Short Essay 39
By Dr. Aliyu U. Tilde
Telecoms and Boko Haram
The much expected claim of responsibility for the attacks on offices and installations of telecommunication companies (telecoms) in Nigeria by Jama’at Ahlus Sunnah lid Da’awati wal Jihad – or Boko Haram as they are popularly called – finally came yesterday. With it, it is certain that the two elephants are logged in a fight that would leave ordinary Nigerians at the receiving end.
The contention, I believe, is all about management of private information received on trust, and not about terrorism per se. Last February, Boko Haram issued a warning on possible attacks on properties of telecoms for passing the content of communication among its members to Nigerian security and law enforcement agencies. By attacking those targets after six months, it is clear that, in the judgement of Boko Haram, the alleged collaboration between the telecoms and the government agencies has not stopped.
At this point, I think a denial by the telecoms, if the allegation is false, is critical. Boko Haram has thrown two challenges at the telecoms: the allegations and the attacks. Both have been replied with silence, if not with further collaboration, by the telecoms. If the companies are not collaborating with the security agencies by passing over private information of their suspected Boko Haram customers, something that contravenes the ethical and legal fundamentals of the industry, they should say so such that further attacks by the sect can be avoided. In fact, I expected the to put up even a “white lie” to avoid the present catastrophe. But they have not.
Well, the grammar above is just for the purpose of understanding the positions of both sides. On the one hand, telecoms are under pressure from government to pass over information about locations of callers suspected to be Boko Haram members and what they say in their calls or text messages. One can easily see them obliging such requests either as their ‘patriotic’ contribution in the fight against Boko Haram or in a bid to play the ‘good boy’ before government even if it contravenes the law. This understandably and instantly places them on the group’s hit list.
Boko Haram, on the other hand, definitely needs the privacy of their information to succeed in eluding the authorities. However, this is a desire that may hardly be granted to any insurgent group anywhere under the sun today. More than that, however, I must say that it is wishful in the first place. Anyone using digital technology must know that he is liable to hacking by the authorities. His location is the easiest thing to find. Since the row between Blackberry and China, India and a number of governments in the Middle East in 2009, it became clear that hardly would any technology be permitted into the market today without its “antidote” known to western governments. Technologically advanced countries were quiet on the BB Messenger row precisely because they have many such antidotes in their security stock. Boko Haram must understand the simple logic in this Hausa proverb: “kowa ya sayi rariya ya san za ta zubar da ruwa.”
For now, the Inspector General of Police has directed that security be provided to every office and mast of telecoms in the country. This is a good gesture though, unfortunately, a practically impossible one. I cannot see any Nigerian police playing a martyr in defence of a telecom installation in the bushes and villages of Northern Nigeria. He will be offering too much for nothing in return. Families of policemen who died in such circumstances are always complaining of neglect by the authorities. But that is even taking the argument too far. The basic reality is that with three to five masts in every village in the region there are just not enough policemen to safeguard the hundreds of thousands of such telecom masts even if all the policemen in the region are diverted to the project. I concede that there could be a reasonable number for their offices and, perhaps, personnel. But all masts? Kai, Mr. IGP.
The telecoms must therefore invent a practical equation to secure their installations, offices and staff. They must be ready to forego a scratch on the surface of the billions they daily harvest from Nigerians in protecting their assets with the formidable private security personnel for the foreseeable future. But please let them not pass the cost to us – the consumers. Let this not be an opportunity to return the cost of calls to N50/minute wo!
As for Boko Haram, my advice is that hardly would reliance on conventional telecommunication channels guarantee safety from surveillance of anti-establishment group. In fact, even without the collaboration of the telecoms, there are dozens of equipment that can intercept digital communications available over the counter for authorized bodies all over world. If it must survive, the group must keep this in mind and think ahead in its communication strategy. Hitting telecoms underlines its lack of its sophistication. More importantly, it undeniably puts the people that the group claims to protect centuries backward in economy, scholarship, culture, etc. Without modern communications, the North will eventually be reduced to its colonial era of kar ta kwana in which mails were delivered by a chain of native pedestrian human couriers until they reach their destination, non-stop. This is a fate that the group must work to avoid as it does not serve its cause in any imaginable way.
Finally, let me reiterate my analysis in my previous discourse. The whole Boko Haram insurgency and the general violence pervading Northern Nigeria is a product of the prevailing corrupt leadership in the country and the silence of Northern political leaders and intelligentsia over the injustice that such corruption perpetrates. This has led everyone outside the cliques of political and economic consortiums feel alienated, frustrated and hopeless. In that state of social perversion, anarchy cannot be avoided. In that state of affairs, the rich – like the telecommunication companies – and the strong – like the law enforcement agents and politicians – will both share in the tears of the desolate downtrodden whose life depicts the popular dictum: aluta continua. It is an analysis on which I remain unrepentant.
Bauchi
7 September 2012
Showing posts with label Boko Haram. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Boko Haram. Show all posts
Friday, September 7, 2012
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Maiduguri JTF Soldiers Attacked My Children - Female Unimaid Lecturer
JTF Soldiers Attacked My Children - Female UniMaid Lecturer
This is a very sad story I received from a former classmate of mine at A.B.U. (1978-1982), now a lecturer at University of Maiduguri, Mrs Salamatu Tata Askira. The question the STF commander in Maiduguri should ask himself is whether this misbehaviour is typical of or exceptional among his men.
Salamatu is lucky that her children escaped death, but not so were many parents in Maiduguri who lost members of their families and property to JTF carnage. We salute the courage of Salamatu for speaking out. I implore other Nigerians to do the same in the face of tyranny.
Who is proud of soldiers that attack civilians, children and women? The President, CDS, JTF Commander or who?
The JTF in Maiduguri is fond of denying these atrocities. But denial will not help it win the confidence of the people it claims to protect. Maiduguri, as a result of this wild behaviour by the JTF soldiers, is suffering from two Boko Harams: the JTF and BH. May God save Maiduguri and all Nigerians from both.
Let us listen to Salamatu:
My driver, Mamman, and two of my daughters suffered a traumatic ordeal in the hands of JTF in Maiduguri, yesterday, 28 August, 2012.
I had sent them to the bank unaware that there was a bomb explosion earlier on in the town. Shortly after that they called to tell me the situation in town and that they were on their way back as the banks were closed. Barely 10 minutes later, I received another call from them but this time I could barely hear them as they were crying hysterically. The only words which I could pick out were 'harbi, soja' (bullet fire, soldiers) and then more cries. I tried severally to call them back but of course in their confusion, they didn't pick the call. By this time, even those of us at home were crying. When eventually they were out of danger they called to say they were on their way. We waited anxiously at the gate for them.
According to Mamman, the military vehicle came from behind them, sped past them and one of the soldiers used the bottom of his gun to break the side mirror of the car. As soon as they had overtaken them, three of the soldiers at the back of the car opened fire at it directly. There was no other car in between. The soldiers fired several shots at the car but, Alhamdulillah, the bullets went through the bonnet and caused some damages there instead.
One of the bullets landed on the shoulder of a passenger in a taxi, which was behind our car. He bled profusely. I hope he survived it.
One of my daughters in her fright, opened the door of car and fled. The one at the back laid flat on the floor of the Sienna bus while Mamman, at the steering was in utter shock. In fact, he never thought he would come out of the ordeal alive. He didn't even know that bullets had pierced the bonnet till he got home and inspected the vehicle. On realising how close to death he had been, he opened the car, laid his head on the seat and wept like a baby. Have u seen a grown up weep? At this time we were crying yet again.
I suffered a similar fate last May. I was on my way to the university and completely unaware of the JTF vehicle coming behind me, probably cos my windows were up. Apparently they were beckoning at me to stop but I didn't know. When eventually I stopped, they all alighted from there car and surrounded me. One of them shouted that I refused to stop when they stopped me. I apologised and told them honestly I didn't realise they were stopping me . The driver of the vehicle, NPF 2495C, then came down and pointed his gun at me shouting, 'I will kill you now, I will shoot u'. He immediately used the bottom of his gun to smash the left headlamp of my car with so much rage. He then walked to the right side, repeated the same words and smashed the right head lamp. After that, he and the rest of his men entered their vehicle and drove off. This happened in front of Oasis bakery. Suffice is to say, other road users were shocked that they had actually attacked a woman.
I rest my case.
S.T.A.
-----------
This is a very sad story I received from a former classmate of mine at A.B.U. (1978-1982), now a lecturer at University of Maiduguri, Mrs Salamatu Tata Askira. The question the STF commander in Maiduguri should ask himself is whether this misbehaviour is typical of or exceptional among his men.
Salamatu is lucky that her children escaped death, but not so were many parents in Maiduguri who lost members of their families and property to JTF carnage. We salute the courage of Salamatu for speaking out. I implore other Nigerians to do the same in the face of tyranny.
Who is proud of soldiers that attack civilians, children and women? The President, CDS, JTF Commander or who?
The JTF in Maiduguri is fond of denying these atrocities. But denial will not help it win the confidence of the people it claims to protect. Maiduguri, as a result of this wild behaviour by the JTF soldiers, is suffering from two Boko Harams: the JTF and BH. May God save Maiduguri and all Nigerians from both.
Let us listen to Salamatu:
My driver, Mamman, and two of my daughters suffered a traumatic ordeal in the hands of JTF in Maiduguri, yesterday, 28 August, 2012.
I had sent them to the bank unaware that there was a bomb explosion earlier on in the town. Shortly after that they called to tell me the situation in town and that they were on their way back as the banks were closed. Barely 10 minutes later, I received another call from them but this time I could barely hear them as they were crying hysterically. The only words which I could pick out were 'harbi, soja' (bullet fire, soldiers) and then more cries. I tried severally to call them back but of course in their confusion, they didn't pick the call. By this time, even those of us at home were crying. When eventually they were out of danger they called to say they were on their way. We waited anxiously at the gate for them.
According to Mamman, the military vehicle came from behind them, sped past them and one of the soldiers used the bottom of his gun to break the side mirror of the car. As soon as they had overtaken them, three of the soldiers at the back of the car opened fire at it directly. There was no other car in between. The soldiers fired several shots at the car but, Alhamdulillah, the bullets went through the bonnet and caused some damages there instead.
One of the bullets landed on the shoulder of a passenger in a taxi, which was behind our car. He bled profusely. I hope he survived it.
One of my daughters in her fright, opened the door of car and fled. The one at the back laid flat on the floor of the Sienna bus while Mamman, at the steering was in utter shock. In fact, he never thought he would come out of the ordeal alive. He didn't even know that bullets had pierced the bonnet till he got home and inspected the vehicle. On realising how close to death he had been, he opened the car, laid his head on the seat and wept like a baby. Have u seen a grown up weep? At this time we were crying yet again.
I suffered a similar fate last May. I was on my way to the university and completely unaware of the JTF vehicle coming behind me, probably cos my windows were up. Apparently they were beckoning at me to stop but I didn't know. When eventually I stopped, they all alighted from there car and surrounded me. One of them shouted that I refused to stop when they stopped me. I apologised and told them honestly I didn't realise they were stopping me . The driver of the vehicle, NPF 2495C, then came down and pointed his gun at me shouting, 'I will kill you now, I will shoot u'. He immediately used the bottom of his gun to smash the left headlamp of my car with so much rage. He then walked to the right side, repeated the same words and smashed the right head lamp. After that, he and the rest of his men entered their vehicle and drove off. This happened in front of Oasis bakery. Suffice is to say, other road users were shocked that they had actually attacked a woman.
I rest my case.
S.T.A.
-----------
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Discourse 346: The Christian Answer to Boko Haram
Discourse 346
By Dr. Aliyu U. Tilde
The Christian Answer to Boko Haram
Last Sunday, the attention of the nation was drawn to the killings of innocent Nigerian Muslims, including unsuspecting travellers on the Kaduna-Abuja Highway, by Christians as a reprisal attack to Boko Haram bombings of churches in Kaduna and Zaria. A number of Mosques and shops were also burnt that Sunday in Christian-dominated neighbourhoods in the southern part of the city. In all the attacks, as at the last offical count, has killed 21 Christians, while the reprisals killed 29 Muslims and hundreds werreinsured. As a result, I will pause my series on Kano to say a word about the matter.
Before we continue, however, I have a confession to make. Writing on matters of religion in Nigeria and especially where lives and places of worship are involved is very difficult for commentators that would like to remain impartial. So many times, as we try it, a writer finds it difficult to walk the tight rope of objectivity, balance and reason. Yet, the mettle of a writer is not tested by his treatment of populist topics or points of view but by how delicately he handles tough issues with equanimiyt and fearlessness. In the midst of high tension and soaring tempers, a voice of reason, even if faint, is most welcome.
The fact that a group of Muslims in the name of Jama’atu Ahlis Sunnati Lil Da’awati wal Jihad – popularly known as Boko Haram - has been attacking churches in Northern Nigeria is a settled one. Its leader, Malam Abubakar Shekau, has twice featured on YouTube claiming its responsibility, and so does his spokesperson, Abu Qaqa, in the aftermath of many such attacks. The fact that there are Christians found involved in church bombing activities – and there are many reported and unreported cases – or in supporting Boko Haram as I once wrote on this page does not renounce the confession of Boko Haram; it only complicates our analytical equation by introducing more variables and, thus, making it less linear than most of us would wish.
Targeting churches and Christians with bombings by Boko Haram is a matter that has saddened every well meaning Muslim and Christian in this country. Attacking worshipers is not only un-Islamic but also cheap. The command of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) to his companions on this is clear. A Muslim must not have a better model on religion than him. Demolition a place of worship is an act of fasad – or corruption of the world, as clearly stated in Suratul Hajj, ironically in the very verse that the leader of the group quoted in his first video to justify its resort to arms, though he did not complete it.
A worshipper is a guest of God. When a delegation of Christians once paid a visit to the Prophet in Medina, he not only camped them in his mosque but also asked them to use it for their worship. That is how the sanctity of worshippers and their place of worship became a settled issue among Muslims of various sects. That is why destruction of churches are hard to find in Muslim history. Muslims have left churches and even idols in Jerusalem, Syria, Europe, Egypt and Asia intact to date. The Taliban that destroyed the idol of Buddha in Afghanistan a decade and half ago was widely condemned by Muslim scholars across the world.
I am yet to come across a Nigerian Muslim – a scholar or a layman like me - that approves of the demolition of churches and attack on worshippers. That was how the first claim by Boko Haram came to the Muslim community as a great shockand shame. Of course, Muslim rioters have burnt churches before and they continue to do so, just as Christians also burn mosques when there are unrests. The difference is in organization. Those are acts of mobs. The ones of Boko Haram are organized operations of a sect that claims to be waging a holy warfor Islam, for God. But what is its justification, if we may ask?
Fortunately, the group is unequivocal on its reasons. It seeks to legitimise such operations based on the principle of retaliation. It is true, as it says repeatedly, that Muslims in the past twenty years became targets of barbarous attacks by some Christians in areas where the latter dominates. The examples of Kafanchan, Tafawa Balewa, Zangon Kataf, Kaduna, Plateau and Zonkwa cannot be denied. It is not the barbarity of such attacks that worries Muslims most, however but how Christians get away with the crimes so easily. Many accuse the Christian dominated security and law enforcement agencies of complicity.
It is difficult to recall any substantial prosecution or even arrest of Christians in all these despite the presence of hardcore evidence, including videos, in the hands of security agencies and the general public. The most recent of them are the attack on Muslims on Eid ground in Jos and the cannibalization of their bodies in the presence of law enforcement personnel and that of how Muslim villagers were massacred in Southern Kaduna during the post election violence, both in 2011. On the other hand, the violent reactions of Muslims to these atrocities are greeted by severe punishments by tribunals, courts and law enforcement agents that play the prosecution and the judge at the same time. From Karibi-whyte tribunal of 1987 to the latest arrests on the Plateau, it is Muslims who consistently receive the butt.
It is this selective justice and indifference of Nigerian authorities to Muslim blood, property and dignity that gives Boko Haram the pretext to retaliate on Christians. But here too, the group is wrong. No doubt, God has permitted the Prophet to retaliate against the polytheists of Arabia who transgressed against Muslims for over a dcade. In issuing that permit, however, God was specific about the target and the proportion of the retaliation:
“Whoever transgresses against you, transgress (in return) against him in proportion to his transgression against you, and know that God is with those who fear Him (i.e. those who follow his command without retaliating beyond the proportion of the offence they received). (Chapter Baqarah)
In another verse He said,
“And fight those who fight you and do not transgress (beyond the proportion that you were attacked with). God doesn’t like those who transgress.” (Chapter Baqarah again)
This is equal to the principle of proportionality in international law.
The interpretation of Boko Haram that every Nigerian Christian bears the burden of the crime that another Christian committed is absolutely untenable Islam:
“And no soul would bear the burden of another soul…” (Chapter Fatir)
Therefore, the actions of Boko Haram on these matters do not conform with the provisions of the Qur’an. Throughout his life, the Prophet of Islam was specific in punishing those who wronged Muslims on the few occasions he could not forgive them. For example, he never generalized punishment on the polytheists of Arabia then. When he was fighting those of Mecca, he was fighting those of Mecca alone. Neither did he treat the different tribes of Jews and Christians then in Arabia as one. He treated each on its own merit, befriending them except those who proved hostile to Islam. This is the provision against collective punishment in international law, again.
In the same manner, even if we were to accord amargin for retaliation, which I will discount later in the discussion, we must accept that Nigerian Christians cannot be treated as one organic collection of murderers that deserve a carpet treatment of bombs and bullets. In this case, the task is even made easier because the communities where these atrocities are perpetrated are known; so are the names and pictures of people who committed the crimes.
Why would Boko Haram then target innocent worshippers for God’s sake? Why not go for the criminals specifically? If it would avenge the cannibalization of Muslims on the Eid grounds of Rukuba for example, let the it obtain the video, take the pain of identifying the attackers and go after them with a surgical precision. Why then attack a cheap target of Christian worshippers in Gombe or Kaduna and leave those in Zonkwa or Rukuba? Come on. This is not Islam.
I remember the fatwa once given by Sheikh Salisu Abubakar Suntalma of Ahmadu Bello University during the Kafanchan crisis of 1987. He said, agreed that innocent Muslims were killed in Kafanchan, it does not warrant any Muslim to attack any church or Christian in Kaduna or Zaria. If you can find the culprits in Kafanchan and attack them, you may have a point, he said. Islam does not sanction attacking an innocent person, he concluded. During the same episode, Ibrahim Zakzaky expressed the same view. (Ironically, the Karibi-Whyte tribunal that was set up on the crisis jailed Zakzaky for five years, despite his opposition.) It is difficult to come across any scholar, leader or informed person in Islam that holds a contrary view.
