Tag: terrorists

With court declaration that the activities of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra IPOB amounted to acts of terrorism and illegality, the debate on the legality of earlier classification by the military appears to have been foreclosed. Yet, the government tackled the problem from the answer before establishing the processes that would lead to it. Solving a mathematical puzzle from the answer is bound to draw the ire of any examiner.

The military had declared the IPOB a terrorist organization on allegations of forming a Biafra Secret Service, Biafra National Guard, blocking of public access roads, extortion of money from innocent civilians and possession of weapons (stones, Molotov cocktails, machetes and broken bottles). The classification at once, elicited two sets of criticisms. The first hinged on the right of the military to make such declaration given that our laws have no place for them in the process.

Perhaps, the most contentious of the criticisms was whether the reasons proffered satisfied both the necessary and sufficient conditions for declaring IPOB a terrorist organization. Even the worst critics of the strategies of the IPOB will hesitate to buy into the argument that these constituted sufficient grounds for them to be labeled a terrorist organization. That is the truth of the matter.

The proscription of IPOB is a fait accompli even as experts have faulted the court order and the overall competence of the ruling. It is needless dissipating energy on the processes that led to it; whether it was the right option in the circumstance or what interests it is meant to serve. It is also too late to pontificate on the non-violent disposition of the group, the fact that they neither carry arms nor are they known to have attacked targets (hard or soft) inflicting harm on lives and property for impact.

Their first encounter of throwing stones and blocking road for the enforcement of the on-going Operation Python Dance exercise turned out their greatest undoing, attracting proscription and a terrorist label. Before then, they had largely operated as a very peaceful and non-violent organization. The indecent haste with which the military termed the group a terrorist organization enabling the government to tow the same line raises suspicion. This is more so given the delay and opposition from the north against tagging the Boko Haram insurgents a terrorist group even when they had bombed the UN building in Abuja and many churches killing hundreds of innocent worshippers.

But the question that agitates the mind especially given IPOB’s focus on self-determination is the efficacy of the proscription and profiling in addressing issues to the agitation. We will also have to contend bias and double standards in the processes and circumstances culminating in the current fate of the group.

The Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed has of late been bandying all manner of allegations against the group. He has alleged foreign funding; that Kanu was caught in a video in London in 2015 soliciting money for weapons and openly solicits for arms and funds.  He also accused France of being the financial headquarters of IPOB and claimed the UK rebuffed their request to shut down radio Biafra.

Ironically, much of the statements emanating from Mohammed are laced with high level propaganda. Mohammed is entitled to launder the image of the government in the face of strident criticisms that have dogged the mishandling of the IPOB matter. He is also at liberty to bandy frivolous claims around as is now evident from the reactions of France and UK.

He can go ahead and heap praises on northern governors for forestalling reprisal attacks in the north. He is free to simulate danger of any magnitude and proportion to the incidents in Port Harcourt, Umuahia and Aba and downplay the ones in Jos, Kaduna and Sokoto. He can pontificate and reel out claims that will justify a non-violent self-determination group as a terrorist organization. He is entitled to his views especially as the end has already justified the means.

But in overdramatizing the issue, he should not gloss over the fact that this country is home to mindless and unprovoked attacks on lives and property by sundry groups under various guises.  Religion-induced riots that claimed lives and property of inestimable value have been rampant in some parts of the country. There are also the deadly escapades of the Fulani herdsmen. The last time I checked, I could not remember any time there were reprisal attacks from those who lost their loved ones and property from such frequent and unprovoked attacks. Given the minister’s over dramatization of the issue of reprisals, it would appear the enormous sacrifices by sections that have borne the brunt of these attacks are being taken for granted.

Northern governors are on point for counseling their subjects to refrain from self-help even in the face of provocation. Their delegation has also been in the South-east to build confidence, reassure their indigenes that all is well and save the country from plunging into further crisis. That is commendable.

All the same, it is wrong to convey the impression that the infraction witnessed in the South-east in the last couple of days compares with the activities of the herdsmen to warrant the treatment they have now received. It is also difficult to fathom how Fulani herdsmen declared by Global Terrorism Index as the fourth deadliest group in the world can escape the tag of a terrorist organization. In this deadly matrix, the herdsmen came after Boko Haram, ISIS and Al-Shabab.

Yet, the Nigerian government sees nothing wrong with their murderous activities. Ironically, the same government that deliberately shut its eyes to the huge danger the herdsmen constitute to the peace and security of the country went into a frenzy to invent all manner of reasons to hound and obliterate all that IPOB stands for irrespective of whatever procedural defects that may have trailed some of their actions. It is also a curious coincidence that the action of the government has met the demands of Arewa youths who wrote to the UN to label IPOB a terrorist organization.

The same youth group issued the quit order to the Igbo. The government may have decimated the IPOB through the ban. It may have as well driven them underground. Those found with evidence of some form of connection with the group henceforth, stand to face the raw teeth of the law. They also face other severe consequences depending on the circumstances and the agencies that caught them.

But do the measures remedy the issues that threw up the IPOB? The answer is no. Are they capable of eliciting favorable dispositions and reconstructing the minds of the agitators away from the complaints that compelled them to the discipleship of Kanu? I do not see that happening. If anything, the proscription will further reinforce those fears for which they fell for Kanu’s Biafra option. They will be more inclined to see the high-handedness of the Buhari regime as a further proof that they do not really count in the affairs of this country.

They will continue to wonder why the same government kept mute while the Fulani herdsmen held the nation hostage. They will begin to nurse the feeling that perhaps, if one of theirs was occupying the highest political office in the country; if they had representation at the highest echelon of the military, their situation would have been different. The ban cannot change the minds of those who believe in what IPOB stands for. It cannot decimate agitations for Biafra until the systemic dysfunctions that gave rise to them are decisively and realistically addressed. At any rate, there are still three other groups professing the same ideas that are not affected by the proscription.

The government erred by the indecent haste with which it tagged IPOB a terrorist organization. It is one thing to ban the group and entirely another to label it a terrorist organization. The latter goes with serious repercussions. With Boko Haram, the deadly escapades of the Fulani herdsmen and now IPOB, we have made a clear statement in the world terrorism index. We will have to contend with this dialectics.