Tag: Dapchi

WHILE arguments are still raging over whether the Muhammadu Buhari presidency demonstrated incompetence both before and after the abduction of the 110 Government Girls Science and Technical College (GGSTC), Dapchi, Yobe State, on February 19, many commentators remind everyone that some 112 schoolgirls from Government Girls College Chibok, Borno State, are still being held in Boko Haram captivity, the remnant from the April 14-15, 2014 abduction that shook the world. They also remind the country that beyond fighting Boko Haram, nothing else is being done about studying and understanding the sect in order to find a resounding victory and closure. Yes, the style of the terrorists has not changed. Indeed, what has appeared to change is the identity of the abductors. For, unlike the Chibok abductions masterminded by the Abubakar Shekau faction of Boko Haram, the Dapchi attack was carried out by the Abu Musab Al-Barnawi faction of the Boko Haram sect.

Those close to the leadership of the Al-Barnawi faction have attempted to console Nigerians by suggesting that the abductors, this time, are more humane, and that the girls would be released sooner than expected. Cold comfort. What is evident beyond the mere act of the abduction, or the humaneness of the abductors, or the arguable incompetence of the Buhari government, is that the government, like the Goodluck Jonathan presidency before it, appears to be waiting for the end of the insurgency to demonstrate what lessons it has learnt from the crisis and how it intends to find a closure. But that general and unending slothfulness has proved very costly. It is not only inadvisable to wait for that indefinable end to come, it is a much more depressing indicator that no coherent policies are in place to tackle the whole gamut of the insurgency. Indeed that gamut is huge and getting increasingly insurmountable.

Just like the Jonathan government, the current government seems more preoccupied with fighting and defeating Boko Haram, and indeed many other threats to national security, than any other thing. That they only give some cursory thoughts to the post-Boko Haram era is not quite as reassuring as it should be. But implicit in their actions and policies, not to say in the amorphous structure of their government and personnel, are clear indications that no lessons have been learnt, are being learnt, or are willing to be learnt from the multiple threats to national security, particularly the Boko Haram insurgency. With the entire country almost drenched in blood, and with the government apparently overwhelmed and limited to essentially reacting to the threats, rather than being proactive, Nigerians are beginning to fear that their leaders lack the depth and breadth needed to understand and govern an increasingly globalised, complex and conflictive country. This conclusion is not mistaken, though Nigerians must be in a quandary whether to dismiss each government for incompetence or boldly engage another one without any hope either would be better.

When the Chibok abductions took place in 2014, the Jonathan government was caught flat-footed. In the hours after the tragedy, not to say days and weeks after, that government moved from flat-footedness to living and operating in denial. The Buhari presidency has on the contrary revelled in showcasing the difference between its own reaction to Dapchi and that of Dr Jonathan on Chibok. President Muhammadu Buhari, Nigerians were told, immediately acknowledged the abductions and described it as a national disaster. The Information minister, Lai Mohammed, together with a few other government officials visited Yobe State, conferred with state officials who briefed them, and gave assurance that the government would do everything to rescue the girls. Indeed, the Information minister told the media that the Buhari presidency had mobilised all military and security nsurgency. It is in fact both compelling and urgent for the government to demonstrate a clear and comprehensive understanding of the revolt in the Northeast as well as design adequate and fitting responses. To do these, the state governments where the revolts have taken place and other states where similar revolts might break out sometime in the future must meet minds with the federal government to tackle the whole gamut of the crisis. So far, they have not indicated that perceptiveness and resolve.

Last Thursday, the Kaduna State governor, Nasir el-Rufai, spoke in Abuja about the low investment in education in Borno and Yobe States as a contributory factor in sowing the seeds of terrorism in the region. He is right, even though the malaise is not limited to only the Northeast. Both Borno and Yobe States, not to say other states in the North and elsewhere, must find the will to invest heavily in education to take idle and unskilled hands off the streets. If canon fodders are not available, mischief makers would find nothing to do with their canons.

But low investment in education is not the only problem. States, particularly in the less secular North, must begin to recognise that of all the revolts that complicate law enforcement, religious insurrections are the most difficult to deal with. As the beginnings of the Northeast revolt showed, Borno State, the epicentre of the Boko Haram insurgency, had a history of official romance with religious fundamentalism. Once a huge misunderstanding broke out between the clerics and the government, it was unlikely to be limited to religious circles only. The misunderstanding immediately widened and sucked the government into its red vortex. If these troubled states will not draw a line between the democracy they claim to practice and the theocracy they seem to long for, they may be unable to prevent the widening of misunderstandings anytime they rear their heads. The official dalliance with religious groups, especially fiery sects, must be deliberately and sensibly restricted if violent eruptions are to be averted. The federal government has not seemed to focus its mind in this direction at all.

Mallam El-Rufai may be right in his Abuja exposition last week about the education crisis confronting the Northeast and elsewhere, but much more than that, the region’s frightening poverty index and high population growth rate would sooner than later predispose the northern states as a whole to other forms of social and economic revolts. The region faces a time bomb. The Northeast states must begin to find ways of reconciling birth control with the region’s dominant religious concept of family and procreation. Population growth may be an electoral asset and a tool for cornering a significant portion of revenue allocation, but a sensible government with an eye on the future, a government more concerned about peace and stability and development, will cleverly embrace the imperatives of political and economic restructuring in the truest sense of federalism. Any other solution, such as sermonising about peaceful co-existence which President Buhari has unwisely limited himself to, will not only fail to work, it will in the long run be counterproductive.

By all means, the country must plan and work to defeat Boko Haram, which is the principal terrorist organisation afflicting the country at the moment. But far more desirably, the Buhari presidency must show that it understands the complex issues involved, and compel itself boldly and revolutionarily to engage the right methods to deal with the existential crisis confronting the country. It has neither shown the needed brilliance nor found the courage to do what is required and practicable, and has as a matter of fact never spoken about breaking the mould in tackling these dangerous issues. But except brilliant remedies are applied, even after Boko Haram is finally and completely defeated, there will be a recrudescence of the crisis on some inauspicious tomorrow. And as every epidemiologist knows, a second break out is notoriously difficult to manage.

The Dapchi abduction, it is hoped, has also finally persuaded the government of the dangers of spreading military resources thin, especially because of the military’s needless exposure to police duties. If the government is to have enough assets to hold recaptured territories and not expose itself to the embarrassing abductions Boko Haram militants have seemed adept at, then both the presidency and the Defence Headquarters must recognise the danger of their seemingly casual approach to military deployments. The Dapchi tragedy was embarrassing and inexcusable, and despite the Information minister’s exultant statements about the Buhari government’s prompt response, neither the president himself, who has carried on blithely as if he is unable to comprehend the scale of the disaster, nor his military top brass, who have said or done little  to reassure a grieving and apprehensive country, have handled the aftermaths of the abductions with the gravity and adroitness the situation demands.