So, though Boko Haram is in every sense right to become worried about the impunity with which some Christians commit barbaric actions against Muslims and go unpunished by the Nigerian authorities, the group misfired in its answer to situation even from the perspective of Islam. The Muslim community in Nigeria has repeated this objection times without number. This is not to mention the group’s lack of locus standi even from the Islamic perspective since in Islam only the judge can order the killing of a criminal if so ordained by the law.
By way of summary, if I were to grade the script of Boko Haram here, I would give it minus one (-1).
Now let us turn to our Christian brothers. The answer of some Christians in some Northern communities is, sad to note, a mirror reflection of that of Boko Haram. They too have collectivised Nigerian Muslims, as Boko Haram generalized Nigerian Christians, and made their blood and property targets of their retaliation. If Boko Haram has attacked a church, what stops the Christians from identifying Boko Haram, if they need to, and deal with them?
I question the need because the Christians have the mighty Nigerian security, law enforcement and military apparatus behind them, at their disposal, if we go by the sacred-cow treatment they enjoy from them. Why then resort to killing innocent travellers, burning mosques and shops? So if Boko Haram is wrong in attacking innocent worshippers and churches, what makes the attack by Christian fanatics on innocent Muslim travellers and burning their mosques legitimate? This is the wrong answer to the challenge of Boko Haram.
It is also wrong from the point of view of practicality. In how many communities are such Christians fanatics ready to barricade the highway and cowardly kill innocent Muslims? In how many states or communities in the North can they do it? Honestly, I see that possibility only in Plateau and Kaduna, in the very communities where those atrocities against Muslims have been repeatedly committed due to ethnic reasons and where there are state governors who would mastermind their protection from the law. (I was once told Yakowa is married to Jang’s sister but now I have confirmed that it is not true. The two only share the same local government of origin, Jaba. Yakowa's wife actually has her ancestry in Tafawa Balewa, in my state of Bauchi. I apologize for the inaccurate information I earlier published on this blog about the two sisters of mine.)
Man is a rational animal though he sometimes behaves stupidly at sub-human level especially when propelled by the spur of religion. Normally, he calculates his degree of safety before taking any risk on his life. Few are the fools that would dare start a fire that would consume them. Even in Kaduna State, why did not the Christian reprisal attack take place in Kaduna North or Zaria?
So, I grade the Christian answer script as minus one (-1), too.
When we add up the two, we end up with -2, two failures in the two negative quadrants of the Nigerian security equation. This is worse than where we were without either or both of them. That is where we are today. The fact is that retaliation could only serve as a deterrent for a short while. It often produces a vicious cycle of violence. Christians in some communities carry out war crimes against Muslims. Boko Haram says it retaliates but under the hidden tactic of bombings. Then Christians retaliate in areas they too think Muslims are weak. Both do it against innocent citizens, against places of worship, against God, though purportedly in the name of God.
This circle of cowardice can continue forever except we find a way to cancel the negatives and arrive at a positive digit. And to this we turn in the remaining part of the essay.
Christian leaders and opinion shapers have appealed to Muslim leaders to use their weight to restrain Boko Haram. But sincerely, which citizen would restrain any Nigerian that carries arms today? There is none. In the same vein, I have heard many Berom leaders saying that their youths are beyond their control. When some chiefs of Niger Delta tried to stop its militants from terrorist activities in the mid-nineties, the youths accused them of complicity and murdered them. Righ now, Nigeria has a high deficit of willing martyrs among its leaders.
The truth is that when it comes to violence, the answer lies with the law and nothing else. The law it is that can cancel those negatives. It is the instrument that stripped all citizens of the right to possess firearms. If people had the right to protect themselves adequately, some of these atrocities would not be committed. (Though think about it honestly: if all of us would possess arms, it will be 160million guns and billions of ammunitions. How would there be peace? We would be facing another form of instability.) However, in most contemporary states, the law has entrusted the security of lives and property to the state. In Nigeria, keeping that trust has been in the decline for decades now. Unless we are interested in replacing the state with anarchy, we must rise to strengthen the law.
Strengthening the law means using it appropriately as an arbiter when injustice is perpetrated and getting the right people to enforce it, whenever possible. Muslims, as I have maintained, should, in the absence of any interest to bring the criminals that have been perpetrating crimes against them to justice locally, refer the matter to the International Court of Justice. They must be prepared to walk the ladder to its top. Armed with hard evidence like the ones we mentioned earlier, it is inconceivable that they will not be offered justice there. So the question of their retaliation is cancelled, ab initio.
Christians on their part must also resort to the law and support it. They must ensure that the law enforcement agencies that they control have risen to the challenge. They must also be patient with them until they succeed without complicating matters through retaliation. The current President is their making. They boasted of supporting him to victory during the last elections. In his hands lie the keys to our peace. He is the commander-in-chief. They must get him to act appropriately. Making a President is the beginning, not the end, of his service.
I will be dishonest to say that the government is doing nothing about Boko Haram. Achievements are recorded daily, albeit not enough to see us through completely yet. But when the President’s primary constituency dismisses him and resorts to taking the law into its hands by killing innocent travellers, I would think he has a problem at hand. He should not claim to be helpless, as he has often expressed in church services. He is not Moses. And we are not the Children of Israel on the bank of the Red Sea. Appealing to God without working hard maximally will only embolden the agents of destabilization. He must yield the stick as well as the carrot to both Boko Haram and his Christian counterparts in Plateau and Kaduna. Only this democratic distribution of justice would finally bring peace to our nation.
Ordinary citizens like me who have a voice must come out and speak boldly. The Christians have often emphasized that there is not enough voice of condemnation heard among Muslims. True. But that has to do more with the lack of protection from the government for those who would dare to do so. Man is a rational animal. Again, our dear Goodluck comes into the equation.
The Christians, on their part, often forget that they have been most economical with their voice against acts of sectarian violence. It is very hard, very rare, and very unusual to hear a Christian voice – a leader or opinion shaper – condemning the atrocities committed by his fellow Christians against Muslims, except Sam Nda-Isaiah of course, which mbay Christian fanatics say he is with Muslims. I cannot remember even a few, specifically directed at Christians. The best I would hear, if I am lucky on those rare occasions, are general statements condemning violence and calling for peace.
Has any Christian leader called for the prosecution of the massacres in Zonkwa or other villages of southern Kaduna of recent, for example? No. Have Nigerians heard the voice of any pastor on his pulpit condemning the Christians that attacked Muslims in Eid ground, roasted their bodies on vehicle bonnets and ate them in the presence of security agents? No. And so was it with every occasion of violence, including the latest killings on the Kaduna – Abuja Highway. What we only hear is the expression of shock, but not a single call for arrest. As usual, none is arrested and none will be arrested, anyway. There was never a time when any Christian cleric or traditional ruler even admitted that his people were at fault. The closest we heard was the recent statements by our Rev. Hassan Mathew Kukah. The videos are there. Let them join us in calling for the prosecution of the culprits. The truth, I must tell my Christian brothers, is that Nigeria cannot clap with one hand.
There are many other ways we can express our voice to garner support for peace though. For example, someone online has suggested mass rallies for peace across Northern Nigeria. Yes. I have seen the federal government and politicians rent crowds to show their solidarity for a cause or a candidate. Why cannot the president go beyond the pulpit and march across the road to the Eagle Square for the sake of peace? Why would not state governments summon all their ulama and priests and their followers to a peace rally in the largest public square of their states? These guys enjoy free largesse to Hajj, Umra Jerusalem and Rome. This is the time to ask for a pay back. Ehe now! Let us reassure the world with the pictures of oceans of peace loving Nigerians on international television screen. It will refute the notion that majority of Nigerians are murderers. It will also tell the agents of destabilization how insignificant they are in our midst.
As for the other forces that are interested for various reasons in aggravating the conflict in Northern Nigeria – those within the region and beyond – I wI'll say that it is our negligence that has given the allowance for the expression of their nefarious interests, using Boko Haram and Christian groups. The people of Northern Nigeria, and those of other regions, will continue to remain where they are, each in his own domain. In the North particularly, God has enriched us with diversity. It is a blessing, not a curse. And so shall we remain together long after the guns of Boko Haram and those of Christian fanatics are put to silence.
Bauchi,
19 June 2012
By Dr. Aliyu U. Tilde
The Christian Answer to Boko Haram
Last Sunday, the attention of the nation was drawn to the killings of innocent Nigerian Muslims, including unsuspecting travellers on the Kaduna-Abuja Highway, by Christians as a reprisal attack to Boko Haram bombings of churches in Kaduna and Zaria. A number of Mosques and shops were also burnt that Sunday in Christian-dominated neighbourhoods in the southern part of the city. In all the attacks, as at the last offical count, has killed 21 Christians, while the reprisals killed 29 Muslims and hundreds werreinsured. As a result, I will pause my series on Kano to say a word about the matter.
Before we continue, however, I have a confession to make. Writing on matters of religion in Nigeria and especially where lives and places of worship are involved is very difficult for commentators that would like to remain impartial. So many times, as we try it, a writer finds it difficult to walk the tight rope of objectivity, balance and reason. Yet, the mettle of a writer is not tested by his treatment of populist topics or points of view but by how delicately he handles tough issues with equanimiyt and fearlessness. In the midst of high tension and soaring tempers, a voice of reason, even if faint, is most welcome.
The fact that a group of Muslims in the name of Jama’atu Ahlis Sunnati Lil Da’awati wal Jihad – popularly known as Boko Haram - has been attacking churches in Northern Nigeria is a settled one. Its leader, Malam Abubakar Shekau, has twice featured on YouTube claiming its responsibility, and so does his spokesperson, Abu Qaqa, in the aftermath of many such attacks. The fact that there are Christians found involved in church bombing activities – and there are many reported and unreported cases – or in supporting Boko Haram as I once wrote on this page does not renounce the confession of Boko Haram; it only complicates our analytical equation by introducing more variables and, thus, making it less linear than most of us would wish.
Targeting churches and Christians with bombings by Boko Haram is a matter that has saddened every well meaning Muslim and Christian in this country. Attacking worshipers is not only un-Islamic but also cheap. The command of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) to his companions on this is clear. A Muslim must not have a better model on religion than him. Demolition a place of worship is an act of fasad – or corruption of the world, as clearly stated in Suratul Hajj, ironically in the very verse that the leader of the group quoted in his first video to justify its resort to arms, though he did not complete it.
A worshipper is a guest of God. When a delegation of Christians once paid a visit to the Prophet in Medina, he not only camped them in his mosque but also asked them to use it for their worship. That is how the sanctity of worshippers and their place of worship became a settled issue among Muslims of various sects. That is why destruction of churches are hard to find in Muslim history. Muslims have left churches and even idols in Jerusalem, Syria, Europe, Egypt and Asia intact to date. The Taliban that destroyed the idol of Buddha in Afghanistan a decade and half ago was widely condemned by Muslim scholars across the world.
I am yet to come across a Nigerian Muslim – a scholar or a layman like me - that approves of the demolition of churches and attack on worshippers. That was how the first claim by Boko Haram came to the Muslim community as a great shockand shame. Of course, Muslim rioters have burnt churches before and they continue to do so, just as Christians also burn mosques when there are unrests. The difference is in organization. Those are acts of mobs. The ones of Boko Haram are organized operations of a sect that claims to be waging a holy warfor Islam, for God. But what is its justification, if we may ask?
Fortunately, the group is unequivocal on its reasons. It seeks to legitimise such operations based on the principle of retaliation. It is true, as it says repeatedly, that Muslims in the past twenty years became targets of barbarous attacks by some Christians in areas where the latter dominates. The examples of Kafanchan, Tafawa Balewa, Zangon Kataf, Kaduna, Plateau and Zonkwa cannot be denied. It is not the barbarity of such attacks that worries Muslims most, however but how Christians get away with the crimes so easily. Many accuse the Christian dominated security and law enforcement agencies of complicity.
It is difficult to recall any substantial prosecution or even arrest of Christians in all these despite the presence of hardcore evidence, including videos, in the hands of security agencies and the general public. The most recent of them are the attack on Muslims on Eid ground in Jos and the cannibalization of their bodies in the presence of law enforcement personnel and that of how Muslim villagers were massacred in Southern Kaduna during the post election violence, both in 2011. On the other hand, the violent reactions of Muslims to these atrocities are greeted by severe punishments by tribunals, courts and law enforcement agents that play the prosecution and the judge at the same time. From Karibi-whyte tribunal of 1987 to the latest arrests on the Plateau, it is Muslims who consistently receive the butt.
It is this selective justice and indifference of Nigerian authorities to Muslim blood, property and dignity that gives Boko Haram the pretext to retaliate on Christians. But here too, the group is wrong. No doubt, God has permitted the Prophet to retaliate against the polytheists of Arabia who transgressed against Muslims for over a dcade. In issuing that permit, however, God was specific about the target and the proportion of the retaliation:
“Whoever transgresses against you, transgress (in return) against him in proportion to his transgression against you, and know that God is with those who fear Him (i.e. those who follow his command without retaliating beyond the proportion of the offence they received). (Chapter Baqarah)
In another verse He said,
“And fight those who fight you and do not transgress (beyond the proportion that you were attacked with). God doesn’t like those who transgress.” (Chapter Baqarah again)
This is equal to the principle of proportionality in international law.
The interpretation of Boko Haram that every Nigerian Christian bears the burden of the crime that another Christian committed is absolutely untenable Islam:
“And no soul would bear the burden of another soul…” (Chapter Fatir)
Therefore, the actions of Boko Haram on these matters do not conform with the provisions of the Qur’an. Throughout his life, the Prophet of Islam was specific in punishing those who wronged Muslims on the few occasions he could not forgive them. For example, he never generalized punishment on the polytheists of Arabia then. When he was fighting those of Mecca, he was fighting those of Mecca alone. Neither did he treat the different tribes of Jews and Christians then in Arabia as one. He treated each on its own merit, befriending them except those who proved hostile to Islam. This is the provision against collective punishment in international law, again.
In the same manner, even if we were to accord amargin for retaliation, which I will discount later in the discussion, we must accept that Nigerian Christians cannot be treated as one organic collection of murderers that deserve a carpet treatment of bombs and bullets. In this case, the task is even made easier because the communities where these atrocities are perpetrated are known; so are the names and pictures of people who committed the crimes.
Why would Boko Haram then target innocent worshippers for God’s sake? Why not go for the criminals specifically? If it would avenge the cannibalization of Muslims on the Eid grounds of Rukuba for example, let the it obtain the video, take the pain of identifying the attackers and go after them with a surgical precision. Why then attack a cheap target of Christian worshippers in Gombe or Kaduna and leave those in Zonkwa or Rukuba? Come on. This is not Islam.
I remember the fatwa once given by Sheikh Salisu Abubakar Suntalma of Ahmadu Bello University during the Kafanchan crisis of 1987. He said, agreed that innocent Muslims were killed in Kafanchan, it does not warrant any Muslim to attack any church or Christian in Kaduna or Zaria. If you can find the culprits in Kafanchan and attack them, you may have a point, he said. Islam does not sanction attacking an innocent person, he concluded. During the same episode, Ibrahim Zakzaky expressed the same view. (Ironically, the Karibi-Whyte tribunal that was set up on the crisis jailed Zakzaky for five years, despite his opposition.) It is difficult to come across any scholar, leader or informed person in Islam that holds a contrary view.
So, though Boko Haram is in every sense right to become worried about the impunity with which some Christians commit barbaric actions against Muslims and go unpunished by the Nigerian authorities, the group misfired in its answer to situation even from the perspective of Islam. The Muslim community in Nigeria has repeated this objection times without number. This is not to mention the group’s lack of locus standi even from the Islamic perspective since in Islam only the judge can order the killing of a criminal if so ordained by the law.
By way of summary, if I were to grade the script of Boko Haram here, I would give it minus one (-1).
Now let us turn to our Christian brothers. The answer of some Christians in some Northern communities is, sad to note, a mirror reflection of that of Boko Haram. They too have collectivised Nigerian Muslims, as Boko Haram generalized Nigerian Christians, and made their blood and property targets of their retaliation. If Boko Haram has attacked a church, what stops the Christians from identifying Boko Haram, if they need to, and deal with them?
I question the need because the Christians have the mighty Nigerian security, law enforcement and military apparatus behind them, at their disposal, if we go by the sacred-cow treatment they enjoy from them. Why then resort to killing innocent travellers, burning mosques and shops? So if Boko Haram is wrong in attacking innocent worshippers and churches, what makes the attack by Christian fanatics on innocent Muslim travellers and burning their mosques legitimate? This is the wrong answer to the challenge of Boko Haram.
It is also wrong from the point of view of practicality. In how many communities are such Christians fanatics ready to barricade the highway and cowardly kill innocent Muslims? In how many states or communities in the North can they do it? Honestly, I see that possibility only in Plateau and Kaduna, in the very communities where those atrocities against Muslims have been repeatedly committed due to ethnic reasons and where there are state governors who would mastermind their protection from the law. (I was once told Yakowa is married to Jang’s sister but now I have confirmed that it is not true. The two only share the same local government of origin, Jaba. Yakowa's wife actually has her ancestry in Tafawa Balewa, in my state of Bauchi. I apologize for the inaccurate information I earlier published on this blog about the two sisters of mine.)
Man is a rational animal though he sometimes behaves stupidly at sub-human level especially when propelled by the spur of religion. Normally, he calculates his degree of safety before taking any risk on his life. Few are the fools that would dare start a fire that would consume them. Even in Kaduna State, why did not the Christian reprisal attack take place in Kaduna North or Zaria?
So, I grade the Christian answer script as minus one (-1), too.
When we add up the two, we end up with -2, two failures in the two negative quadrants of the Nigerian security equation. This is worse than where we were without either or both of them. That is where we are today. The fact is that retaliation could only serve as a deterrent for a short while. It often produces a vicious cycle of violence. Christians in some communities carry out war crimes against Muslims. Boko Haram says it retaliates but under the hidden tactic of bombings. Then Christians retaliate in areas they too think Muslims are weak. Both do it against innocent citizens, against places of worship, against God, though purportedly in the name of God.
This circle of cowardice can continue forever except we find a way to cancel the negatives and arrive at a positive digit. And to this we turn in the remaining part of the essay.
