NIGERIA continues to exhibit symptoms of a
failing state in the face of a brutal onslaught by terrorists.
In its latest
vacillation, rather than apply the full weight of the law on highly placed
individuals suspected to be sponsors of terrorism, the government is waffling
and treating a dire threat to national security with kid gloves.
No words are too strong to condemn the strange
statement by Mohammed Abubakar, the Inspector-General of Police, that two
senators and a former Borno State Governor had been put under surveillance to
determine their alleged sponsorship of Boko Haram. His claim that “some of the
senators are under watch and we need evidence to build strong cases against
them” is unusual and highly unprofessional. Since when did security operatives
start publicly alerting terror suspects that they are under surveillance?
The blunder is underscored when it is remembered
that the United States and the United Kingdom have kept terrorism out of their
countries through routine undercover and “sting” operations where agents
infiltrate and expose terror plans before they are executed.
The Nigerian state’s unpardonable lack of
seriousness in crushing terrorism at its source of funding did not start today.
It has been almost two years since weighty voices first fingered Ali Modu
Sheriff, a former governor of Borno State, and some other senior politicians as
alleged sponsors of terrorism. Even President Goodluck Jonathan, in January
this year, revealed that Boko Haram had infiltrated his government. It
took strong action by the State Security Service and the military Joint Task
Force to nab Senator Ali Ndume, who is currently being tried for sponsoring
terrorism, to finally move against a prominent alleged sponsor. In leaked
comments, SSS has said it had in the past, arrested and filed security reports
on some prominent figures with links to terrorism only for the government to
order their release or ignore security reports.
When the JTF announced last month that it had
arrested a top Boko Haram commander, Mohammed Bama, in the Maiduguri home of a
serving senator, it was thought to be a breakthrough in identifying the group’s
sponsors and source of funding. But Ahmed Zanna, the Senator representing Borno
Central, immediately went public to allege being set up by opponents, and in a
twist, named Sheriff as the one in whose home Bama was actually arrested, a
claim Sheriff has denied. He also repeated the allegation that the former
governor was behind Boko Haram. Sheriff in turn, like the JTF, insists
that Zanna is a sponsor of terror.
The kid gloves approach of the government towards
highly placed terror suspects is disgusting. To date, there is no sign that the
government is monitoring those senior figures who have for two years, been
making untenable excuses for Boko Haram despite the horrendous atrocities that
sect has unleashed on the nation. Here is a group that, according to latest
estimates by Amnesty International, has killed over 2,000 persons in a campaign
that has featured bombings, suicide bombings, drive-by shootings and mass
murder and whose victims have included soldiers, policemen, prisons,
immigration, customs and SSS personnel, church and mosque worshippers and children.
The economies of Borno, Yobe, Bauchi and Gombe states have been devastated
while the terrorists’ reach has extended to Taraba, Kaduna, Katsina, Kogi,
Adamawa, Plateau, Sokoto and Niger states. Boko Haram has bombed the Nigeria
Police headquarters in Abuja, the United Nations building and Nigerian Army
formations in Abuja.
In the face of a determined and ruthless enemy,
Jonathan’s government has shown only weakness and an ineffectual reaction
template to every terrorist outrage: condemnation, false claim of winning and a
lame boast of ending the insurgency soon. Various interest groups have been
capitalising on this ineptitude to canvass an unworkable and unsustainable
resort to dialogue and offer of amnesty to the terrorists. Such moves are
doomed to fail.
Three such attempts made so far have, as
expected, collapsed and the latest, for which a former head of state and others
have been suggested as mediators to meet the haughty Boko Haram in far-away
Saudi Arabia, will fare no better. Countries that have been contending with
terrorism years before us, including ironically, Saudi Arabia, have found that
you cannot negotiate with terrorists motivated by an extreme religious ideology
without disbanding the state.
The terrorist is neither a Niger Delta militant
seeking control over the oil resources in his ancestral land, nor an Afghan
Taliban employing terror to drive out foreign occupiers from his country. Boko
Haram is part of a global Salafist Islamic movement that seeks the imposition
of its own interpretation of Islamic law and a safe haven for jihadists. Its
jihadist fighters are, by their own reckoning, paradise-bound and will not be
deterred from that glorious vision of eternal bliss by earthly offers of money
and pardon for their past crimes.
Saudi Arabia, US, UK, Israel and other countries,
knowing this, have an all-out strategy against terrorism that includes direct
military action, espionage and financial intelligence-gathering to locate and
track the sources of funds and financiers of terrorism. While the
Nigerian military and other security forces have been battling to contain the
Boko Haram menace, despite being constrained by a clueless and vacillating
government, the intelligence side of the war, which has served the West, Saudi Arabia
and Israel so well, is still weak here.
The SSS, police and military should imbibe the
wisdom of intelligence-led operations, especially in the light of a complicit
faction of the elite, hostile locals and a weak government. They must locate,
identify and monitor suspected sponsors and sympathisers through undercover
operations without tipping off the targets as the IG has inexplicably done.
Senators Ndume, Zanna, ex-governor Sheriff and
other alleged or suspected sponsors should be thoroughly investigated to
determine their culpability or innocence. The carnage must end and the
government must pull all stops to halt the flow of funding and arms to the
terrorists. There should be no sacred cows in the war against terrorism
The Punch
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