The Transcorp Hilton Hall, venue of the discourse on how to end the Boko Haram insurgency was filled, and the event started on time. More than 20 repentant former leaders of the sect were in the hall. The opening remarks by Egbeme Eniwoareke set the tone of the discourse.
He said, “The Northeast region used to be one of the economically promising regions of the country. It was the bastion of commerce and trade with prominent local enterprises. The region drew in entrepreneurs, technocrats and bureaucrats from other regions in Nigeria. Its growing natural resource base increased its investment and industrial potential. In those days, the region enjoyed religious, cultural and ethnic harmony.
“In recent times, this has not been the case, as vicious economic hardship has become the most pertinent public policy challenge in present-day Nigeria. The activities of this terror organisation, Boko Haram, have paralysed the economy of Northeast Nigeria. An estimated 2.5 million Nigerians are internally displaced as a result. Prior to the scourge of Boko Haram, Northeastern Nigeria had 68 percent poverty and about 28.5 percent unemployment (according to the 2011 report by the National Bureau of Statistics). With the current decimation of the region, it will not be a surprise if the next set of economic statistics places the region lower down the economic ladder.
“But this is not a Northeastern problem. It is a Nigeria problem. We are a family and whatever happens to the least of us, happens to us all. The innocents who have suffered the scourge of Boko Haram in the North are ordinary Nigerians who wish to be left alone to face the opportunities and challenges of life on earth”.
According to Eniwoareke between 2011 to date, the Federal Government has squandered about N3.6 trillion on security, funds that could have been spent on other human development indicators. He said what is more scary at this time is that with declining oil prices and the expected decline in foreign exchange revenue, Nigeria may not be in a position to spend as much on security given competing demands for resources. What will then become of the security situation in the North and across other parts of the country?, he asked.
However, in his speech, Special Adviser to the President on Niger Delta Affairs and chairman, Presidential Amnesty Programme, Kingsley Kuku said solution to the Boko Haram challenge must be the responsibility of northern leaders. According to him, the Boko Haram experience was not totally different from the Niger Delta militancy, which later culminated in widespread kidnapping and bombing of oil and gas infrastructures. He said further that moving around the Niger Delta became an issue at the peak of the insurgency as parents were continuously warning their wards on where and when to move.
Kuku got the audience laughing with a story in which he was involved in negotiating for the release of a kidnapped Urhobo man. “The captors of the Urhobo man refused to listen to him, that he wasn’t an expatriate, that he was an albino. He was eventfully released after days in captivity when nobody came for him. He nonetheless got the beating of his life for eating all the food given to him. That’s how bad it was.
“The result was that many things were lost as Niger Delta region became deserted. Nobody wants to come to the region again, even technicians working for oil companies were flown in jets from Lagos and back. It however got to a peak when we had to decide on how to end it all. We had to talk to ourselves, the youths of the region. Events leading to the beginning of the end of the militancy could be traced to the night of my wedding with everybody in attendance only for one person, who drove into the venue on a power bike asking to see me.
“The story he told me that night changed the whole process. He said some hoodlums (pirates) killed a one-year-old baby on Benin River while forcing the mother to laugh at the killing of her baby. That was the height of it because it was a pointer that our struggle has become self-destructive, especially with the event on Benin River. That is what is happening to Boko Haram today. It has become self-destructive. That Benin River event forced us to decide how to clean up the struggle because we lost control. Today John Togo is no more”.
Kuku said the solution to the Boko Haram insurgency can be solved taking some lessons from the Niger Delta experience where community and religious leaders, youths and women groups were all involved in the intervention with the militant groups. He asserted that huge use of force cannot win the war with Boko Haram. According to him, for the insurgency in the Northeast to end, same groups of people from the region must be involved.
“We needed somebody, one of our own at the top in government to tell the militants that government’s intention to negotiate is genuine. As a result we went everywhere, to all the camps, with our political and community leaders like Diepreye Alamieiyeseigha, Timipre Sylva, Papa Edwin Clark all playing key roles and at the end, we are where we are today. What it means is that peace can win a war while the use of force can’t work ultimately.
“You will need people to talk to the agitators to have the needed truce. You have to look for someone who was a key actor in the Boko Haram activities, whose trust and confidence is widely accepted, genuine activists to drive the solution like the Amnesty programme. In the Northeast that is what is lacking because we have seen that Boko Haram has become self-destructive with foreigners taking centrestage. At the beginning of Boko a Haram, it was designed to dislodge President Jonathan but what do we see now, the entire region is threatened while the whole country is not spared as well. Boko Haram is a threat to the entire country; they refused to properly interpret what they want, unlike the Niger Delta militants. Militant actors of Niger Delta we all knew but Boko Haram we don’t know. Offers were made for peace for them to come out, even comrades in prison were met but nothing came out of it. It appears like the determination of the northern leaders to see the end of the insurgency is being compromised. For instance, many of the insurgents caught weren’t looking like Nigerians. Our porous borders is a major problem.”
The robust question and answer session that followed drew emotions from the audience when a speaker described how the government of Borno State is now left with only four Local Government Areas out of 27, the rest having been taken over by Boko Haram. He said 32 of his relations have relocated to Niger Republic as internally displaced persons (IDPs) with six missing or unaccounted for.
Another speaker wanted to know how intervention of the youths and the political leaders can be effective with a group that is waging a jihadist war with no difference between Christians and Muslims.
The highlight of the discourse was the pledge by the ex-militants to donate part of their monthly allowance amounting to N30m to the victims of Boko Haram onslaught in the Northeast, while Kuku assured that the PAP would offer useful and effective advice to government on how to overcome the challenge.
He however warned that it is up to the people of the region and their resolve to end the insurgency because they are the ones that know their terrain and the history of their region. He said no individuals would leave their own region to come over to defend the Northeast but that they would have to take it as a personal effort to defend their own land. He commended the the courage of the Civilian Joint Task Force (JTF) and implored the people to further encourage them.