Christian leaders and opinion shapers have appealed to Muslim leaders to use their weight to restrain Boko Haram. But sincerely, which citizen would restrain any Nigerian that carries arms today? There is none. In the same vein, I have heard many Berom leaders saying that their youths are beyond their control. When some chiefs of Niger Delta tried to stop its militants from terrorist activities in the mid-nineties, the youths accused them of complicity and murdered them. Righ now, Nigeria has a high deficit of willing martyrs among its leaders.
The truth is that when it comes to violence, the answer lies with the law and nothing else. The law it is that can cancel those negatives. It is the instrument that stripped all citizens of the right to possess firearms. If people had the right to protect themselves adequately, some of these atrocities would not be committed. (Though think about it honestly: if all of us would possess arms, it will be 160million guns and billions of ammunitions. How would there be peace? We would be facing another form of instability.) However, in most contemporary states, the law has entrusted the security of lives and property to the state. In Nigeria, keeping that trust has been in the decline for decades now. Unless we are interested in replacing the state with anarchy, we must rise to strengthen the law.
Strengthening the law means using it appropriately as an arbiter when injustice is perpetrated and getting the right people to enforce it, whenever possible. Muslims, as I have maintained, should, in the absence of any interest to bring the criminals that have been perpetrating crimes against them to justice locally, refer the matter to the International Court of Justice. They must be prepared to walk the ladder to its top. Armed with hard evidence like the ones we mentioned earlier, it is inconceivable that they will not be offered justice there. So the question of their retaliation is cancelled, ab initio.
Christians on their part must also resort to the law and support it. They must ensure that the law enforcement agencies that they control have risen to the challenge. They must also be patient with them until they succeed without complicating matters through retaliation. The current President is their making. They boasted of supporting him to victory during the last elections. In his hands lie the keys to our peace. He is the commander-in-chief. They must get him to act appropriately. Making a President is the beginning, not the end, of his service.
I will be dishonest to say that the government is doing nothing about Boko Haram. Achievements are recorded daily, albeit not enough to see us through completely yet. But when the President’s primary constituency dismisses him and resorts to taking the law into its hands by killing innocent travellers, I would think he has a problem at hand. He should not claim to be helpless, as he has often expressed in church services. He is not Moses. And we are not the Children of Israel on the bank of the Red Sea. Appealing to God without working hard maximally will only embolden the agents of destabilization. He must yield the stick as well as the carrot to both Boko Haram and his Christian counterparts in Plateau and Kaduna. Only this democratic distribution of justice would finally bring peace to our nation.
Ordinary citizens like me who have a voice must come out and speak boldly. The Christians have often emphasized that there is not enough voice of condemnation heard among Muslims. True. But that has to do more with the lack of protection from the government for those who would dare to do so. Man is a rational animal. Again, our dear Goodluck comes into the equation.
The Christians, on their part, often forget that they have been most economical with their voice against acts of sectarian violence. It is very hard, very rare, and very unusual to hear a Christian voice – a leader or opinion shaper – condemning the atrocities committed by his fellow Christians against Muslims, except Sam Nda-Isaiah of course, which mbay Christian fanatics say he is with Muslims. I cannot remember even a few, specifically directed at Christians. The best I would hear, if I am lucky on those rare occasions, are general statements condemning violence and calling for peace.
Has any Christian leader called for the prosecution of the massacres in Zonkwa or other villages of southern Kaduna of recent, for example? No. Have Nigerians heard the voice of any pastor on his pulpit condemning the Christians that attacked Muslims in Eid ground, roasted their bodies on vehicle bonnets and ate them in the presence of security agents? No. And so was it with every occasion of violence, including the latest killings on the Kaduna – Abuja Highway. What we only hear is the expression of shock, but not a single call for arrest. As usual, none is arrested and none will be arrested, anyway. There was never a time when any Christian cleric or traditional ruler even admitted that his people were at fault. The closest we heard was the recent statements by our Rev. Hassan Mathew Kukah. The videos are there. Let them join us in calling for the prosecution of the culprits. The truth, I must tell my Christian brothers, is that Nigeria cannot clap with one hand.
There are many other ways we can express our voice to garner support for peace though. For example, someone online has suggested mass rallies for peace across Northern Nigeria. Yes. I have seen the federal government and politicians rent crowds to show their solidarity for a cause or a candidate. Why cannot the president go beyond the pulpit and march across the road to the Eagle Square for the sake of peace? Why would not state governments summon all their ulama and priests and their followers to a peace rally in the largest public square of their states? These guys enjoy free largesse to Hajj, Umra Jerusalem and Rome. This is the time to ask for a pay back. Ehe now! Let us reassure the world with the pictures of oceans of peace loving Nigerians on international television screen. It will refute the notion that majority of Nigerians are murderers. It will also tell the agents of destabilization how insignificant they are in our midst.
As for the other forces that are interested for various reasons in aggravating the conflict in Northern Nigeria – those within the region and beyond – I wI'll say that it is our negligence that has given the allowance for the expression of their nefarious interests, using Boko Haram and Christian groups. The people of Northern Nigeria, and those of other regions, will continue to remain where they are, each in his own domain. In the North particularly, God has enriched us with diversity. It is a blessing, not a curse. And so shall we remain together long after the guns of Boko Haram and those of Christian fanatics are put to silence.
Bauchi,
19 June 2012
Monday, March 5, 2012
Short Essay 27. JAMB Should Defy Boko Haram
Short Essay 27
By Dr. Aliyu U. Tilde
JAMB Should Defy Boko Haram
The News Agency of Nigeria yesterday reported the Registrar of JAMB, Professor Dibu Ojerinde, saying that it will cancel the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) in volatile states of Northern Nigeria if the Boko Haram attack on primary and secondary schools in Borno State continues. “The Board will be left with no option”, he said, “than to tell candidates to go elsewhere to write the exams if schools which serve as centres will be attacked.”
The report appears contradictory, making me believe that NAN did not get its facts right. Consider another statement it reported from the Registrar:
“When we reviewed the situation in volatile states, for instance Borno, we realized that some of the schools are being bombed but our investigations showed that only primary schools are affected and not secondary schools.”
By this statement, to my understanding, the Registrar did not rule out JAMB holding examinations in those states. After all, UTME examinations are held in secondary schools. Primary schools hardly have the large space facilities that JAMB needs.
I am not accusing NAN of crying wolf where there is none; after all, it is a reputable news agency on which our media houses depend as a veritable source of news on a wide range of domestic affairs. I only think the Registrar should be clearly understood on this important subject matter that will affect the future of hundreds of thousands of our children.
Despite the contradiction in the report, I still felt it is worth making a short comment on the matter.
I understand the concern of JAMB. As any prudent agency would aver, it does not want its indiscretion to result in the death of Nigerian children and staff of the Board. The Registrar deserves our commendation for this foresight.
In the event that the unexpected happens and attacks secondary schools in the next two weeks before the exams, I still feel that JAMB should not contemplate canceling the examination but go ahead to plan its execution and taking the necessary precautions. The UTME examination is too important to be brushed aside for the scare of an anticipated attack by Boko Haram. Canceling the examination will cause so much pain and complications in the learning career of the candidates and compound the admission exercise of higher institutions to which the affected states are catchment areas.
JAMB should go ahead with its plan due to two reasons.
One, I am inclined to believe that Boko Haram will not attack these centres when the examinations are holding. To be fair to Boko Haram, the sect has always maintained that it does not target civilians but security and law enforcement personnel. It has repeated this time without number. And if we can remember, its leader announced in his second video broadcast on Youtube that the group will start attacking ‘boko’ schools after an alleged attack by JTF of a Qur’anic school in Maiduguri, an allegation that JTF quick to refute.
So far, Boko Haram has attacked four primary schools. But in all the attacks, no life was lost because the group refrained from carrying out the attacks during schools hours when it will lead to deaths and casualties to the civilian pupils and staff. With this record, it is clear that Boko Haram is targeting infrastructure, not the pupils, of the primary schools. Doing otherwise will contradict its claim that it is “working for the interest of the ummah”, as its leader Shekau would put it. JAMB examinations, therefore, are very unlikely targets of Boko Haram. Relax your mind, my Professor Ojerinde!
Two, if I am proved wrong and Boko Haram attacks secondary schools during schools hours – something I still believe is not in tandem with its modus operandi – JAMB should still go ahead with the examinations but make adequate security arrangements for their safe conduct. A number of measures would be necessary.
First and foremost, JAMB should liaise with the JTF and the state government to study the situation and look into the necessary measures for safe conduct of the examinations. Fortunately, the examination, unlike NYSC, is not protracted; it takes only few hours. The military and other agencies can mobilize a substantial number of personnel to each centre.
To ensure that the centres are not blown off a night or so before the examinations, law enforcement personnel need to be posted there early enough. Then on the day of the examination, the schools or the neighbourhoods where the centres are located should be adequately manned. In fact, the entire state could be placed under curfew that Saturday for the period the examinations are conducted. These measures are necessary especially for town like Biu, Bama, Uba, Gwoza, etc.
If it proves to be too difficult or risky to hold the examination at the various centres in Maiduguri town, there is still a better option than to “tell candidates to go elsewhere to write the exams.” The authorities should think of pooling the centres into one for candidates within Maiduguri town. The University of Maiduguri would be a suitable site. It has many theatres and lecture halls that can accommodate the candidates. The university community should make do with the inconvenience of few hours to enable its prospective candidates sit for the matriculation examination.
I think a combination of statewide curfew and shifting the examination to the university for candidates in the capital, which is the epricentre of Boko Haram attacks, will be the best.
If all the above fails and JAMB insists that the fear of Boko Haram is the beginning of wisdom, and only after having obtained a red card from JTF, then I would suggest that candidates from Borno State should be given a waiver by JAMB such that they can be admitted on the basis of post-UME tests in the institutions they applied for in addition to their fulfillment of WAEC/NECO requirements. Skipping JAMB itself would not matter much since in most universities passing the post-UME test is as important, if not more important, than passing JAMB.
Finally, I call on Borno State government to take this issue seriously. Its candidates and indeed the state cannot afford to miss UTME examinations. Boko Haram may be here next year also. Does that mean that my Kanuri brothers will continue to miss UTME and universty admissions indefinitely? So instead of running away from the problem, it must be handled now. The government must do whatever it takes to ensure that JAMB is convinced on the security of its centres in the state. It must not sit back and see the twelve years it invested in its candidates washed away by the fear of a Boko Haram attack.
Bauchi
5 March 2012
By Dr. Aliyu U. Tilde
JAMB Should Defy Boko Haram
The News Agency of Nigeria yesterday reported the Registrar of JAMB, Professor Dibu Ojerinde, saying that it will cancel the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) in volatile states of Northern Nigeria if the Boko Haram attack on primary and secondary schools in Borno State continues. “The Board will be left with no option”, he said, “than to tell candidates to go elsewhere to write the exams if schools which serve as centres will be attacked.”
The report appears contradictory, making me believe that NAN did not get its facts right. Consider another statement it reported from the Registrar:
“When we reviewed the situation in volatile states, for instance Borno, we realized that some of the schools are being bombed but our investigations showed that only primary schools are affected and not secondary schools.”
By this statement, to my understanding, the Registrar did not rule out JAMB holding examinations in those states. After all, UTME examinations are held in secondary schools. Primary schools hardly have the large space facilities that JAMB needs.
I am not accusing NAN of crying wolf where there is none; after all, it is a reputable news agency on which our media houses depend as a veritable source of news on a wide range of domestic affairs. I only think the Registrar should be clearly understood on this important subject matter that will affect the future of hundreds of thousands of our children.
Despite the contradiction in the report, I still felt it is worth making a short comment on the matter.
I understand the concern of JAMB. As any prudent agency would aver, it does not want its indiscretion to result in the death of Nigerian children and staff of the Board. The Registrar deserves our commendation for this foresight.
In the event that the unexpected happens and attacks secondary schools in the next two weeks before the exams, I still feel that JAMB should not contemplate canceling the examination but go ahead to plan its execution and taking the necessary precautions. The UTME examination is too important to be brushed aside for the scare of an anticipated attack by Boko Haram. Canceling the examination will cause so much pain and complications in the learning career of the candidates and compound the admission exercise of higher institutions to which the affected states are catchment areas.
JAMB should go ahead with its plan due to two reasons.
One, I am inclined to believe that Boko Haram will not attack these centres when the examinations are holding. To be fair to Boko Haram, the sect has always maintained that it does not target civilians but security and law enforcement personnel. It has repeated this time without number. And if we can remember, its leader announced in his second video broadcast on Youtube that the group will start attacking ‘boko’ schools after an alleged attack by JTF of a Qur’anic school in Maiduguri, an allegation that JTF quick to refute.
So far, Boko Haram has attacked four primary schools. But in all the attacks, no life was lost because the group refrained from carrying out the attacks during schools hours when it will lead to deaths and casualties to the civilian pupils and staff. With this record, it is clear that Boko Haram is targeting infrastructure, not the pupils, of the primary schools. Doing otherwise will contradict its claim that it is “working for the interest of the ummah”, as its leader Shekau would put it. JAMB examinations, therefore, are very unlikely targets of Boko Haram. Relax your mind, my Professor Ojerinde!
Two, if I am proved wrong and Boko Haram attacks secondary schools during schools hours – something I still believe is not in tandem with its modus operandi – JAMB should still go ahead with the examinations but make adequate security arrangements for their safe conduct. A number of measures would be necessary.
First and foremost, JAMB should liaise with the JTF and the state government to study the situation and look into the necessary measures for safe conduct of the examinations. Fortunately, the examination, unlike NYSC, is not protracted; it takes only few hours. The military and other agencies can mobilize a substantial number of personnel to each centre.
To ensure that the centres are not blown off a night or so before the examinations, law enforcement personnel need to be posted there early enough. Then on the day of the examination, the schools or the neighbourhoods where the centres are located should be adequately manned. In fact, the entire state could be placed under curfew that Saturday for the period the examinations are conducted. These measures are necessary especially for town like Biu, Bama, Uba, Gwoza, etc.
If it proves to be too difficult or risky to hold the examination at the various centres in Maiduguri town, there is still a better option than to “tell candidates to go elsewhere to write the exams.” The authorities should think of pooling the centres into one for candidates within Maiduguri town. The University of Maiduguri would be a suitable site. It has many theatres and lecture halls that can accommodate the candidates. The university community should make do with the inconvenience of few hours to enable its prospective candidates sit for the matriculation examination.
I think a combination of statewide curfew and shifting the examination to the university for candidates in the capital, which is the epricentre of Boko Haram attacks, will be the best.
If all the above fails and JAMB insists that the fear of Boko Haram is the beginning of wisdom, and only after having obtained a red card from JTF, then I would suggest that candidates from Borno State should be given a waiver by JAMB such that they can be admitted on the basis of post-UME tests in the institutions they applied for in addition to their fulfillment of WAEC/NECO requirements. Skipping JAMB itself would not matter much since in most universities passing the post-UME test is as important, if not more important, than passing JAMB.
Finally, I call on Borno State government to take this issue seriously. Its candidates and indeed the state cannot afford to miss UTME examinations. Boko Haram may be here next year also. Does that mean that my Kanuri brothers will continue to miss UTME and universty admissions indefinitely? So instead of running away from the problem, it must be handled now. The government must do whatever it takes to ensure that JAMB is convinced on the security of its centres in the state. It must not sit back and see the twelve years it invested in its candidates washed away by the fear of a Boko Haram attack.
Bauchi
5 March 2012
Friday, January 27, 2012
Discourse 340. Weep not, Kano. Be Innovative
Discourse 340
By Dr. Aliyu U. Tilde
Weep Not, Kano. Be Innovative
The Kano bombings of Friday, 20 January 2012, could not have come as a surprise.
It is not the first time that Kano and Maiduguri would share the same fate. The early 1980s saw the Maitatsine religious crisis spread from Kano to Maiduguri, Gombe and Yola. This time, it reversed. Coming three decades later with its epicenter in Maiduguri, Boko Haram has spread to Kano.
The two are the most vibrant commercial cities in the far North. And not by coincidence, they are also the leading cities in Qur’anic tradition. Speaking in historical terms, they shared borders and there are large populations of Kanuri in the old Kano State. They are twins, you can say, in many respects.
While the people of Kano and indeed the entire country commiserate with the victims of the attack, and while the injured are still on hospital bed hoping for quick recovery, I feel not enough attention on the future is given in our commentaries. Will last Friday’s attack and its ongoing aftershocks be the last to visit Kano or will the second most populous city in the country share the fate of its twin sister?
The motive of Boko Haram and the reaction of government to the attacks suggest to me that Kano is likely to share the destiny of Maiduguri. More attacks should be expected. They are likely to come with no less, but if not more, degree of devastation. This is not a prayer but a prudent, albeit brutal, reading of the situation. It is the most likely scenario that needs to be prepared for or, if possible, avoided all together.
Boko Haram has given its reasons for the attack. It said it was predicated on the failure of the authorities to release innocent members of the sect detained from and after the 2009 crisis. Massive arrests, it said, took place in Wudil. Recently, also, added Boko Haram, many have been quietly arrested in the Kano itself without any trial.
The organization said it put off attacking the city many times before due to the intervention of some ulama it respects. But when neither of the demands was met, it ran out of patience and finally decided to go for what is correctly described as its biggest operation ever.
If previous arrests instigated the attack, as Boko Haram said, it will be difficult to see how the attack in itself would lead to amity with the government. Naturally, more arrests were made after the attack, and more will be made, in addition to a large dose, if not an overdose, of a cocktail of both preemptive and retributive measures. The killing of a Kantin Kwari merchant and his wife and the arrest of his children point at the extent that government would go with its policy of extermination, depicting another striking similarity with Maiduguri.
From experience, Boko Haram will not be cowed by such measures. They only serve to provoke it further. Unless a wiser approach is taken, last Friday's attack was the conjugation that will endlessly replicate the Maiduguri crisis DNA in Kano. I have not lost sight of the significance of the label given to the YouTube video released by its leader, Imam Abubakar Shekau, few hours ago: "Sako Game Da Harin Kano 1." In the caption is an implicit message that there might be Kano 2! The content of the video did not leave a better ground for hope either.
What should Kano resort to? Will it choose to depend on the overwhelmed federal government, in spite of the assurances of the new IGP, or would its leaders be innovative in following a complementary or, if need be, different path to peace?
