Mr.
Ethelbert Onuoha Oney is a United Kingdom trained lawyer, who bagged a
Masters in Security and intelligence from Oxford University. He also has
a degree in Security Management. In this encounter with JULIANA
FRANCIS, Oney reveals what Nigeria and Nigerians can do to finally nail
the rampaging Boko Haram sect. Excerpt:
What’s the difference between terrorism and insurgency?
The difference is broad. Insurgency means militant and militantancy means freedom fighters. Terrorism doesn’t have any definition among the scholars or practitioners. But for me, terrorism means a group of aggrieved people, with the intention of hurting a nation, inculcating fear into people, with mass killings and economic sabotage. The two are not the same. Insurgency can be a freedom fighter. It means you have a purpose, reason for fighting. In terrorism, they don’t know what they’re fighting for and something new will keep coming up. Terrorism is a system. In order to win terrorism, you must first of all, win the intelligence war.
How do we win the intelligence war?
We win intelligence war by first having timely and appropriate policy. The policy is not to show the citizenry that government is working. The policy should be such that once its implemented, anyone who goes contrary to it; either sponsors of terrorism or supporters, should be tried and jailed. And the best of it should be a long term jail. It shouldn’t be killing and shooting. Secondly, there should be specialised agencies; people who are trained in counter terrorism, and security experts. Maybe, people who had worked with the police or army. Thirdly, we have the experts. These are people like me. There are a lot of people who are terrorism experts in Nigeria. I mean people who read and studied it up to master’s level.
Those are the people needed in terrorism situations. Fourthly, there’s the resource. This is having the resources to back whatever mechanism they want to apply. As far as you and I know, we have the resources. None of these four factors have been applied from the beginning. From the beginning of Boko Haram, all we’ve heard is army this, army that. Army is not supposed to get involved in counter terrorism. The only time they’re supposed to get involved is when there’s intelligence report that the terrorist would be in a particular area
Isn’t that what we did? The government started first with using the police to fight Boko Haram members before using the military.
The police are actually the best on counter terrorism, not the army because they have the skill. The template that’s applied in terrorism, is the template applied in ordinary crime. The police have the skill in crime detection and prevention. The only thing they need is the extra training and motivation in the area of terrorism and they would do well. Another problem is that people don’t have plan B in whatever they do. For many years, nobody ever thought there would be anything like terrorism in Nigeria.
Yes, nobody wanted that in Nigeria.
But it’s wrong! As far as we’re a nation, no matter how old or new, such problems must come. And when it comes, it has a circle. It’s like intelligence circle. Intelligence circle is this; plan, collection, analysis, dissemination and the policy. That’s the intelligence circle. The same thing applies to terrorism. It has got a circle. If that circle is not complete, only the special agencies can stop it.
What do you mean by this?
Terrorism organisations change plans and strategies from time to time. If maybe they’re using women who cover their faces and stuffs like that, when they know that people have come to know that technique, they’ll change their strategies. That’s terrorism for you. It has a circle and the sooner people understand it, the better for us. All we need now is resilience and preparedness.
When you talked about resilience, do you expect people like you and I to confront Boko Haram? How do unarmed people confront men who are ready to die?
Now, what do I mean by resilience. It’s resilience in terms of preparedness. You prepare that something is going to happen or might happen. What do you do? You get ready. Do you know that the Boko Haram members have informants? Do you know they’ve got ears and eyes in the police and army? Do you know that in normal circumstances, it supposed to be the other way round? What I’m talking about is that some areas in Borno State, they’re using the vigilantes to fight the Boko Haram.
Do you know some of the vigilante groups are members of Boko Haram? They give information to the Boko Haram. They tell Boko Haram members, families that are involved in the vigilante groups. But it’s actually supposed to be the other way round. There should be use of human intelligence. This is using of people; people who can dress, talk and behave like them in order to infiltrate them. With that infiltration, using the ordinary people, the information would be brought out to our law enforcement agents and they in turn will protect the common people like me and you. But in our situation, it’s not like that. We don’t have eyes, ear and we’re fighting a war. How do you expect to win the war?
Do you mean that we’re losing to Boko Haram because of lack of intelligence gathering?
Yes! That’s it!
You don’t think it has a lot to do with the fact that Boko Haram has superior weapons to our soldiers?
