Tag: Goodluck Jonathan

Like most other policies, including the flip-flop on rice import ban and the automotive policy, there is little debate, not to talk of deep, intellectual introspection accompanying the Goodluck Jonathan approach to fighting Boko Haram and terrorism in general. We are conversant with the endless presidential dithering on the menace, but finally, it seems, events and circumstances have compelled the government to stand and fight, instead of yielding, as its natural instincts always dictated. Horrifyingly, however, the government and the populace have decided to do nothing but fanatically fight the terrorist sect almost to the total exclusion of other measures. There is no discussion going on with the sect, as now seems obvious. And there is nothing beyond the trashed panel reports on the sect to show that both the government and the military have a minimal understanding of the sect’s social, political and ideological underpinnings.

This column has always maintained that the sect should be fought with single-minded resolve. But it has also always reminded the government of the need to address the factors that predisposed the Northeast in particular to the revolt, and urged the military to appreciate the kind of tactics required to defeat the sect and other revolts like it. I once reminded the military after the Baga, Borno State debacle that it must begin to furnish itself with the requisite knowledge needed to combat the multifarious challenges to stability and peace in the modern era. The country’s military doctrine, not to say our foreign policy doctrine, should be thoroughly revamped and modernised to take care of modern exigencies.

But given Dr Jonathan’s often inexplicable silence on the war and his reluctance to empathise with the victims, as well as the military’s sometimes exaggerated opinion of its understanding of the sect’s methods and what should constitute the rights and liberties of enemy combatants and victims of the war, it appears nothing is being done to ensure that when the war ends, the right lessons have been learnt and future reoccurrence made nearly impossible. There are a number of elements that show no lesson has been learnt. First, is the all-important matter of justice. Not only has the trial of the policemen who extra-judicially murdered the sect’s former leader, Mohammed Yusuf, been clumsily handled, even the trial judge recently threatened to discharge the suspects on account of state/prosecution apathy. The government is truly apathetic to justice.

Second, all those who contributed to the impoverishment of the region and other parts of the country continue to underplay their guilt and complicity. To show how distracted the federal government is, it managed to allocate two billion naira to address the devastation in the Boko Haram region. And third, and of course very significantly, the Northern political class that inherited the political mantle of the late Sardauna of Sokoto, Ahmadu Bello, without his wisdom, restraint and accommodation, have shown absolutely no contrition for perpetrating decades of religious discrimination that fostered the fanaticism being witnessed today. It was obvious to most Nigerians that they were at first silent over the sect’s bestiality, before waking up to the reality that extremism of any kind and within or outside any faith is absolutely intolerable. Do Northern leaders now have this clear understanding, learning, as it were, from the experiences of Iraq, Somalia and Afghanistan, among others?

The military has appeared to find its teeth in facing up to the Boko Haram madness. Hopefully the cessation of hostilities will not morph into scattered and intermittent suicide attacks on selected targets such as take place in Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Russia and now China. However, the factors that sparked and now feed the war can only be denied fuel if the injustices and short-sightedness that serve as its lifeblood are eliminated. Could we trust the federal government and the political elite to take the revolutionary steps needed to remake the northern society and build it into a beautiful tapestry of heterogeneousness, the kind conceived and administered by the late Sardauna of Sokoto? Could we, indeed, trust those saddled with the onerous responsibility of ruling a large and complex society like Nigeria to embrace reason rather than emotions in administering the affairs of the country?

I have my doubts. For, even after Boko Haram is defeated, the absence of a remade and re-engineered society, one anchored on the right mix of liberal values, could yet trigger sporadic outbreaks of sectarian and ethnic wars that may ultimately doom the polity. This is the time for the philosopher-king, if we can find one.