Unlike Maiduguri, however, Kano has a small window of hope. If it is true that there are ulama in Kano who the sect hold at high esteem and whose reverence was instrumental in wading off earlier plans to attack the city, then the opportunity should be used to ensure that Kano is spared the crippling fate of Maiduguri.
In the pursuit of this goal, I advise that Kano must not solely rely on the federal government, whose extermination policy has only worsened matters nationwide. The Chief of Defence Staff just recently reiterated that government will not negotiate with Boko Haram. This high horse of government stupidity will not spare Kano the spectre of destruction that is staring at it. It will only destroy the city, to the delight of some.
The state government must quickly recruit the support of the Kano Emirate, the ulama of Kano as well as its businessmen to dialogue with the group. This should be done silently without courting publicity. Some non-Kano residents, like the Chief of Defence Staff, may think this is abominable. But think of it objectively. Is negotiation too big a price for peace and what it preserves of lives, property and businesses?
Let us examine the prospects of the government's military option briefly.
The most obvious thing that will happen is that the army will become increasingly drafted to Kano streets as the attacks continue. Their mandate will equally continue to expand, each time pouching from the authority of the state government, as we have seen in Plateau and Maiduguri, with state of emergency declared in all the local governments of the city.
The state will be spending chunks of its allocation to finance the military presence on its streets. It will be a web from which Kano will find difficult to extricate itself, moreso, when the misery of the city will mean a fortune for people who will exploit the situation to their advantage, diverting billions of security expenditure - which is a quarter of our federal budget - into their bank accounts.
The people who will suffer most will be the ordinary citizens whose businesses and livelihood will be impaired. When achaba is banned, for example, as in Maiduguri and Yobe state, a million commercial motorcyclists shuttling the streets of Kano will be jobless and their two million dependents will face serious hardships. And so with other businesses. The misery, in the end, will be unimaginable.
Markets, as it happened in Maiduguri, will also be at the risk of getting destroyed by fake soldiers who will cordon them, disperse their traders and set them ablaze immediately. Businessmen will be sent letters containing bullets demanding millions of naira or face death. Those who would like to cripple the long standing record of Kano's economic success will have a golden opportunity. They will carry their operations and push the blame to Boko Haram.
At home, families will be subjected to abuse. A single explosion will justify the ransacking of the entire neighbourhood by soldiers, killing the innocent, raping the women and shooting the men. Residents of the city will be forced to abandon it. Where will those millions go?
In the end Kano will be a ghost of its present state...if it solely relies on the federal government...if it commits the mistake of its twin sister, Maiduguri.
It must pursue a different path, wherever and whenever possible. It must not be overwhelmed by its tears, which at best preoccupies it with the past incident and prevents it from preparing for the future. But unlike Maiduguri, Kano must be ready to take its destiny in its own hands. Durkusawa wada ba gajiyawa ba ne.
As I was about to conclude this piece, Reuters reported that the President has confessed that the military option is not a solution, that his government is ready to dialogue if Boko Haram "will come out." Kano should not wait for Boko Haram to "come out" before it finds peace. It should take its own initiative. Who knows? Its effort, if it succeeds, may open the way for government to follow.
Finally, I hereby condole to the families of the victims that were killed and pray for fast recovery of all the injured.
Weep not, Kano. Your great people must take heart and take their destiny into their own hands.
As the poet al-Mutanabbi once put it, Innal 'azeema 'alal 'azeemi sabouru: Great people endure great calamity.
Abuja
26 January 2012
By Dr. Aliyu U. Tilde
Weep Not, Kano. Be Innovative
The Kano bombings of Friday, 20 January 2012, could not have come as a surprise.
It is not the first time that Kano and Maiduguri would share the same fate. The early 1980s saw the Maitatsine religious crisis spread from Kano to Maiduguri, Gombe and Yola. This time, it reversed. Coming three decades later with its epicenter in Maiduguri, Boko Haram has spread to Kano.
The two are the most vibrant commercial cities in the far North. And not by coincidence, they are also the leading cities in Qur’anic tradition. Speaking in historical terms, they shared borders and there are large populations of Kanuri in the old Kano State. They are twins, you can say, in many respects.
While the people of Kano and indeed the entire country commiserate with the victims of the attack, and while the injured are still on hospital bed hoping for quick recovery, I feel not enough attention on the future is given in our commentaries. Will last Friday’s attack and its ongoing aftershocks be the last to visit Kano or will the second most populous city in the country share the fate of its twin sister?
The motive of Boko Haram and the reaction of government to the attacks suggest to me that Kano is likely to share the destiny of Maiduguri. More attacks should be expected. They are likely to come with no less, but if not more, degree of devastation. This is not a prayer but a prudent, albeit brutal, reading of the situation. It is the most likely scenario that needs to be prepared for or, if possible, avoided all together.
Boko Haram has given its reasons for the attack. It said it was predicated on the failure of the authorities to release innocent members of the sect detained from and after the 2009 crisis. Massive arrests, it said, took place in Wudil. Recently, also, added Boko Haram, many have been quietly arrested in the Kano itself without any trial.
The organization said it put off attacking the city many times before due to the intervention of some ulama it respects. But when neither of the demands was met, it ran out of patience and finally decided to go for what is correctly described as its biggest operation ever.
If previous arrests instigated the attack, as Boko Haram said, it will be difficult to see how the attack in itself would lead to amity with the government. Naturally, more arrests were made after the attack, and more will be made, in addition to a large dose, if not an overdose, of a cocktail of both preemptive and retributive measures. The killing of a Kantin Kwari merchant and his wife and the arrest of his children point at the extent that government would go with its policy of extermination, depicting another striking similarity with Maiduguri.
From experience, Boko Haram will not be cowed by such measures. They only serve to provoke it further. Unless a wiser approach is taken, last Friday's attack was the conjugation that will endlessly replicate the Maiduguri crisis DNA in Kano. I have not lost sight of the significance of the label given to the YouTube video released by its leader, Imam Abubakar Shekau, few hours ago: "Sako Game Da Harin Kano 1." In the caption is an implicit message that there might be Kano 2! The content of the video did not leave a better ground for hope either.
What should Kano resort to? Will it choose to depend on the overwhelmed federal government, in spite of the assurances of the new IGP, or would its leaders be innovative in following a complementary or, if need be, different path to peace?
Unlike Maiduguri, however, Kano has a small window of hope. If it is true that there are ulama in Kano who the sect hold at high esteem and whose reverence was instrumental in wading off earlier plans to attack the city, then the opportunity should be used to ensure that Kano is spared the crippling fate of Maiduguri.
In the pursuit of this goal, I advise that Kano must not solely rely on the federal government, whose extermination policy has only worsened matters nationwide. The Chief of Defence Staff just recently reiterated that government will not negotiate with Boko Haram. This high horse of government stupidity will not spare Kano the spectre of destruction that is staring at it. It will only destroy the city, to the delight of some.
The state government must quickly recruit the support of the Kano Emirate, the ulama of Kano as well as its businessmen to dialogue with the group. This should be done silently without courting publicity. Some non-Kano residents, like the Chief of Defence Staff, may think this is abominable. But think of it objectively. Is negotiation too big a price for peace and what it preserves of lives, property and businesses?
Let us examine the prospects of the government's military option briefly.
The most obvious thing that will happen is that the army will become increasingly drafted to Kano streets as the attacks continue. Their mandate will equally continue to expand, each time pouching from the authority of the state government, as we have seen in Plateau and Maiduguri, with state of emergency declared in all the local governments of the city.
The state will be spending chunks of its allocation to finance the military presence on its streets. It will be a web from which Kano will find difficult to extricate itself, moreso, when the misery of the city will mean a fortune for people who will exploit the situation to their advantage, diverting billions of security expenditure - which is a quarter of our federal budget - into their bank accounts.
The people who will suffer most will be the ordinary citizens whose businesses and livelihood will be impaired. When achaba is banned, for example, as in Maiduguri and Yobe state, a million commercial motorcyclists shuttling the streets of Kano will be jobless and their two million dependents will face serious hardships. And so with other businesses. The misery, in the end, will be unimaginable.
Markets, as it happened in Maiduguri, will also be at the risk of getting destroyed by fake soldiers who will cordon them, disperse their traders and set them ablaze immediately. Businessmen will be sent letters containing bullets demanding millions of naira or face death. Those who would like to cripple the long standing record of Kano's economic success will have a golden opportunity. They will carry their operations and push the blame to Boko Haram.
At home, families will be subjected to abuse. A single explosion will justify the ransacking of the entire neighbourhood by soldiers, killing the innocent, raping the women and shooting the men. Residents of the city will be forced to abandon it. Where will those millions go?
In the end Kano will be a ghost of its present state...if it solely relies on the federal government...if it commits the mistake of its twin sister, Maiduguri.
It must pursue a different path, wherever and whenever possible. It must not be overwhelmed by its tears, which at best preoccupies it with the past incident and prevents it from preparing for the future. But unlike Maiduguri, Kano must be ready to take its destiny in its own hands. Durkusawa wada ba gajiyawa ba ne.
As I was about to conclude this piece, Reuters reported that the President has confessed that the military option is not a solution, that his government is ready to dialogue if Boko Haram "will come out." Kano should not wait for Boko Haram to "come out" before it finds peace. It should take its own initiative. Who knows? Its effort, if it succeeds, may open the way for government to follow.
Finally, I hereby condole to the families of the victims that were killed and pray for fast recovery of all the injured.
Weep not, Kano. Your great people must take heart and take their destiny into their own hands.
As the poet al-Mutanabbi once put it, Innal 'azeema 'alal 'azeemi sabouru: Great people endure great calamity.
Abuja
26 January 2012
Sunday, January 22, 2012
NPF, Forget Kabiru Sokoto
Short essay 24
By Dr. Aliyu U. Tilde
NPF, Forget Kabiru Sokoto
Kabiru Sokoto, who some people suspect is the second in command of Boko Haram, would hardly be in police custody again. The probability that he is dead already outweighs the lesser possibility that he has crossed to neighbouring countries.
By the time he was arrested, Kabiru was planning to leave Nigeria, according to reports. That means he has gauged that the country entirely was not safe enough for his abode.
His arrest has deprived him of all his travel documents. If they are not found with the police during the ongoing investigations, then it is a proof that his escape was organized from within the force headquarters. This is a veritable litmus test.
Without the passport in his hand, a neighbouring country would come to mind first. But there too the safety would only be temporary. The authorities there are also vigilant on Nigerian migrants. They were quickly alerted, so they will be on the watch under their strong francophone surveillance network.
How small could the world be sometimes!
I strongly feel that given the uncertainty of his safety even outside Nigerian borders, the best strategy to prevent Kabiru is to kill him immediately after his escape. The arrest of Kabiru must sent some hearts outside Boko Haram racing. His escape would not bring any solace to them unless he is totally put out of circulation.
This has happened to others before him in police custody. I doubt if the Boko Haram leader, Muhammad Yusuf, was killed out of vengeance by the police. Yusuf was killed in police cell shortly after he was visited by the then Borno State Governor, Ali Modu Sheriff. Except for the recorded interview that was on Youtube which mainly focused on the ideology of Boko Haram, there is no other record of his interrogation.
In the same manner, the greatest link between the group and the Borno State Governor was brutally severed. Papers reported that Mohammad Foi was arrested on his farm, bundled on a police patrol pick-up van, and taken to the government house in Maiduguri. He begged, in vain, to see the governor. He was immediately driven away to the Police Headquarters where he was gunned down as he was made to walk on the road before a cheering public.
Stories of such executions of senior Boko Haram members in custody are common. Why would Kabiru be an exception? The same brains that hatched the idea of his escape might not lose sight of the danger his life would pose. After all, in the hierarchy of lives in the group, it is difficult to see how those forces that did not spare Muhammad Yusuf would spare the life of Kabiru. It is safer to conclude that Kabiru is most likely lying in a grave somewhere in the Federal Capital Territory.
Moreover, Kabiru has shown discomforting indiscretion in his movements. If, as reports indicate, he knew he was pursued by security agents, how came he did not severe his SIM card from his phone or get rid of both such that he can disappear from the GPRS radar?
Many are suspicious of Zakari Biu, the Commissioner of Police in whose custody Kabiru disappeared. However, Ringim, who is set to be latest Inspector General of Police to be consumed by Boko Haram on that seat, seems to be innocent. If he were an accomplice, he would not have been a target that narrowly escaped death when his headquarters was bombed. He would not have arrested Kabiru in the first place and delightfully broke the news to the President.
I am not surprised that he has stayed put. After all, others caught in similar mess ought to have resigned before him. The Minister of Petroleum, Diezani, would have preceded him. Under her, a colossal N800billion in fuel subsidy alone was stolen last year. The President himself would have also resigned along with the National Security Adviser for showing the most dismal performance among those that occupied their positions in our history.
Asking Ringim (or is it Ring him?) to produce Kabiru within 24 hrs was a project not intended to succeed. And if Kabiru is dead, as he is most probably, Ringim can be assured that his days on that seat are numbered. Azazi may soon ring him to say your time is up.
Abuja
22 January 2012
By Dr. Aliyu U. Tilde
NPF, Forget Kabiru Sokoto
Kabiru Sokoto, who some people suspect is the second in command of Boko Haram, would hardly be in police custody again. The probability that he is dead already outweighs the lesser possibility that he has crossed to neighbouring countries.
By the time he was arrested, Kabiru was planning to leave Nigeria, according to reports. That means he has gauged that the country entirely was not safe enough for his abode.
His arrest has deprived him of all his travel documents. If they are not found with the police during the ongoing investigations, then it is a proof that his escape was organized from within the force headquarters. This is a veritable litmus test.
Without the passport in his hand, a neighbouring country would come to mind first. But there too the safety would only be temporary. The authorities there are also vigilant on Nigerian migrants. They were quickly alerted, so they will be on the watch under their strong francophone surveillance network.
How small could the world be sometimes!
I strongly feel that given the uncertainty of his safety even outside Nigerian borders, the best strategy to prevent Kabiru is to kill him immediately after his escape. The arrest of Kabiru must sent some hearts outside Boko Haram racing. His escape would not bring any solace to them unless he is totally put out of circulation.
This has happened to others before him in police custody. I doubt if the Boko Haram leader, Muhammad Yusuf, was killed out of vengeance by the police. Yusuf was killed in police cell shortly after he was visited by the then Borno State Governor, Ali Modu Sheriff. Except for the recorded interview that was on Youtube which mainly focused on the ideology of Boko Haram, there is no other record of his interrogation.
In the same manner, the greatest link between the group and the Borno State Governor was brutally severed. Papers reported that Mohammad Foi was arrested on his farm, bundled on a police patrol pick-up van, and taken to the government house in Maiduguri. He begged, in vain, to see the governor. He was immediately driven away to the Police Headquarters where he was gunned down as he was made to walk on the road before a cheering public.
Stories of such executions of senior Boko Haram members in custody are common. Why would Kabiru be an exception? The same brains that hatched the idea of his escape might not lose sight of the danger his life would pose. After all, in the hierarchy of lives in the group, it is difficult to see how those forces that did not spare Muhammad Yusuf would spare the life of Kabiru. It is safer to conclude that Kabiru is most likely lying in a grave somewhere in the Federal Capital Territory.
Moreover, Kabiru has shown discomforting indiscretion in his movements. If, as reports indicate, he knew he was pursued by security agents, how came he did not severe his SIM card from his phone or get rid of both such that he can disappear from the GPRS radar?
Many are suspicious of Zakari Biu, the Commissioner of Police in whose custody Kabiru disappeared. However, Ringim, who is set to be latest Inspector General of Police to be consumed by Boko Haram on that seat, seems to be innocent. If he were an accomplice, he would not have been a target that narrowly escaped death when his headquarters was bombed. He would not have arrested Kabiru in the first place and delightfully broke the news to the President.
I am not surprised that he has stayed put. After all, others caught in similar mess ought to have resigned before him. The Minister of Petroleum, Diezani, would have preceded him. Under her, a colossal N800billion in fuel subsidy alone was stolen last year. The President himself would have also resigned along with the National Security Adviser for showing the most dismal performance among those that occupied their positions in our history.
Asking Ringim (or is it Ring him?) to produce Kabiru within 24 hrs was a project not intended to succeed. And if Kabiru is dead, as he is most probably, Ringim can be assured that his days on that seat are numbered. Azazi may soon ring him to say your time is up.
Abuja
22 January 2012
Monday, January 16, 2012
Discourse 338. The New Challenges of Boko Haram
Discourse 338
By Dr. Aliyu U. Tilde
The New Challenges of Boko Haram
Within 48 hrs of publishing Jonathan and the Security of Nigerian Christians on the internet and a number of Nigerian newspapers and websites, Imam Abubakar Shekau, the leader of Jama’atu Ahlis Sunnah Lidda’wati wal Jihad – commonly called Boko Haram – released a video on Youtube describing the objectives of its mission.
I feel that both the international and local press have not done justice to the speech of the Imam. Though he has clearly given reasons behind their mission, everything was just reduced to “Boko Haram has claimed responsibility for attacking Christians in Nigeria”, without even stating the reasons.
Given the relevance of the group to our national security today, I think it is essential for the media to maintain a balance in its reporting of the group. This is not to say ‘five minutes for the Israelis and five minutes for the Palestinians”, but a coverage that ensures the message of each side is passed to readers in the most comprehensive form possible is desirable.
In following 'few' paragraphs, I set out to discuss the most essential points of Imam Shekau’s message – the category of Nigerians that the group is targeting and its reasons for doing so. Of course, he has raised some controversial matters in the province of contemporary Islamic jurisprudence just as there are also many things he did not say which we would love to hear from him directly. However, these are matters that can best be discussed separately at a later date, hopefully, by more capable minds than mine. As conclusion, the challenges the group posed by the group to government, Muslims and Christians are discussed.
Targets
The video, according to Imam Shekau, was essentially directed at three targets: President Jonathan, for whom the Boko Haram leader promised “more troubling times ahead”; the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) for its “vituperations” in the aftermath of the recent bombings; and, individuals opposed to the group including those that see it as a “cancer or disease among the people."
Imam Shekau was also clear on who the group regards as its enemies. First on the list was security personnels who the Imam charged with persecuting members of the group, including the cold blood murder of its leader in police custody, killing many of its members and eradication of its centres; two, Christians, for killing Muslims in various parts of the North in various religious and ethnic crisis that took place during the past two and a half decades; and, three, Muslim informants and moles, "yan chune", who assist the government to identify and kill its members. “Apart from these”, said the Boko Haram leader, “we have not targeted anyone.”