That’s another matter! With appropriate information gathering, we will even be able to know where they’re getting their supplies and block it. With appropriate information and infiltration, we will be able to know when they would be coming to strike and stop them. There’ what we call, delay and deny under terrorism. If there are people who can infiltrate them and gather information, then the law enforcement agents can deny them the opportunity of attacking us. In our situation, there’s nothing like that. There was a time international communities came to help in the rescue of the Chibok girls, what happened? Do you want to tell me that if this sort of thing happened in England it will take up to two days before they round up the Boko Haram? We have problems because they’ve resorted to what we call sabotage. This is also going on and it shouldn’t be. We’re supposed to have informants there.
Are you saying the problem will not go? We should lose hope?
No! How can! The moment Nigeria is ready to face the truth and does it right, you’ll see that everything will work out.
Have you being following the Australian negotiator’s revelations? He said he spoke with Boko Haram, that some banks and opposition are sponsoring them. What’s your reaction to that?
That’s just one person’s opinion. He also said that it was not the federal government that employed him. He said one Emir employed him. But his coming here was not to negotiate between Nigeria and Boko Haram. He came for the Chibok girls. Everybody knows that banks are involved. But it’s not only in Nigeria. Let’s be realistic. In terrorism, people must benefit. It’s wrong and inhuman and a criminal act.
Who are those benefitting?
Those benefiting are the politicians or sponsors! Terrorism emanates from thuggery. These are the set of people politicians use during election. When the politicians win their elections and leave to take up their post, they abandon the thugs. What do you want them to do? They’ll need to survive. Some of them, because of no employment, food or education go into crime. But all these are not the primary purpose of terrorism. If terrorism is happening in any place, people get involved. Mr. Stephen Davis mentioned some names. It’s left for our federal government to check out those names. In a corrupt-free society, any name mentioned in connection to crime or terrorism, must be verified.
Don’t you think there’s a global Islamic agenda, which only the Islamist militants know about? Why is it that across the world, Islamist militants are up in arms?
Let me tell you, radicalisation by recruitment is very easy now. It’s because you can be radicalised on the internet. Boko Haram is affiliated to al-Qaeda. Boko Haram has been black listed. The UN will take sanctions against them. They’ve been banned from travelling and their assets can be freeze. They can be arrested and tried wherever they’re seen. That’s to tell you, that they’ve been linked with international terrorist groups. Of course, they all communicate. It’s a link. It’s a sort of association. If you’re doing well, the other organisation, in another place, would help by giving you tips and information. Before, the only way to stop terrorist or catch them, is when you get them on the act.
Now they communicate through emails. This is also why it’s necessary for us to advance our systems. In US and other places, they can be arrested through the internet by security agents who may begin to monitor their emails. If we’re advanced in several ways of intelligence gathering, things would be easier for us. There’re many ways of intelligence gathering; human, imagery, technical and open source intelligence. If we’re advanced in all these, the case would be easier for us. The fact that Islamist militants are fighting in some countries makes it a big issue. I don’t look at Boko Haram as ordinary anymore. It’s not ordinary now. Before it was a domestic violence; but it has now transcended that.
Do you think there’s an agenda globally among these Islamist militants?
You know that the al-Qaeda’s aim is to globalise Islam. But that’s a dead dream!
Why do you say it’s a dead dream? They appear to be winning everywhere. ISI is killing and beheading. And online journalists are claiming US President is scared stiff.
Listen, terrorism is a faulty weapon that always misfires. What I mean is that it hardly achieves a strategic goal. Have you ever seen a country where a terrorism organisation removed the president and a terrorist becomes the president? It had never happened. That’s why it’s a faulty weapon that always misfires. Yes they’re killing Nigerians, killings others, shedding blood, wasting lives and engaging in mass killings, but they don’t go too far.
The appropriate mechanism is the problem we have here in Nigeria. How is terrorism tamed? What is the way, the experience and honestly of people involved in the counter terrorism fight? A lot of Nigerians still have sympathy for the Boko Haram!
What! I don’t think so. I don’t agree.
I was in England during the 7/7 bombing. Everybody stood up together. England was together and within a short time, all those people involved in the bombing were rounded up. But in our case, if you stop somebody that he’s involved in Boko Haram, you’ll find somebody somewhere, already making a phone call, claiming the person is his driver or something. This is the problem. So how do you sort the issue of Boko Haram when the system would not allow you to try or sentence a Boko Haram member? It’s a big problem. It means the whole Nigeria is not united on the fight against terrorism.
Since this Boko Haram issue started, some people have been arrested, yet none has been sentenced. Is that what you’re saying?
