serious government with a homogeneous and organic vision of the country and its destiny, there ought not to have been a serious Boko Haram threat in the first instance.

    But no country can escape the iron law of retribution. It is not by accident that the best run nations on the African continent such as Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Ethiopia, Rwanda and now Cote D’Ivoire are nations where the state had once been subdued by hostile forces. Nigeria may yet undergo a revolution by default if the Boko Haram scourge leads to a significant deterioration of the security situation.

    The problem with the Boko Haram insurgency is that it does not seek a radical and drastic reconstitution of the old Lugardian state but a radical Islamisation of the nation failing which a forcible partitioning will do. Except in a few aberrational enclaves, theocracy is incompatible with the paradigm or raison d’etre of the modern nation-state.

    The Boko Haram insurgency may yet achieve its objective by default if its current siege on Nigeria leads to a fracturing of the military along religious, regional and ethnic lines, or if its campaign is brought home to the south of the nation. Even more so than in Western nations, the military remains the glue binding together the creaking joints of the old state in Nigeria. If it comes unstuck, Rwanda would be a child’s play.

    On the other hand, if the sect were to hit a major objective in a densely populated megalopolis like Lagos, we might as well say goodbye to Nigeria as we know it. Our situation is far more precarious than we can imagine. Having proved themselves to be an extremely bloodthirsty and bloody minded group, we can as well conclude that if the Boko Haram group are not looking in this direction at the moment, it is not because of caution or restraint but because it has not put its logistics together.

    This is why the events of last Wednesday even as they turned out to be a hoax should be an appropriate reminder of how little time we have left. The Nigerian political elite must put on their thinking cap. The nation is closer to the brink than we can ever imagine. This is not the time for inflammatory rhetoric, or for dangerous insinuations that polarise the nation further. Some endgame is here with us.