Let us discuss each of these targets separately.
Security Personnels
It is difficult for anyone to suggest an alternative to going underground for the group after the treatment meted it by the Yar’adua administration in 2009. Instead of abiding by rule of law, like arresting its leader and charging him - maximum - with treason, the authorities deliberately chose to provoke the group. The police killed a number of its members during a funeral procession on the flimsy ground of not using a helmet. To date, nothing was done to the culprits.
The group promised to retaliate after Ramadan in 2009. What happened after that Ramadan when the group protested at a police station in Bauchi did not actually necessitate an all-out war against it. Many groups have attacked the police before but they were handled by normal means without resorting to extreme measures like massacres. Let us not forget the “finish them” order that President Yar’adua gave to the security forces that morning when he was leaving for Brazil. In fact, he even timed it that by 4.00pm that day, the job must have been completed.
In Bauchi, it was estimated that over seventy members of the group were massacred at their centre behind the airport. Apparently, they were even unaware of the conflict at Dutsen Tanshi police station that started that morning. By evening, the state commissioner for special duties led a team of government agents that leveled the centre with bulldozers. Passengers at the Yankari Park in Bauchi also witnessed how eight unarmed members were arrested and killed instantly by soldiers as the were boarding a bus to Maiduguri. The governor, Isa Yuguda, would later claim credit for the “decisive way” in which his government dealt with the group in his state.
In Maiduguri, what happened was pretty clear. Government went for total extermination of the group without recourse to any due process. The world was witness to how their centre was leveled by soldiers; how Muhammad Yusuf, their leader, was executed; how Muhammad Foi, a former member of Sheriff’s cabinet, was executed on the street after his arrest; and how the police and the military went about killing anyone that resembled their members to the extent that people started shaving their beards en masse; etc. A senior police officer was reported in the press saying that he cannot guarantee the life of anyone wearing such features. So many were arrested along with their wives. They remain in prison to date without trial. Extermination is still the strategy of government in dealing with the group.
While some ulama that were in the good books of government justified the killings saying that the sect is Kharijite, the world condemned the actions. We wrote essays then condemning both the ulama and the authorities on the highhandedness they showed. The government apologized to the United Nations after it was condemned for the human right abuses, promising that it will bring the perpetrators to book. Actually, it did nothing. No disciplinary action was taken against anyone until when Boko Haram bombed the Police Headquarters in Abuja in 2010. Two police officers were then reportedly dismissed from service for the murder of the Boko Haram leader.
Boko Haram therefore was left with no option but to go underground. The group did exactly that. It took time to heal its wounds, regroup and re-strategize before returning to revenge what Imam Shekau described as the “the injustice meted against it.” To my understanding this is why he chose the following verses to open his Youtube video speech:
“Truly, God defends those who believe. Verily, God likes not any treacherous ingrate. Permission to fight is given to those who are fought against because they have been wronged, and, surely, God is able to give them victory. Those who have been expelled from their homes unjustly only because they said, Our Lord is God.”
The overwhelming opinion among Muslims then was that the group was indeed treated unjustly. Public commentators from the North openly accused Yar’adua of playing ‘Animal Farm’ with his brothers. The killing of Boko Haram members came just some few months after the President negotiated and granted a lucrative amnesty to more destructive militants in the oil rich Niger Delta.
Beneficiaries of the amnesty were placed under a welfare package and chunks of the federal government expenditure was sunk into the development of that region in addition to the ‘lion share’ that its state governments collect from statutory allocations, which is greater than the allocations of all the 19 northern states. In addition, they receive 13% of Nigerian revenue earnings. Finally, as it was clear in 2011, 86% of federal projects are now allocated to that region.
The result is peace.
However, for Boko Haram, the government chose to negotiate with bullets and bombs. It is not surprising, therefore, that the group replied it in its own language. In this context, one can easily understand its resort to violence as a means of survival.
If Yar’adua was wrong in treating Boko Haram in the 21st Century with the same strategy that Shagari and Buhari used to overcome Maitatsine in the 1980s, Jonathan did little to correct that mistake. He has not shown any interest in dialoguing with the group, so far. The group has many times cited this as another reason for continuing its struggle. Appeal to its members to put down its weapons and negotiate with government and they will rebut in this standard format: “How can we trust any negotiation with people who are amassing arsenal to attack us?”
All that Jonathan did was to constitute a committee to study the group and matters related to it. When it was insinuated that the mandate of the committee included negotiating with the group, the Secretary to the Federal Government quickly dismissed any such mandate. Months after the committee submitted its report, its recommendation for peaceful negotiation between government and the group continues to remain frozen.
The result is insecurity.
This is in sharp contrast to what happened to the October 1,2010 bombers. President Jonathan laboured hard in public to exonerate the perpetrators who claimed to belong to the Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta. They said they did it; he said they didn't. Security officials told the nation that they have evidence linking Raymond Dokpesi, the presidential campaign manager of Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida and owner of AIT, to the attacks. Security agents quizzed Dokpesi and some arrests were made.
The media guru transferred his support to Jonathan and allowed his channel become the mouthpiece of the President. And behold, the bombing charges were forgotten! The last thing reported between Jonathan and Dokpesi ten days ago was that the latter was paid N1.3 billion for ‘services’ he rendered to the government!
Informants, Moles and Critics
When it reappeared in 2010, Boko Haram started to selectively kill people that assisted the authorities in identifying them. The initial victims were grassroots traditional rulers, the lawanis as they are called in Borno. After killing the first few, Boko Haram issued a warning that it will go after all those that aided the authorities in persecuting them. These included a number of ulama, traditional rulers, and the three governors of Borno, Gombe and Bauchi states. It demanded pubic apologies from the governors and got it from the last two. Though the group rejected the apology, it is yet to carry out its threat against the big three. Among the high profile killings made in this category were those of the junior brother to the Shehu of Borno, the state chairman of the ruling party in the state and its gubernatorial candidate during the last elections.
Immediately the group started its selective killings, the ulama realized their vulnerability and none of them dared again to condemn the group publicly or repeat to assign it the Kharijite nomenclature. At a point, Boko Haram also issued a warning that they will also go against anyone who publicly condemns its activities, including journalists who do not live by the ethics of their profession in reporting it's activities.
The government has been unable to protect its informants and other citizens from these attacks. This partially explains the silence of the Muslim community over Boko Haram. Generally, though, it could be argued that it has not been the tradition of communities in Nigeria to criticize their own militants. The Niger Delta and the killing of Muslims in Plateau and Kaduna States are the bad examples that readily come to mind.
While whoever decides to serve as an informant or a mole knows the risk he is taking, it is my opinion that the group has gone too far when it considered criticisms as attack. By so doing, though the group would gain the advantage of instilling fear in the population, it stands the chance of losing public sympathy and gaining the benefits of correction, or nasiha as it is called in Islam.
Islam, which the group is linking its cause to, is very wide and it could harbour a variety of opinions on the same issue. Throughout its history, given the diversity of their environment, Muslims have benefitted more than losing from such differences. Divergence of opinion is counted among the blessings of the ummah. And even great Caliphs like Umar welcome corrections by ordinary members of the society when they adopted policies that are contrary to the scripture.
Likewise, there could be many other interpretations to the Nigerian situation than Boko Haram’s and if the cause is truly for the common good of the people as Imam Shekau has said, the door of constructive criticism must remain open. In his video alone, there are a number of controversial issues on which many Muslims would beg to differ from Boko Haram: the status of Christianity, democracy, jihad, western education, etc. It is the right of the Muslim community to debate them publicly in light of its understanding of Islam and it is the right of Boko Haram to rebut such points with superior arguments or accept them at its pleasure.
Having made this observation, I must hasten to mention that debates on issues regarding Islam in Nigeria are very difficult even among Muslims in particular. What I have realized in the past thirty-five years is that some people are impatient, and many times unwilling, to listen to the other side. Immediately I differ with you in opinion, the first thing I do is brand you as heretic, infidel, blasphemous, or other similar dangerously derogatory names. End of discussion! (I have been awarded a number of those insignia whenever I express an opinion that is distasteful to some pious readers.) That is why in Muslims and Rule of Law in Nigeria (2009) I wrote strongly against the people who rushed to label Boko Haram as Kharijite. Others before them have been labeled with equally disastrous names, making it difficult for mutual understanding to be reached at on any single matter that arises.
The very day their massacre started in 2009, the Bauchi State government sought and obtained from the ulama in the town a fatwa which served as a license for authorities to kill Boko Haram members without recourse to justice. Only the most elderly sheikh in town opined differently, insisting that in Islam no soul should be killed without a ruling from a judge. That is why some of the ulama fled the country when Boko Haram staged a return the following year. The governor too has abandoned the Government House and practically relocated to Abuja since he received the death threat.
The reluctance of Boko Haram to intellectually engage this kind of ulama is therefore understandable. Yet, if it will look around well, it will see that not the entire ummah is a mouthpiece of government. There are hundreds of other ulama with whom it can engage constructively.
Christians
Up to last Christmas, Boko Haram has not clearly claimed attacking any church. As we tried to do above, it is possible to see the angle from which the group justifies its attack on security personnel, informants and the like. However, making targets of innocent Christians is extremely hard, if not impossible to reason with from the Islamic viewpoint. Justifiably, nothing has negatively affected public sympathy for the group like those attacks. The uproar that greeted the Christmas bombing among Muslims and Christians alike is a testimony to the prevailing repugnance.
But let us be fair and examine the reasons of Boko Haram first before we hang it. Imam Shekau based his justification on the brutal killings of Muslims in various incidents Kaduna and Plateau State since the Kafanchan crisis. He mentioned how Muslims were killed in the various crises, their women subjected to dehumanizing treatments, and so on. The acts, and worse ones, like the reported trafficking of children of victims and the sex-slavery of Muslim women, did not receive any condemnation from Christians or their leaders. Government also declined to prosecute perpetrators clearly identified by their victims, despite the availability of hardcore evidence like pictures, videos, etc. It was against this background that the Boko Haram leader rebuffed the protest of the CAN President, as he put it, “simply because of the few successes we recorded recently”, apparently referring to the Christmas bombings and those that followed in Gombe, Mubi and Yola.
There could be few Muslims who would concur with Shekau, privately arguing that reprisal attacks are the norm in Nigeria. Christians, they would argue, would know that if they continue to kill Muslims in their areas, there are now in place a set of Muslims that will revenge it. The overwhelming majority of Muslims, however, were disappointed with the claim. I, for example, was planning to visit Gombe, Yola and Mubi to investigate the recent attacks on Christians because of the widespread belief that those attacks could not have been the work of Muslims. As I reclined on bed to plan the trip that Wednesday, the BBC Hausa Service broke the news that Boko Haram has released a video claiming to target Christians in Nigeria. I became completely devastated.
Like most people, I have my reservations about the recent attacks on Christians in the Northeast. This is not like Jonathan's case of “they said we did it, he said they didn't.” There is evidence that implicates Christians in activities linked to Boko Haram. The SSS has shared some with the public. Some were reported caught attempting to burn churches. The latest is in police custody right now in Kaduna. The last person I spoke to in Yola regarding the bombings that took place there recently. He said, “we don’t have Boko Haram here; all we have are politicians who are using the bombings to canvass votes.” An article published today by the Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, our respected brother Hasan Kukah, has listed such cases. Good progress.
Despite the above revelations, the speech of Imam Shekau must be given its due weight. We must be honest to say that Boko Haram has unequivocally declared Christians as targets of its attacks. Pure and simple. Whether the group carried all attacks on Christians or not is a matter that is open to debate, which like many, I thought the Imam would clarify himself. Unfortunately, he did not.
If I were a consultant to Boko Haram, I would have advised it against taking this measure on both religious and political grounds despite my appreciation of their concern over the atrocities repeatedly committed against Muslims in many communities in Plateau and Kaduna States.
From angle of religion, it would be quite easy to prove, using unquantifiable number of sources, that collective punishment to Christians in Nigeria is not in accordance with the letter and spirit of the Qur’an. It is haram. Period. If the group had taken the pain to investigate the people or the communities that perpetrated those atrocities against Muslims and directed its anger against them, that would have put its mission of revenge in a more proper context. But to hold a Christian in Niger, Borno, Yobe or Adamawa for the wrong done by some Christians in communities of Kaduna and Plateau state is a cause that is difficult to justify. Revenge in Islam, even where it is chosen by the victim over the preferred option of forgiveness, must be surgically precise to meet the requirement of Shariah.
Politically, I would continue with my advice, attacking Christians sends different messages, all negative to the image of the group. One, some may think that the group is losing in its battle against the Nigerian authorities. Two, that attacking armless and innocent Christian worshippers could be interpreted as going for easy targets, instead of the difficult ones, like the governors that the group threatened but, so far, let untargeted. Thirdly, it may also be seen as a cheap way of conscripting the entire Nigerian Muslim community into the conflict after the group failed to earn its support. In a nutshell, it is a political blunder that it should not have ventured into.
In any case, attacking Christians does not solve any problem since it exposes Muslims to retaliatory attacks in the communities where they are a minority, thus feeding the vicious mill of violence with the blood of innocent souls. It is doubtful if God would be pleased with such a bath.
Meanwhile, the attacks have introduced some favourable developments in Muslim-Christian relationship in the country. Muslim groups, in both Northern and Southwestern parts of the country, have started visiting Christians in Churches, expressing their support for living in their communities. Some have even taken the extra-measure to give protection to churches on Sunday. The awareness has visited many that some clerics on both sides of the divide who would not care to ignite a conflagration have stepped the boundary.
Challenges
In his comment on my blog after reading Jonathan and the Security of Nigerian Christians, Dr. John H. Boer, a respectable Canadian missionary that lived in Nigeria for decades until recently, wrote the following few sentences, alerting us to the challenges ahead:
“Assuming your facts to be correct, this is a very interesting analysis. If your analysis is correct, Christians, along with government and Muslims, have a huge job to do, but everyone should start at home. I have circulated your article to a lot of Christians for their consideration. Da godiya da yawa.”
That was an apt observation from an elder. It is my firm belief that government must take the lead, while both Muslims and Christians address problems of relating with each other in their communities. Government must tackle Boko Haram, not by bullets and arrests, but by negotiation as advised by its committee on the conflict. Fortunately, unlike Niger Delta militants, the group is not after material benefit. There is no reason why the government cannot dialogue with it, given the resources at its disposal. There are sufficient ulama that understand its logic and may succeed in realigning its understanding with mainstream Islam. There are also sufficient members of the group at hand that the government can use to reach out to its leaders.
Government must be even-handed in the manner it treats different communities in Nigeria. Money for one, bullets for the other will not breed peace. Prosecution to this and support to that is the differential treatment that encourages violent reprisals.
Other matters are political and a common ground to handle them can easily be discovered. There is nothing, once said the UN Secretary-General after the bombing of UN headquarters in Abuja last year, which cannot be amicably resolved through dialogue. Despite the reputation of the source of that advice, the Nigerian government has shown little interest to take it.
Among the duties of the Christian community in Nigeria, from my Muslim point of view anyway, is appreciating the frustration of Muslims with the escalation of violence against them in minority communities in Plateau and Kaduna States in particular. Horrific crimes have been committed. Silence over such atrocities by Christians, their support for the perpetrators or their manipulation of public opinion in the Christian-dominated media to shift blame to the victims only generates anger and retaliations. These conflicts are basically ethnic and political, but a religious identity is recruited to augment support for them. No true Christian will commit them. But when CAN or Christians generally justify them or manipulate them against Muslim victims, that will cultivate a fertile ground for suspicion among Muslims.
The Muslim community has an equally daunting task before it. It requires a unified voice that can express its spiritual and political aspirations. JNI and SCIA cannot play this role since its members – mostly traditional rulers – are government employees, unlike what obtains in the South or among the Christian community in the country. The Sultan, by virtue of his office, for example, cannot employ the militant posture of the CAN President, neither could any Emir. The demand for such a voice in the past did not exist for the simple fact that governance was better and the Muslim community did not face the multifarious challenges confronting it today. Frustrations about ill-treatment of some Muslim communities, like those articulated by Imam Shekau, must not be left to sediment so hard until people resort to violence.
Jointly, Muslims and Christians, especially in the North, need to find a common ground for social interaction. The gap between them in is becoming too much wide for stability. To reduce mutual suspicion and build trust among members of the two communities, avenues must be created for such interaction at all levels and spheres of human activity. Interactions in schools, offices, parks, cafes, games, resorts, churches, mosques, festivals, parks, cinemas, town meetings, and, of course, homes can all be revived to achieve this goal as it used to be before the late 1970s.
Both Muslims and Christians need to check the activities of extremists among them, people – mainly youths – with a surplus zeal to serve God but with little appreciation of the complexity of life and of contemporary Nigeria and lacking the wisdom to see things in different shades. They need to be guided accordingly by leaders of their sects and relevant authorities. Otherwise, they will continue drifting away from the centre until they reach a point where they dream of a whole world drowned in an ocean of human blood. Certainly, this will not please God who has described Himself as the Most Merciful.
Finally, we must all keep our guard against corrupt politicians, people who for their irresistible penchant to loot our treasury are always ready to exploit our differences and foment communal misunderstandings that often translate into religious crises. Northerners are more susceptible to these homo-viruses than others because religion in the region is the cheapest and most inflammable vector at their disposal. From Borno to Kwara, the realization that we are destined to live together forever is sufficient to bring us together against the wish of many that would love to divide us for their own gain.
The government may today succeed in subduing Boko Haram by arms or negotiation. But unless we meet the above challenges, another group will prop up tomorrow, among Muslims or Christians, to face us, once more, with similar or greater challenges.
Abuja
16 January 2012
Do Not Be Afraid, by Bishop Hasan Kukah
I have published on this blog an article written by the Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, the renowned Bishop Hasan Kukah, which appeared on the same day as mine above. It makes an interesting reading, especially as it proves that reason, truth and courage have started to overide our sentiments as the country faces real threats of disintegration. The link:
http://fridaydiscourse.blogspot.com/2012/01/do-not-be-afraid-bishop-kukah-appeals.html
Aliyu
By Dr. Aliyu U. Tilde
The New Challenges of Boko Haram
Within 48 hrs of publishing Jonathan and the Security of Nigerian Christians on the internet and a number of Nigerian newspapers and websites, Imam Abubakar Shekau, the leader of Jama’atu Ahlis Sunnah Lidda’wati wal Jihad – commonly called Boko Haram – released a video on Youtube describing the objectives of its mission.
