Tag: found

The United States Acting Assistant Director of Diplomatic Security Threat Investigations and Analysis Directorate, Ambassador Kurt Rice, has said that wanted Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau, could be tried for terrorism in the United States or in Nigeria where he hails from if caught. To this end, the U.S. on Monday placed $23m bounties on five leaders of terrorist groups in West Africa, including Shekau. The Boko Haram leader alone attracted a highly tempting seven million dollars bounty. News reports pointed out that the U.S. action coincided with the Nigerian government finally determining, after endless waffling and prevarication, that Boko Haram is indeed a terrorist organisation, and its leaders and members liable to be tried for terrorism.

Nigeria, which is increasingly finding it difficult to define and guard its independence and national pride, has not protested against any suggestion that its homegrown terrorists cannot be dealt with at home and under home rules. Boko Haram has not just attacked home targets; indeed foreigners have also been among its victims. However, except for a brief foray into Cameroun, and perhaps a base and launch pad in Mali, the sect’s attacks have been limited to Nigeria. As Britain showed in the case of Michael Adebolajo, the British terror suspect who was coaxed from feeble Kenyan hands in 2010 in order to be investigated under British rules, nations recognise that their sovereignty is infinitely much more nuanced than first view and ordinary definitions suggest. Nigeria needs all the help it can get to curb terrorism and bring Nigerian terrorists, or any other terrorist who commits crime on Nigerian soil, to trial. But it must be understood very clearly that Shekau is our problem, and except he goes to another country to carry out terror-related activities, he remains strictly our problem, no matter how far-reaching the consequences of his actions.

Nigeria has never presumptuously attempted to intercept foreign terrorists on foreign soils. Therefore, this generation of Nigerians must never be seen as condoning foreign governments extending their laws creatively or collaterally for the purpose of apprehending and prosecuting Nigerian criminals. It is of course evident that Nigerian governments have been slothful in dealing with their criminals, either because of plain juristic inefficiency or because certain individuals in government connive at crime and criminals. This is, however, not enough reason for other countries to invade our sovereignty under any guise. In fact, it must be emphasized that even if Shekau were to be apprehended in, say, Mali by U.S. forces, it is important that he should be handed over to us for prosecution. Thankfully, Ambassador Rice has herself left a window open for the wanted terrorists to be tried in their home countries. Nigeria must emphasise its unequivocal preference for this option.

But if Ambassador Rice contemplates the option of subjecting Shekau to the U.S. justice system, it is simply because Nigeria has consistently and enduringly projected a weakness of national character that has made it possible, for example, for Diepreye Alamieyeseigha to be ‘handed’ over remorselessly to British authorities for prosecution, and for our country to quite puzzlingly rejoice that a James Ibori foolishly preferred to wash his dirty linen abroad. If our laws are weak, by all means let us strengthen them. If our courts are inefficient, let us make them more efficient. And if our justice system is too convoluted to competently dispense justice speedily, let us remedy the problem. Let us do anything but display a weakness of national character that makes Nigerians prey to foreigners. Surely we are smart enough to know that prosecuting Shekau abroad, if he is apprehended, would define the country as a people of weak resolve and slow thinking. But if, failing everything, our courts let us down, then let us at least have the common sense and essential practicality to live with our faults.