I feel that both the international and local press have not done justice to the speech of the Imam. Though he has clearly given reasons behind their mission, everything was just reduced to “Boko Haram has claimed responsibility for attacking Christians in Nigeria”, without even stating the reasons.
Given the relevance of the group to our national security today, I think it is essential for the media to maintain a balance in its reporting of the group. This is not to say ‘five minutes for the Israelis and five minutes for the Palestinians”, but a coverage that ensures the message of each side is passed to readers in the most comprehensive form possible is desirable.
In following 'few' paragraphs, I set out to discuss the most essential points of Imam Shekau’s message – the category of Nigerians that the group is targeting and its reasons for doing so. Of course, he has raised some controversial matters in the province of contemporary Islamic jurisprudence just as there are also many things he did not say which we would love to hear from him directly. However, these are matters that can best be discussed separately at a later date, hopefully, by more capable minds than mine. As conclusion, the challenges the group posed by the group to government, Muslims and Christians are discussed.
Targets
The video, according to Imam Shekau, was essentially directed at three targets: President Jonathan, for whom the Boko Haram leader promised “more troubling times ahead”; the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) for its “vituperations” in the aftermath of the recent bombings; and, individuals opposed to the group including those that see it as a “cancer or disease among the people."
Imam Shekau was also clear on who the group regards as its enemies. First on the list was security personnels who the Imam charged with persecuting members of the group, including the cold blood murder of its leader in police custody, killing many of its members and eradication of its centres; two, Christians, for killing Muslims in various parts of the North in various religious and ethnic crisis that took place during the past two and a half decades; and, three, Muslim informants and moles, "yan chune", who assist the government to identify and kill its members. “Apart from these”, said the Boko Haram leader, “we have not targeted anyone.”
Let us discuss each of these targets separately.
Security Personnels
It is difficult for anyone to suggest an alternative to going underground for the group after the treatment meted it by the Yar’adua administration in 2009. Instead of abiding by rule of law, like arresting its leader and charging him - maximum - with treason, the authorities deliberately chose to provoke the group. The police killed a number of its members during a funeral procession on the flimsy ground of not using a helmet. To date, nothing was done to the culprits.
The group promised to retaliate after Ramadan in 2009. What happened after that Ramadan when the group protested at a police station in Bauchi did not actually necessitate an all-out war against it. Many groups have attacked the police before but they were handled by normal means without resorting to extreme measures like massacres. Let us not forget the “finish them” order that President Yar’adua gave to the security forces that morning when he was leaving for Brazil. In fact, he even timed it that by 4.00pm that day, the job must have been completed.
In Bauchi, it was estimated that over seventy members of the group were massacred at their centre behind the airport. Apparently, they were even unaware of the conflict at Dutsen Tanshi police station that started that morning. By evening, the state commissioner for special duties led a team of government agents that leveled the centre with bulldozers. Passengers at the Yankari Park in Bauchi also witnessed how eight unarmed members were arrested and killed instantly by soldiers as the were boarding a bus to Maiduguri. The governor, Isa Yuguda, would later claim credit for the “decisive way” in which his government dealt with the group in his state.
In Maiduguri, what happened was pretty clear. Government went for total extermination of the group without recourse to any due process. The world was witness to how their centre was leveled by soldiers; how Muhammad Yusuf, their leader, was executed; how Muhammad Foi, a former member of Sheriff’s cabinet, was executed on the street after his arrest; and how the police and the military went about killing anyone that resembled their members to the extent that people started shaving their beards en masse; etc. A senior police officer was reported in the press saying that he cannot guarantee the life of anyone wearing such features. So many were arrested along with their wives. They remain in prison to date without trial. Extermination is still the strategy of government in dealing with the group.
While some ulama that were in the good books of government justified the killings saying that the sect is Kharijite, the world condemned the actions. We wrote essays then condemning both the ulama and the authorities on the highhandedness they showed. The government apologized to the United Nations after it was condemned for the human right abuses, promising that it will bring the perpetrators to book. Actually, it did nothing. No disciplinary action was taken against anyone until when Boko Haram bombed the Police Headquarters in Abuja in 2010. Two police officers were then reportedly dismissed from service for the murder of the Boko Haram leader.
Boko Haram therefore was left with no option but to go underground. The group did exactly that. It took time to heal its wounds, regroup and re-strategize before returning to revenge what Imam Shekau described as the “the injustice meted against it.” To my understanding this is why he chose the following verses to open his Youtube video speech:
“Truly, God defends those who believe. Verily, God likes not any treacherous ingrate. Permission to fight is given to those who are fought against because they have been wronged, and, surely, God is able to give them victory. Those who have been expelled from their homes unjustly only because they said, Our Lord is God.”
The overwhelming opinion among Muslims then was that the group was indeed treated unjustly. Public commentators from the North openly accused Yar’adua of playing ‘Animal Farm’ with his brothers. The killing of Boko Haram members came just some few months after the President negotiated and granted a lucrative amnesty to more destructive militants in the oil rich Niger Delta.
Beneficiaries of the amnesty were placed under a welfare package and chunks of the federal government expenditure was sunk into the development of that region in addition to the ‘lion share’ that its state governments collect from statutory allocations, which is greater than the allocations of all the 19 northern states. In addition, they receive 13% of Nigerian revenue earnings. Finally, as it was clear in 2011, 86% of federal projects are now allocated to that region.
The result is peace.
However, for Boko Haram, the government chose to negotiate with bullets and bombs. It is not surprising, therefore, that the group replied it in its own language. In this context, one can easily understand its resort to violence as a means of survival.
If Yar’adua was wrong in treating Boko Haram in the 21st Century with the same strategy that Shagari and Buhari used to overcome Maitatsine in the 1980s, Jonathan did little to correct that mistake. He has not shown any interest in dialoguing with the group, so far. The group has many times cited this as another reason for continuing its struggle. Appeal to its members to put down its weapons and negotiate with government and they will rebut in this standard format: “How can we trust any negotiation with people who are amassing arsenal to attack us?”
All that Jonathan did was to constitute a committee to study the group and matters related to it. When it was insinuated that the mandate of the committee included negotiating with the group, the Secretary to the Federal Government quickly dismissed any such mandate. Months after the committee submitted its report, its recommendation for peaceful negotiation between government and the group continues to remain frozen.
The result is insecurity.
This is in sharp contrast to what happened to the October 1,2010 bombers. President Jonathan laboured hard in public to exonerate the perpetrators who claimed to belong to the Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta. They said they did it; he said they didn't. Security officials told the nation that they have evidence linking Raymond Dokpesi, the presidential campaign manager of Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida and owner of AIT, to the attacks. Security agents quizzed Dokpesi and some arrests were made.
The media guru transferred his support to Jonathan and allowed his channel become the mouthpiece of the President. And behold, the bombing charges were forgotten! The last thing reported between Jonathan and Dokpesi ten days ago was that the latter was paid N1.3 billion for ‘services’ he rendered to the government!
Informants, Moles and Critics
When it reappeared in 2010, Boko Haram started to selectively kill people that assisted the authorities in identifying them. The initial victims were grassroots traditional rulers, the lawanis as they are called in Borno. After killing the first few, Boko Haram issued a warning that it will go after all those that aided the authorities in persecuting them. These included a number of ulama, traditional rulers, and the three governors of Borno, Gombe and Bauchi states. It demanded pubic apologies from the governors and got it from the last two. Though the group rejected the apology, it is yet to carry out its threat against the big three. Among the high profile killings made in this category were those of the junior brother to the Shehu of Borno, the state chairman of the ruling party in the state and its gubernatorial candidate during the last elections.
Immediately the group started its selective killings, the ulama realized their vulnerability and none of them dared again to condemn the group publicly or repeat to assign it the Kharijite nomenclature. At a point, Boko Haram also issued a warning that they will also go against anyone who publicly condemns its activities, including journalists who do not live by the ethics of their profession in reporting it's activities.
The government has been unable to protect its informants and other citizens from these attacks. This partially explains the silence of the Muslim community over Boko Haram. Generally, though, it could be argued that it has not been the tradition of communities in Nigeria to criticize their own militants. The Niger Delta and the killing of Muslims in Plateau and Kaduna States are the bad examples that readily come to mind.
While whoever decides to serve as an informant or a mole knows the risk he is taking, it is my opinion that the group has gone too far when it considered criticisms as attack. By so doing, though the group would gain the advantage of instilling fear in the population, it stands the chance of losing public sympathy and gaining the benefits of correction, or nasiha as it is called in Islam.
Islam, which the group is linking its cause to, is very wide and it could harbour a variety of opinions on the same issue. Throughout its history, given the diversity of their environment, Muslims have benefitted more than losing from such differences. Divergence of opinion is counted among the blessings of the ummah. And even great Caliphs like Umar welcome corrections by ordinary members of the society when they adopted policies that are contrary to the scripture.
Likewise, there could be many other interpretations to the Nigerian situation than Boko Haram’s and if the cause is truly for the common good of the people as Imam Shekau has said, the door of constructive criticism must remain open. In his video alone, there are a number of controversial issues on which many Muslims would beg to differ from Boko Haram: the status of Christianity, democracy, jihad, western education, etc. It is the right of the Muslim community to debate them publicly in light of its understanding of Islam and it is the right of Boko Haram to rebut such points with superior arguments or accept them at its pleasure.
Having made this observation, I must hasten to mention that debates on issues regarding Islam in Nigeria are very difficult even among Muslims in particular. What I have realized in the past thirty-five years is that some people are impatient, and many times unwilling, to listen to the other side. Immediately I differ with you in opinion, the first thing I do is brand you as heretic, infidel, blasphemous, or other similar dangerously derogatory names. End of discussion! (I have been awarded a number of those insignia whenever I express an opinion that is distasteful to some pious readers.) That is why in Muslims and Rule of Law in Nigeria (2009) I wrote strongly against the people who rushed to label Boko Haram as Kharijite. Others before them have been labeled with equally disastrous names, making it difficult for mutual understanding to be reached at on any single matter that arises.
The very day their massacre started in 2009, the Bauchi State government sought and obtained from the ulama in the town a fatwa which served as a license for authorities to kill Boko Haram members without recourse to justice. Only the most elderly sheikh in town opined differently, insisting that in Islam no soul should be killed without a ruling from a judge. That is why some of the ulama fled the country when Boko Haram staged a return the following year. The governor too has abandoned the Government House and practically relocated to Abuja since he received the death threat.
The reluctance of Boko Haram to intellectually engage this kind of ulama is therefore understandable. Yet, if it will look around well, it will see that not the entire ummah is a mouthpiece of government. There are hundreds of other ulama with whom it can engage constructively.
Christians
Up to last Christmas, Boko Haram has not clearly claimed attacking any church. As we tried to do above, it is possible to see the angle from which the group justifies its attack on security personnel, informants and the like. However, making targets of innocent Christians is extremely hard, if not impossible to reason with from the Islamic viewpoint. Justifiably, nothing has negatively affected public sympathy for the group like those attacks. The uproar that greeted the Christmas bombing among Muslims and Christians alike is a testimony to the prevailing repugnance.
But let us be fair and examine the reasons of Boko Haram first before we hang it. Imam Shekau based his justification on the brutal killings of Muslims in various incidents Kaduna and Plateau State since the Kafanchan crisis. He mentioned how Muslims were killed in the various crises, their women subjected to dehumanizing treatments, and so on. The acts, and worse ones, like the reported trafficking of children of victims and the sex-slavery of Muslim women, did not receive any condemnation from Christians or their leaders. Government also declined to prosecute perpetrators clearly identified by their victims, despite the availability of hardcore evidence like pictures, videos, etc. It was against this background that the Boko Haram leader rebuffed the protest of the CAN President, as he put it, “simply because of the few successes we recorded recently”, apparently referring to the Christmas bombings and those that followed in Gombe, Mubi and Yola.
There could be few Muslims who would concur with Shekau, privately arguing that reprisal attacks are the norm in Nigeria. Christians, they would argue, would know that if they continue to kill Muslims in their areas, there are now in place a set of Muslims that will revenge it. The overwhelming majority of Muslims, however, were disappointed with the claim. I, for example, was planning to visit Gombe, Yola and Mubi to investigate the recent attacks on Christians because of the widespread belief that those attacks could not have been the work of Muslims. As I reclined on bed to plan the trip that Wednesday, the BBC Hausa Service broke the news that Boko Haram has released a video claiming to target Christians in Nigeria. I became completely devastated.
Like most people, I have my reservations about the recent attacks on Christians in the Northeast. This is not like Jonathan's case of “they said we did it, he said they didn't.” There is evidence that implicates Christians in activities linked to Boko Haram. The SSS has shared some with the public. Some were reported caught attempting to burn churches. The latest is in police custody right now in Kaduna. The last person I spoke to in Yola regarding the bombings that took place there recently. He said, “we don’t have Boko Haram here; all we have are politicians who are using the bombings to canvass votes.” An article published today by the Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, our respected brother Hasan Kukah, has listed such cases. Good progress.
Despite the above revelations, the speech of Imam Shekau must be given its due weight. We must be honest to say that Boko Haram has unequivocally declared Christians as targets of its attacks. Pure and simple. Whether the group carried all attacks on Christians or not is a matter that is open to debate, which like many, I thought the Imam would clarify himself. Unfortunately, he did not.
If I were a consultant to Boko Haram, I would have advised it against taking this measure on both religious and political grounds despite my appreciation of their concern over the atrocities repeatedly committed against Muslims in many communities in Plateau and Kaduna States.
From angle of religion, it would be quite easy to prove, using unquantifiable number of sources, that collective punishment to Christians in Nigeria is not in accordance with the letter and spirit of the Qur’an. It is haram. Period. If the group had taken the pain to investigate the people or the communities that perpetrated those atrocities against Muslims and directed its anger against them, that would have put its mission of revenge in a more proper context. But to hold a Christian in Niger, Borno, Yobe or Adamawa for the wrong done by some Christians in communities of Kaduna and Plateau state is a cause that is difficult to justify. Revenge in Islam, even where it is chosen by the victim over the preferred option of forgiveness, must be surgically precise to meet the requirement of Shariah.
Politically, I would continue with my advice, attacking Christians sends different messages, all negative to the image of the group. One, some may think that the group is losing in its battle against the Nigerian authorities. Two, that attacking armless and innocent Christian worshippers could be interpreted as going for easy targets, instead of the difficult ones, like the governors that the group threatened but, so far, let untargeted. Thirdly, it may also be seen as a cheap way of conscripting the entire Nigerian Muslim community into the conflict after the group failed to earn its support. In a nutshell, it is a political blunder that it should not have ventured into.
In any case, attacking Christians does not solve any problem since it exposes Muslims to retaliatory attacks in the communities where they are a minority, thus feeding the vicious mill of violence with the blood of innocent souls. It is doubtful if God would be pleased with such a bath.
Meanwhile, the attacks have introduced some favourable developments in Muslim-Christian relationship in the country. Muslim groups, in both Northern and Southwestern parts of the country, have started visiting Christians in Churches, expressing their support for living in their communities. Some have even taken the extra-measure to give protection to churches on Sunday. The awareness has visited many that some clerics on both sides of the divide who would not care to ignite a conflagration have stepped the boundary.
Challenges
In his comment on my blog after reading Jonathan and the Security of Nigerian Christians, Dr. John H. Boer, a respectable Canadian missionary that lived in Nigeria for decades until recently, wrote the following few sentences, alerting us to the challenges ahead:
“Assuming your facts to be correct, this is a very interesting analysis. If your analysis is correct, Christians, along with government and Muslims, have a huge job to do, but everyone should start at home. I have circulated your article to a lot of Christians for their consideration. Da godiya da yawa.”
That was an apt observation from an elder. It is my firm belief that government must take the lead, while both Muslims and Christians address problems of relating with each other in their communities. Government must tackle Boko Haram, not by bullets and arrests, but by negotiation as advised by its committee on the conflict. Fortunately, unlike Niger Delta militants, the group is not after material benefit. There is no reason why the government cannot dialogue with it, given the resources at its disposal. There are sufficient ulama that understand its logic and may succeed in realigning its understanding with mainstream Islam. There are also sufficient members of the group at hand that the government can use to reach out to its leaders.
Government must be even-handed in the manner it treats different communities in Nigeria. Money for one, bullets for the other will not breed peace. Prosecution to this and support to that is the differential treatment that encourages violent reprisals.
Other matters are political and a common ground to handle them can easily be discovered. There is nothing, once said the UN Secretary-General after the bombing of UN headquarters in Abuja last year, which cannot be amicably resolved through dialogue. Despite the reputation of the source of that advice, the Nigerian government has shown little interest to take it.
Among the duties of the Christian community in Nigeria, from my Muslim point of view anyway, is appreciating the frustration of Muslims with the escalation of violence against them in minority communities in Plateau and Kaduna States in particular. Horrific crimes have been committed. Silence over such atrocities by Christians, their support for the perpetrators or their manipulation of public opinion in the Christian-dominated media to shift blame to the victims only generates anger and retaliations. These conflicts are basically ethnic and political, but a religious identity is recruited to augment support for them. No true Christian will commit them. But when CAN or Christians generally justify them or manipulate them against Muslim victims, that will cultivate a fertile ground for suspicion among Muslims.
The Muslim community has an equally daunting task before it. It requires a unified voice that can express its spiritual and political aspirations. JNI and SCIA cannot play this role since its members – mostly traditional rulers – are government employees, unlike what obtains in the South or among the Christian community in the country. The Sultan, by virtue of his office, for example, cannot employ the militant posture of the CAN President, neither could any Emir. The demand for such a voice in the past did not exist for the simple fact that governance was better and the Muslim community did not face the multifarious challenges confronting it today. Frustrations about ill-treatment of some Muslim communities, like those articulated by Imam Shekau, must not be left to sediment so hard until people resort to violence.
Jointly, Muslims and Christians, especially in the North, need to find a common ground for social interaction. The gap between them in is becoming too much wide for stability. To reduce mutual suspicion and build trust among members of the two communities, avenues must be created for such interaction at all levels and spheres of human activity. Interactions in schools, offices, parks, cafes, games, resorts, churches, mosques, festivals, parks, cinemas, town meetings, and, of course, homes can all be revived to achieve this goal as it used to be before the late 1970s.
Both Muslims and Christians need to check the activities of extremists among them, people – mainly youths – with a surplus zeal to serve God but with little appreciation of the complexity of life and of contemporary Nigeria and lacking the wisdom to see things in different shades. They need to be guided accordingly by leaders of their sects and relevant authorities. Otherwise, they will continue drifting away from the centre until they reach a point where they dream of a whole world drowned in an ocean of human blood. Certainly, this will not please God who has described Himself as the Most Merciful.
Finally, we must all keep our guard against corrupt politicians, people who for their irresistible penchant to loot our treasury are always ready to exploit our differences and foment communal misunderstandings that often translate into religious crises. Northerners are more susceptible to these homo-viruses than others because religion in the region is the cheapest and most inflammable vector at their disposal. From Borno to Kwara, the realization that we are destined to live together forever is sufficient to bring us together against the wish of many that would love to divide us for their own gain.
The government may today succeed in subduing Boko Haram by arms or negotiation. But unless we meet the above challenges, another group will prop up tomorrow, among Muslims or Christians, to face us, once more, with similar or greater challenges.
Abuja
16 January 2012
Do Not Be Afraid, by Bishop Hasan Kukah
I have published on this blog an article written by the Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, the renowned Bishop Hasan Kukah, which appeared on the same day as mine above. It makes an interesting reading, especially as it proves that reason, truth and courage have started to overide our sentiments as the country faces real threats of disintegration. The link:
http://fridaydiscourse.blogspot.com/2012/01/do-not-be-afraid-bishop-kukah-appeals.html
Aliyu
Monday, January 9, 2012
Discourse 336. Jonathan and the Security of Nigerian Christians
Discourse 336
By Dr. Aliyu Tilde
Jonathan and the Security of Christians in Nigeria
The latest revelation by the President of Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Pastor Oritsejefor, calls for instant comment even as the country braces up for a shutdown by its labour unions tomorrow. I am afraid that this voice will be drowned in the sea of the ongoing protests on fuel subsidy removal. It is unfortunate that the nation has to face the two weighty issues simultaneously due to the incompetence of its leadership. The situation doesn’t allow us to sacrifice one for the sake of the other.
The CAN President addressed a press conference saying that Christians are “taking their fate in our hands”, that “we have decided to work out means to defend ourselves against these senseless killings.” This came in the aftermath of the killings of Christians in Gombe, Mubi and Yola during the past four days. Some, like Aljazeera, have already interpreted the statement as signaling an impending civil war in Nigeria.
It is difficult for anyone not to sympathize with the challenging position that religious leaders find themselves in Nigeria today. On the one hand, Christian leaders cannot be expected to keep mute while their followers are slaughtered. CAN leadership since Arch-Bishop Okogie has never hesitated to call for war at the slightest provocation. We heard it during the OIC, Sharia and Islamic Banking debates. These were mere policy issues. When the issue is that of attacking churches and killing Christians, one can expect another declaration of war from a leadership with such pedigree. Apparently, the government is lagging many kilometers behind Boko Haram. Who would justifiably expect Oritsejefor to keep quiet? He must say something.
On the other hand are Nigerian Muslims who are helpless in the situation are often accused by their Christians brothers of not doing much to stop the attacks by Boko Haram. They wonder what mere condemnation would do in the face of bullets and bombs. In fact, most Muslims whom I discussed the issue with hold the belief, like many of their leaders, that Boko Haram is a conspiracy against Islam and the Muslim North. As evidence, they do not hesitate to point accusing fingers at northern Christians known to have links with Boko Haram and the instances in which Christians were caught attempting to bomb churches. The arrest and interrogation of a Christian called Yakubu Bityong by the SSS on charges of financing Boko Haram also got the Muslims say, "Aha. You see?"
Another source of dilemma for Muslims is that these killings are happening unabated when the top echelon of the country’s security apparatus is dominated by Christians: The President and Commander-in-Chief or the Armed Forces, Goodluck Jonathan, is a Christian, just as are his Chief of Defence Staff, Chief of Army Staff, National Security Adviser and Director of State Security Services; only the Inspector General of Police and the Chiefs of Air and Naval Staff are Muslim, the last two having no direct relevance to the issue of Boko Haram. The Police chief has little to say since the army took over the fight against the group. In fact, he hardly say anything about Boko Haram since the bombings of his headquarters. Meet him on one to one, he speaks about the issue with his tongue in his cheek.
Muslims reason that if these people, on whose shoulders rests the entire security of the country, fail to discharge their constitutional responsibilities for reasons best known to them, how can the Sultan – the ceremonial leader of Muslims in Nigeria, for example, stop Boko Haram killings when he does not command a single soldier or superintend the security his ward? The Sultan and other Muslims can condemn Boko Haram saying that their actions are illegal, un-Islamic, etc., as they have done, but that has not and will not change anything. What will check Boko Haram is intelligence, weapons, police and security personnel and the will to deploy them.
Muslims will also not forget to cite the roles played by Muslim ex-Presidents and Heads of State in suppressing Muslim insurgency. President Shehu Shagari and Maj. General Muhammadu Buhari did not waste time in brutally dealing with Maitatsine in the early 1980s. Both Buhari and President Babangida arrested and jailed Ibrahim El-Zakzaky for preaching anti-government doctrines, even though he and his followers have never carried any weapon or attacked anyone. In fact, he was against the burning of Churches during the Kanfanchan crisis riots. Yet the government found it expedient to use the tribunal to jail him. In 2009 when Boko Haram made its first public outing in retaliation to the extrajudicial killings of their members by the police, President Yar’adua brutally repressed them. In both Bauchi and Maiduguri, they were massacred and their bases leveled instantly by bulldozers, acts that courted worldwide condemnation by human right groups.
However, the performance of Christian Presidents is a direct contradiction of the Muslim regarding religious insurgency and criminal activities. Boko Haram first surfaced as “Nigerian Taliban” during the era of President Olusegun Obasanjo, a self-confessed born-again Christian. He did practically nothing to stop them, so much so that the then Director of SSS, Mr. Gadzama, was baffled at how the administration was adamant in checking a group that was becoming increasingly armed. Instead, it is commonly known that the leader of Boko Haram, Muhammad Yusuf, was twice bailed by Professor Jerry Gana, an elder in CAN and a Minister under Obasanjo. To my knowledge, Gana has not denied the story.
Also, the person widely known to have links with the group during its formative stage, former Borno State Governor, Ali Modu Sheriff, was a lackey of Obasanjo. Just few minutes after he met the Boko Haram leader in police cell in 2009 where he spoke to him in his native Kanuri, the former was executed in cold blood by the police. That was just after another top Boko Haram member, Modu’s Commissioner for Religious Affairs was also gunned down by the police on the street to the loud ovation of the public.
After President Yar’adua, Jonathan continued with Obasanjo’s deficit of interest to check Boko Haram. It is unbelievable to see how a government in a digital age would fail to apprehend a few thousand insurgents and their leaders who are using GSM freely to coordinate their activities and communicate with local and international press; how it will fail to prosecute arrested members of the group; how it will refuse to apprehend its known sponsors and associates; etc. It must be noted that so far, of all the thousands arrested, only one person has been prosecuted. He was quickly given a laughable jail term of three years only. This kind of evidence goes a long way to prove that there is a deliberate attempt on the part government to sustain the crisis.
So if anybody is looking for where to place his blame, he should deposit it on the doorstep of the President. I have heard Serah Jibril, David Mark and CAN leadership accusing northern leaders of not being forthcoming in condemning Boko Haram, though they are equally silent on the war crimes committed by Christian militia in central Nigeria. Muslims complain that the Sallah massacre of Muslims at a prayer ground at the end of last Ramadan where their bodies were roasted and eaten by Christians before the very eyes of security agents did not attract any condemnation from Christian leaders, the Nigerian President, or the foreign leaders and press.
If the Christian leadership would be dispassionate, I think they should redirect their criticism at the President, instead of taking the simple path of blaming a helpless section of the Nigerian population. If he is incompetent, let them tell the world, as they would hastily do were he a Muslim President. They must hold him responsible for their insecurity.
Blaming Jonathan, however, is the last thing that CAN would do. Since he became President, he has come to rely on it for support in both politics and administration. It supported his candidature almost 100%. How would it in one breath celebrate his victory and in the next advocate his incompetence? CAN is also quick to come to his rescue on any national issue, no matter unpopular it may be. Some weeks ago, its chairman tried to rope in the Christian community into accepting the unpopular decision of removing fuel subsidy, saying that CAN was supportive of the move. It took a threat from the northern wing of the organization before he withdrew the statement, claiming that he was misquoted.
Jonathan on his part has expressed his gratitude in many ways. He has used the congregation of his church in Abuja to announce important policy statements of his administration and avail Nigerians of his mindset. Today, he made this startling revelation at the interdenominational church service to mark Armed Forces Remembrance day in Abuja:
"Some of them are in the executive arm of government, some of them are in the parliamentary/legislative arm of government while some of them are even in the judiciary.
Some are also in the armed forces, the police and other security agencies. Some continue to dip their hands and eat with you and you won't even know the person who will point a gun at you or plant a bomb behind your house."
Mhmm. Jonathan, the hostage of the invincible and omnipresent Boko Haram, is courting sympathy.
In fact, it was in the aftermath of its meeting with the President after the Christmas bombing at Suleja that CAN leadership threatened to retaliate, before it downgraded the posture to self-defence later.
Let us now examine the implication of CAN’s resort to self-defense. On the surface it loo unavoidable,but cut it deep, it is untenable.
Practically, it will require a massive militia and weapons to stem a credible defense against attack on its members. The problem is that we are talking of defending at least 65 million people. How would CAN go about this? How many hundreds of thousands of militia would it require? How many AK47s would it need?
I live in a predominantly Muslim village with only about 5% Christians. Their population has been dwindling since the beginning of the Jos crisis. Yet there are at least five churches. Each church would require at least 5 rifles to defend it against attack from gunmen, Boko Haram or otherwise. That means 25 rifles would be needed to be manned by a greater number of people. In addition, how would CAN protect them against bombs, for example? By acquiring bombs too?
Now, I guess that as the most religious country in the world, there could be about a million churches in Nigeria, some holding congregations of thousands of people at a time. How many rifles would be required nationwide to defend those churches: Five, ten, twenty million? How many youths will CAN need to defend them? In whose custody will the weapons be? From where will they get the money to purchase them? Will Jonathan provide it from the 2011 security vote that is about a trillion naira? Who will give them the permission to acquire the weapons in the first place? Again, the President?
And what happens on the other side of the divide? Would Muslims sit back and watch every church armed with weapons and militant youths without asking for the same concession to pile up arms against a possible attack by Christians? More than 90% of those killed by Boko Haram are Muslims. Would the President also allow Muslims to take up arms in self-defence?
It is here I see the call for self-defense by CAN as infeasible in any civilized society. Nigeria is not the only country where criminal gangs or religious extremists operate violence. But citizens hardly resort to self-help under circumstances like this. They will depend on government to provide such security. Taking the law into one’s hand by arming members of one’s group will logically lead to civil war in any society. That is how Aljazeerah reached its conclusion that Nigeria is heading towards a civil war. CAN, to the delight of many enemies of one Nigeria, will be starting a fire that it will not be able to quench. And if the intention of Boko Haram or whoever is bombing churches in Nigeria, having failed to get Muslims to support or join it, is to ignite a religious war in the country, then CAN would have easily aiding and abetting that objective.
So unless that is what the whole idea behind Boko Haram is intended for, CAN leadership should put Jonathan on the hot seat and hold him responsible for our insecurity. It owes the nation that responsibility since it is closer to the President than anyone. Instead of blaming Nigerian Muslims, it should press Jonathan to show resolve similar to that of the Muslim presidents we mentioned earlier. I have no doubt that the Nigerian Muslim community will support him overwhelmingly. I hereby ledge my support in advance.
Why is this happening to Nigeria? Perhaps an answer could be found in Part II of this series where we will survey the six or so hypotheses behind what can now be correctly termed as Boko Haram syndrome.
Until then, please join the labour to protest against the removal of fuel subsidy that will start tomorrow. And when you pray, please pray for a peaceful coexistence among the different peoples of Nigeria. Pray also for the President such that he wakes up from his slumber and lead us out of this mess, for the price of failure could be costly. We do not need a badluck. A good one is better.
Abuja
8 January 2012
My Dear Reader,
If you want to be receiving new articles by this writer instantly, please submit your email address at the top right section of this page under "Follow by Email." There is no need for any password and it is done only once. There are new restrictions on sending bulk mails, causing delays in sending my mails to some readers for up to a week or two. If you submit your emai, however, you will be getting them instantly as I post them on the blog. Please bear with me. Thank you.
Aliyu
By Dr. Aliyu Tilde
Jonathan and the Security of Christians in Nigeria
The latest revelation by the President of Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Pastor Oritsejefor, calls for instant comment even as the country braces up for a shutdown by its labour unions tomorrow. I am afraid that this voice will be drowned in the sea of the ongoing protests on fuel subsidy removal. It is unfortunate that the nation has to face the two weighty issues simultaneously due to the incompetence of its leadership. The situation doesn’t allow us to sacrifice one for the sake of the other.
The CAN President addressed a press conference saying that Christians are “taking their fate in our hands”, that “we have decided to work out means to defend ourselves against these senseless killings.” This came in the aftermath of the killings of Christians in Gombe, Mubi and Yola during the past four days. Some, like Aljazeera, have already interpreted the statement as signaling an impending civil war in Nigeria.
It is difficult for anyone not to sympathize with the challenging position that religious leaders find themselves in Nigeria today. On the one hand, Christian leaders cannot be expected to keep mute while their followers are slaughtered. CAN leadership since Arch-Bishop Okogie has never hesitated to call for war at the slightest provocation. We heard it during the OIC, Sharia and Islamic Banking debates. These were mere policy issues. When the issue is that of attacking churches and killing Christians, one can expect another declaration of war from a leadership with such pedigree. Apparently, the government is lagging many kilometers behind Boko Haram. Who would justifiably expect Oritsejefor to keep quiet? He must say something.
On the other hand are Nigerian Muslims who are helpless in the situation are often accused by their Christians brothers of not doing much to stop the attacks by Boko Haram. They wonder what mere condemnation would do in the face of bullets and bombs. In fact, most Muslims whom I discussed the issue with hold the belief, like many of their leaders, that Boko Haram is a conspiracy against Islam and the Muslim North. As evidence, they do not hesitate to point accusing fingers at northern Christians known to have links with Boko Haram and the instances in which Christians were caught attempting to bomb churches. The arrest and interrogation of a Christian called Yakubu Bityong by the SSS on charges of financing Boko Haram also got the Muslims say, "Aha. You see?"
Another source of dilemma for Muslims is that these killings are happening unabated when the top echelon of the country’s security apparatus is dominated by Christians: The President and Commander-in-Chief or the Armed Forces, Goodluck Jonathan, is a Christian, just as are his Chief of Defence Staff, Chief of Army Staff, National Security Adviser and Director of State Security Services; only the Inspector General of Police and the Chiefs of Air and Naval Staff are Muslim, the last two having no direct relevance to the issue of Boko Haram. The Police chief has little to say since the army took over the fight against the group. In fact, he hardly say anything about Boko Haram since the bombings of his headquarters. Meet him on one to one, he speaks about the issue with his tongue in his cheek.
Muslims reason that if these people, on whose shoulders rests the entire security of the country, fail to discharge their constitutional responsibilities for reasons best known to them, how can the Sultan – the ceremonial leader of Muslims in Nigeria, for example, stop Boko Haram killings when he does not command a single soldier or superintend the security his ward? The Sultan and other Muslims can condemn Boko Haram saying that their actions are illegal, un-Islamic, etc., as they have done, but that has not and will not change anything. What will check Boko Haram is intelligence, weapons, police and security personnel and the will to deploy them.
Muslims will also not forget to cite the roles played by Muslim ex-Presidents and Heads of State in suppressing Muslim insurgency. President Shehu Shagari and Maj. General Muhammadu Buhari did not waste time in brutally dealing with Maitatsine in the early 1980s. Both Buhari and President Babangida arrested and jailed Ibrahim El-Zakzaky for preaching anti-government doctrines, even though he and his followers have never carried any weapon or attacked anyone. In fact, he was against the burning of Churches during the Kanfanchan crisis riots. Yet the government found it expedient to use the tribunal to jail him. In 2009 when Boko Haram made its first public outing in retaliation to the extrajudicial killings of their members by the police, President Yar’adua brutally repressed them. In both Bauchi and Maiduguri, they were massacred and their bases leveled instantly by bulldozers, acts that courted worldwide condemnation by human right groups.
However, the performance of Christian Presidents is a direct contradiction of the Muslim regarding religious insurgency and criminal activities. Boko Haram first surfaced as “Nigerian Taliban” during the era of President Olusegun Obasanjo, a self-confessed born-again Christian. He did practically nothing to stop them, so much so that the then Director of SSS, Mr. Gadzama, was baffled at how the administration was adamant in checking a group that was becoming increasingly armed. Instead, it is commonly known that the leader of Boko Haram, Muhammad Yusuf, was twice bailed by Professor Jerry Gana, an elder in CAN and a Minister under Obasanjo. To my knowledge, Gana has not denied the story.
Also, the person widely known to have links with the group during its formative stage, former Borno State Governor, Ali Modu Sheriff, was a lackey of Obasanjo. Just few minutes after he met the Boko Haram leader in police cell in 2009 where he spoke to him in his native Kanuri, the former was executed in cold blood by the police. That was just after another top Boko Haram member, Modu’s Commissioner for Religious Affairs was also gunned down by the police on the street to the loud ovation of the public.
After President Yar’adua, Jonathan continued with Obasanjo’s deficit of interest to check Boko Haram. It is unbelievable to see how a government in a digital age would fail to apprehend a few thousand insurgents and their leaders who are using GSM freely to coordinate their activities and communicate with local and international press; how it will fail to prosecute arrested members of the group; how it will refuse to apprehend its known sponsors and associates; etc. It must be noted that so far, of all the thousands arrested, only one person has been prosecuted. He was quickly given a laughable jail term of three years only. This kind of evidence goes a long way to prove that there is a deliberate attempt on the part government to sustain the crisis.
So if anybody is looking for where to place his blame, he should deposit it on the doorstep of the President. I have heard Serah Jibril, David Mark and CAN leadership accusing northern leaders of not being forthcoming in condemning Boko Haram, though they are equally silent on the war crimes committed by Christian militia in central Nigeria. Muslims complain that the Sallah massacre of Muslims at a prayer ground at the end of last Ramadan where their bodies were roasted and eaten by Christians before the very eyes of security agents did not attract any condemnation from Christian leaders, the Nigerian President, or the foreign leaders and press.
If the Christian leadership would be dispassionate, I think they should redirect their criticism at the President, instead of taking the simple path of blaming a helpless section of the Nigerian population. If he is incompetent, let them tell the world, as they would hastily do were he a Muslim President. They must hold him responsible for their insecurity.
Blaming Jonathan, however, is the last thing that CAN would do. Since he became President, he has come to rely on it for support in both politics and administration. It supported his candidature almost 100%. How would it in one breath celebrate his victory and in the next advocate his incompetence? CAN is also quick to come to his rescue on any national issue, no matter unpopular it may be. Some weeks ago, its chairman tried to rope in the Christian community into accepting the unpopular decision of removing fuel subsidy, saying that CAN was supportive of the move. It took a threat from the northern wing of the organization before he withdrew the statement, claiming that he was misquoted.
Jonathan on his part has expressed his gratitude in many ways. He has used the congregation of his church in Abuja to announce important policy statements of his administration and avail Nigerians of his mindset. Today, he made this startling revelation at the interdenominational church service to mark Armed Forces Remembrance day in Abuja:
"Some of them are in the executive arm of government, some of them are in the parliamentary/legislative arm of government while some of them are even in the judiciary.
Some are also in the armed forces, the police and other security agencies. Some continue to dip their hands and eat with you and you won't even know the person who will point a gun at you or plant a bomb behind your house."
Mhmm. Jonathan, the hostage of the invincible and omnipresent Boko Haram, is courting sympathy.
In fact, it was in the aftermath of its meeting with the President after the Christmas bombing at Suleja that CAN leadership threatened to retaliate, before it downgraded the posture to self-defence later.
Let us now examine the implication of CAN’s resort to self-defense. On the surface it loo unavoidable,but cut it deep, it is untenable.
Practically, it will require a massive militia and weapons to stem a credible defense against attack on its members. The problem is that we are talking of defending at least 65 million people. How would CAN go about this? How many hundreds of thousands of militia would it require? How many AK47s would it need?
I live in a predominantly Muslim village with only about 5% Christians. Their population has been dwindling since the beginning of the Jos crisis. Yet there are at least five churches. Each church would require at least 5 rifles to defend it against attack from gunmen, Boko Haram or otherwise. That means 25 rifles would be needed to be manned by a greater number of people. In addition, how would CAN protect them against bombs, for example? By acquiring bombs too?
Now, I guess that as the most religious country in the world, there could be about a million churches in Nigeria, some holding congregations of thousands of people at a time. How many rifles would be required nationwide to defend those churches: Five, ten, twenty million? How many youths will CAN need to defend them? In whose custody will the weapons be? From where will they get the money to purchase them? Will Jonathan provide it from the 2011 security vote that is about a trillion naira? Who will give them the permission to acquire the weapons in the first place? Again, the President?
And what happens on the other side of the divide? Would Muslims sit back and watch every church armed with weapons and militant youths without asking for the same concession to pile up arms against a possible attack by Christians? More than 90% of those killed by Boko Haram are Muslims. Would the President also allow Muslims to take up arms in self-defence?
It is here I see the call for self-defense by CAN as infeasible in any civilized society. Nigeria is not the only country where criminal gangs or religious extremists operate violence. But citizens hardly resort to self-help under circumstances like this. They will depend on government to provide such security. Taking the law into one’s hand by arming members of one’s group will logically lead to civil war in any society. That is how Aljazeerah reached its conclusion that Nigeria is heading towards a civil war. CAN, to the delight of many enemies of one Nigeria, will be starting a fire that it will not be able to quench. And if the intention of Boko Haram or whoever is bombing churches in Nigeria, having failed to get Muslims to support or join it, is to ignite a religious war in the country, then CAN would have easily aiding and abetting that objective.
So unless that is what the whole idea behind Boko Haram is intended for, CAN leadership should put Jonathan on the hot seat and hold him responsible for our insecurity. It owes the nation that responsibility since it is closer to the President than anyone. Instead of blaming Nigerian Muslims, it should press Jonathan to show resolve similar to that of the Muslim presidents we mentioned earlier. I have no doubt that the Nigerian Muslim community will support him overwhelmingly. I hereby ledge my support in advance.
Why is this happening to Nigeria? Perhaps an answer could be found in Part II of this series where we will survey the six or so hypotheses behind what can now be correctly termed as Boko Haram syndrome.
Until then, please join the labour to protest against the removal of fuel subsidy that will start tomorrow. And when you pray, please pray for a peaceful coexistence among the different peoples of Nigeria. Pray also for the President such that he wakes up from his slumber and lead us out of this mess, for the price of failure could be costly. We do not need a badluck. A good one is better.
Abuja
8 January 2012
My Dear Reader,
If you want to be receiving new articles by this writer instantly, please submit your email address at the top right section of this page under "Follow by Email." There is no need for any password and it is done only once. There are new restrictions on sending bulk mails, causing delays in sending my mails to some readers for up to a week or two. If you submit your emai, however, you will be getting them instantly as I post them on the blog. Please bear with me. Thank you.
Aliyu
Friday, July 15, 2011
Discourse 322. Rape Spree in Maiduguri
Discourse 322
By Dr. Aliyu U. Tilde
RAPE SPREE IN MAIDUGURI
When I wrote Boko Haram and the Military three days ago, in my heart the accusation of rape against the Nigerian military was the weightiest of all the allegations. The obscenity of the act is what every normal citizen should abhor. I then based my evidence on eyewitness accounts of people fleeing the town. Listeners of early morning VOA or BBC Hausa service programmes can recall the voice of a woman who was fleeing Maiduguri for Misau in Bauchi State. This is what I can recollect from her conversation with the reporter:
“We have to flee. Soldiers are bursting into our houses, killing our husbands and committing obscenity with the women. What can we do other than to flee to where we will feel safe?”
I did not doubt her. Though she did not mention rape in Hausa for reasons of shyness, the words she used left no one in doubt of what she meant. What obscene thing would make a woman shy from its mere mention though it caused her to abandon her residence?
When the I published the article in my blog (http://fridaydiscourse.blogspot.com), a reader, apparently a military officer, wrote this anonymous contribution and doubted the veracity of the rape allegation. He politely said:
“I doubt very much the allegation of rape. Please check your facts very well.”
Another contributor, from the military it looks, also said:
“I would suggest that you refrain from comments that would depict our soldiers as barbarians thereby causing them to lose the public support they require to carry out their duties effectively…They certainly do not deserve the castigation you are pouring out to them. In the case of reported atrocities by these soldiers, I will suggest you take your time to investigate before you go public and not base your write up on hearsay."
Let me pause to assert that our military counterparts should please appreciate that we are living in a democracy in which freedom of expression is cornerstone. When actions of soldiers contravene fundamental human rights enshrined in our constitution, we are bound to speak out. That is the life of a bloody civilian. He doesn't carry arms. All he can do is to talk, and the talking is what we are doing here. As civilians, we expect the soldiers to protect us, not attack us in the middle of our sleep, killing our men, burning our houses and cars, beating our women and raping our daughters. They have not met this expectation in Maiduguri, and hence our complain.
Now before I could investigate, I was vindicated by the Borno Elders Forum. In an appeal to the President reported in the Daily Trust, the elders categorically mentioned rape among several atrocities committed by the soldiers:
“The soldiers have been burning down cars, killing innocent passersby, looting private property, harassing innocent passerby and even raping young girls.”
The veracity of the accusation can be driven from the weight of the personalities that made it:
“Shettima Ali Monguno, the Imam Idaini of Borno Imam Baba Gana Asil, Alhaji Garba Abba Satomi, Alhaji Bukar Bolori, Alhaji Usman Gaji Galtimari, Alhaji Kyari Sandabe, Brigadier General Abba Kyari (rtd), Air Vice Marshal Al-Amin Daggash (rtd), Shettima Ali Kidaji…Ambassador Ahmed Yusufari, AIG Zanna Laminu Mamadi, AIG Muktar Alkali, Alhaji Tijjani Bolori, Alhaji Bulama Mali Gubio, Alhaji Umar Abba Shuwa, Alhaji Ibrahim El-Zubairu, Malam Ibrahim Mustapha and Alhaji Gambo Vubio.”
These people are qualified to be senior citizens in any country. Their words cannot be dismissed as simple hearsay.
The military authorities were quick in denying the atrocities leveled by the Borno Elders Forum. However, reports continue to assert the issue of rape. This article is even prompted by a mail I received from a noble sister with relations in Maiduguri, sounding helpless over the atrocities that have not ceased, causing her sisters to go into hiding:
“My dear brothers and sisters, please we need your prayers. Young girls in Maiduguri are in great danger. My sisters and some other young girls have fled from their homes. Our parents are all hiding their female children because soldiers are raping them. Oh Allah save our generation.”
For a commentator I think this is enough to take the allegation of rape seriously. I do not need to catch the soldier in the act before I comment on it. I am not a policeman. Just as no President in the world, other than the coconut headed ones we have in Africa, would go to sleep in the face of this quantum of allegations and complaints.
However, in Nigeria the complaints were answered with an air of impunity as usual. Major General Azazi (rtd) said, in reply to the Elders, he said that government will not withdraw soldiers from the streets of Maiduguri. He even concluded his statement without the usual false palliative of investigating the allegations to fray the nerves of the population. In other words, you do not deserve it, bloody civilians.
Today so many human rights groups have jointly signed an appeal to the government for investigating the atrocities and putting an end to them.
I tried to figure out the justification behind this truly barbaric behaviour in the 21st century. Despite the fact that Nigerian soldiers have consistently shown this level of human rights abuse before, as I was quick to point out in my last article on the matter, I was shocked to discover a justification from an ethnic angle consistently opened to me by one of my readers of Igbo extraction, Ike Agbor. On the point I made that “killing of civilians under any circumstance is a massacre…punishable under the Geneva convention, he said this, apparently in justifying the actions of Maj. General Jack Nwachukwu’s soldiers in Maiduguri:
“Where do we start? A revisit of the massacre by Nigerian soldiers under Murtala at Asaba, the massacre of a congregation at a church once Nigerian soldiers entered into Onitsha, or the every other massacres orchestrated by Nigerian soldiers inside Biafra?... I will be glad if you hold my hands and take me to the sections of the Geneva Conventions that were contravened by the Northern civilians, and the soldiers, who took part in the orgy of killings in the North, the starvation of civilians in Biafra and the near equal frenzy of massacre of Biafrans and the rape of women at the end of hostilities in January 1970.”
After reading this mail, I simply sent him a question whether the atrocities committed in the past should determine what our soldiers should do presently. No reply.
Are some elements in the Nigerian military 'justifiably' under a revenge mission in Maiduguri, if Ike is right?
The government, if I must reiterate, should commence investigations into these allegations and request Maj General Jack Nwachukwu and his soldiers to become more vigilant of the possible bad eggs in their ranks. Saying that miscreants or Boko Haram members carry out the rapes simply does not click. Everybody is mentioning soldiers, soldiers and soldiers alone. It is possible there could be fake soldiers on the streets, as was witnessed whenever there is a religious crisis in Bauchi, Plateau and Kaduna. Only investigations by the military will bring out the true identity of the soldiers. Lending a deaf ear to the appeals, therefore, will not help the situation.
Whoever is behind the rapes and whatever are his reasons, I will not hesitate to warn the Nigerian government of the consequences of continued insensitivity to the complaints. A point may be reached when the population of Maiduguri would entirely come out on the streets and revolt against the soldiers. This is the easiest thing that the progenies of Mai Idris Alooma and El-Kanemi can do when pushed to the wall. Here, it will be apt to advise the military not to take the level-headedness of the population for granted.
“If you see the teeth of the lion exposed”, said my favourite Abbasid poet, Al-Mutanabbi, “don’t think that the lion is laughing.”
Abuja
15 July 2011
By Dr. Aliyu U. Tilde
RAPE SPREE IN MAIDUGURI
When I wrote Boko Haram and the Military three days ago, in my heart the accusation of rape against the Nigerian military was the weightiest of all the allegations. The obscenity of the act is what every normal citizen should abhor. I then based my evidence on eyewitness accounts of people fleeing the town. Listeners of early morning VOA or BBC Hausa service programmes can recall the voice of a woman who was fleeing Maiduguri for Misau in Bauchi State. This is what I can recollect from her conversation with the reporter:
“We have to flee. Soldiers are bursting into our houses, killing our husbands and committing obscenity with the women. What can we do other than to flee to where we will feel safe?”
I did not doubt her. Though she did not mention rape in Hausa for reasons of shyness, the words she used left no one in doubt of what she meant. What obscene thing would make a woman shy from its mere mention though it caused her to abandon her residence?
When the I published the article in my blog (http://fridaydiscourse.blogspot.com), a reader, apparently a military officer, wrote this anonymous contribution and doubted the veracity of the rape allegation. He politely said:
“I doubt very much the allegation of rape. Please check your facts very well.”
Another contributor, from the military it looks, also said:
“I would suggest that you refrain from comments that would depict our soldiers as barbarians thereby causing them to lose the public support they require to carry out their duties effectively…They certainly do not deserve the castigation you are pouring out to them. In the case of reported atrocities by these soldiers, I will suggest you take your time to investigate before you go public and not base your write up on hearsay."
Let me pause to assert that our military counterparts should please appreciate that we are living in a democracy in which freedom of expression is cornerstone. When actions of soldiers contravene fundamental human rights enshrined in our constitution, we are bound to speak out. That is the life of a bloody civilian. He doesn't carry arms. All he can do is to talk, and the talking is what we are doing here. As civilians, we expect the soldiers to protect us, not attack us in the middle of our sleep, killing our men, burning our houses and cars, beating our women and raping our daughters. They have not met this expectation in Maiduguri, and hence our complain.
Now before I could investigate, I was vindicated by the Borno Elders Forum. In an appeal to the President reported in the Daily Trust, the elders categorically mentioned rape among several atrocities committed by the soldiers:
“The soldiers have been burning down cars, killing innocent passersby, looting private property, harassing innocent passerby and even raping young girls.”
The veracity of the accusation can be driven from the weight of the personalities that made it:
“Shettima Ali Monguno, the Imam Idaini of Borno Imam Baba Gana Asil, Alhaji Garba Abba Satomi, Alhaji Bukar Bolori, Alhaji Usman Gaji Galtimari, Alhaji Kyari Sandabe, Brigadier General Abba Kyari (rtd), Air Vice Marshal Al-Amin Daggash (rtd), Shettima Ali Kidaji…Ambassador Ahmed Yusufari, AIG Zanna Laminu Mamadi, AIG Muktar Alkali, Alhaji Tijjani Bolori, Alhaji Bulama Mali Gubio, Alhaji Umar Abba Shuwa, Alhaji Ibrahim El-Zubairu, Malam Ibrahim Mustapha and Alhaji Gambo Vubio.”
These people are qualified to be senior citizens in any country. Their words cannot be dismissed as simple hearsay.
The military authorities were quick in denying the atrocities leveled by the Borno Elders Forum. However, reports continue to assert the issue of rape. This article is even prompted by a mail I received from a noble sister with relations in Maiduguri, sounding helpless over the atrocities that have not ceased, causing her sisters to go into hiding:
“My dear brothers and sisters, please we need your prayers. Young girls in Maiduguri are in great danger. My sisters and some other young girls have fled from their homes. Our parents are all hiding their female children because soldiers are raping them. Oh Allah save our generation.”
For a commentator I think this is enough to take the allegation of rape seriously. I do not need to catch the soldier in the act before I comment on it. I am not a policeman. Just as no President in the world, other than the coconut headed ones we have in Africa, would go to sleep in the face of this quantum of allegations and complaints.
However, in Nigeria the complaints were answered with an air of impunity as usual. Major General Azazi (rtd) said, in reply to the Elders, he said that government will not withdraw soldiers from the streets of Maiduguri. He even concluded his statement without the usual false palliative of investigating the allegations to fray the nerves of the population. In other words, you do not deserve it, bloody civilians.
Today so many human rights groups have jointly signed an appeal to the government for investigating the atrocities and putting an end to them.
I tried to figure out the justification behind this truly barbaric behaviour in the 21st century. Despite the fact that Nigerian soldiers have consistently shown this level of human rights abuse before, as I was quick to point out in my last article on the matter, I was shocked to discover a justification from an ethnic angle consistently opened to me by one of my readers of Igbo extraction, Ike Agbor. On the point I made that “killing of civilians under any circumstance is a massacre…punishable under the Geneva convention, he said this, apparently in justifying the actions of Maj. General Jack Nwachukwu’s soldiers in Maiduguri:
“Where do we start? A revisit of the massacre by Nigerian soldiers under Murtala at Asaba, the massacre of a congregation at a church once Nigerian soldiers entered into Onitsha, or the every other massacres orchestrated by Nigerian soldiers inside Biafra?... I will be glad if you hold my hands and take me to the sections of the Geneva Conventions that were contravened by the Northern civilians, and the soldiers, who took part in the orgy of killings in the North, the starvation of civilians in Biafra and the near equal frenzy of massacre of Biafrans and the rape of women at the end of hostilities in January 1970.”
After reading this mail, I simply sent him a question whether the atrocities committed in the past should determine what our soldiers should do presently. No reply.
Are some elements in the Nigerian military 'justifiably' under a revenge mission in Maiduguri, if Ike is right?
The government, if I must reiterate, should commence investigations into these allegations and request Maj General Jack Nwachukwu and his soldiers to become more vigilant of the possible bad eggs in their ranks. Saying that miscreants or Boko Haram members carry out the rapes simply does not click. Everybody is mentioning soldiers, soldiers and soldiers alone. It is possible there could be fake soldiers on the streets, as was witnessed whenever there is a religious crisis in Bauchi, Plateau and Kaduna. Only investigations by the military will bring out the true identity of the soldiers. Lending a deaf ear to the appeals, therefore, will not help the situation.
Whoever is behind the rapes and whatever are his reasons, I will not hesitate to warn the Nigerian government of the consequences of continued insensitivity to the complaints. A point may be reached when the population of Maiduguri would entirely come out on the streets and revolt against the soldiers. This is the easiest thing that the progenies of Mai Idris Alooma and El-Kanemi can do when pushed to the wall. Here, it will be apt to advise the military not to take the level-headedness of the population for granted.
“If you see the teeth of the lion exposed”, said my favourite Abbasid poet, Al-Mutanabbi, “don’t think that the lion is laughing.”
Abuja
15 July 2011
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