Yes! Thank you! I don’t want to go into that. That’s why I said, only until we’re willing to uphold our legitimacy, that’s when the whole problem would be solved. Boko Haram is not so high and mighty as people portray them. Do you know that before the best of the Boko Haram in 2002, the father of the late Mohammed Yusuf, who is the founder of Boko Haram, preached about Boko Haram? And when Boko Haram came to be in 2002, he opened schools and started recruiting people.
A school where he started Islamising people. Didn’t we have a president by then? Little by little, the recruits graduated. People still gives Boko Haram safe haven. There’re places they gather to eat, recruit and meet their sponsors. If people don’t give them give safe haven, and report them, we would have overcome them. All hands must be on deck on this issue. If someone is arrested, someone will quickly make a call.
Are Nigerian soldiers no longer at the borders to check influx of firearms? How does the Boko Haram sect bring weapons, even Armoured Personnel Carriers (APC) into the country?
Thank you. That area is part of the reality I talked about. When we’re ready, we’ll face reality and tackle it as a country. As long as people continue to turn blind eyes to what is going on in their communities, giving safe havens to militants, not divulging information to the soldiers, rather to the opposition, allowing arms to scale through the borders, we’ll go nowhere. We as people need to say, enough is enough! Weapons are coming into the country every day. One of the ways of fighting terrorism is to close the borders and begin to monitor what is coming in and going out. But corruption is the bone of contention in the whole fight.
What’s the difference between terrorism and insurgency?
The difference is broad. Insurgency means militant and militantancy means freedom fighters. Terrorism doesn’t have any definition among the scholars or practitioners. But for me, terrorism means a group of aggrieved people, with the intention of hurting a nation, inculcating fear into people, with mass killings and economic sabotage. The two are not the same. Insurgency can be a freedom fighter. It means you have a purpose, reason for fighting. In terrorism, they don’t know what they’re fighting for and something new will keep coming up. Terrorism is a system. In order to win terrorism, you must first of all, win the intelligence war.
How do we win the intelligence war?
We win intelligence war by first having timely and appropriate policy. The policy is not to show the citizenry that government is working. The policy should be such that once its implemented, anyone who goes contrary to it; either sponsors of terrorism or supporters, should be tried and jailed. And the best of it should be a long term jail. It shouldn’t be killing and shooting. Secondly, there should be specialised agencies; people who are trained in counter terrorism, and security experts. Maybe, people who had worked with the police or army. Thirdly, we have the experts. These are people like me. There are a lot of people who are terrorism experts in Nigeria. I mean people who read and studied it up to master’s level.
Those are the people needed in terrorism situations. Fourthly, there’s the resource. This is having the resources to back whatever mechanism they want to apply. As far as you and I know, we have the resources. None of these four factors have been applied from the beginning. From the beginning of Boko Haram, all we’ve heard is army this, army that. Army is not supposed to get involved in counter terrorism. The only time they’re supposed to get involved is when there’s intelligence report that the terrorist would be in a particular area
Isn’t that what we did? The government started first with using the police to fight Boko Haram members before using the military.
The police are actually the best on counter terrorism, not the army because they have the skill. The template that’s applied in terrorism, is the template applied in ordinary crime. The police have the skill in crime detection and prevention. The only thing they need is the extra training and motivation in the area of terrorism and they would do well. Another problem is that people don’t have plan B in whatever they do. For many years, nobody ever thought there would be anything like terrorism in Nigeria.
Yes, nobody wanted that in Nigeria.
But it’s wrong! As far as we’re a nation, no matter how old or new, such problems must come. And when it comes, it has a circle. It’s like intelligence circle. Intelligence circle is this; plan, collection, analysis, dissemination and the policy. That’s the intelligence circle. The same thing applies to terrorism. It has got a circle. If that circle is not complete, only the special agencies can stop it.
What do you mean by this?
Terrorism organisations change plans and strategies from time to time. If maybe they’re using women who cover their faces and stuffs like that, when they know that people have come to know that technique, they’ll change their strategies. That’s terrorism for you. It has a circle and the sooner people understand it, the better for us. All we need now is resilience and preparedness.
When you talked about resilience, do you expect people like you and I to confront Boko Haram? How do unarmed people confront men who are ready to die?
Now, what do I mean by resilience. It’s resilience in terms of preparedness. You prepare that something is going to happen or might happen. What do you do? You get ready. Do you know that the Boko Haram members have informants? Do you know they’ve got ears and eyes in the police and army? Do you know that in normal circumstances, it supposed to be the other way round? What I’m talking about is that some areas in Borno State, they’re using the vigilantes to fight the Boko Haram.
Do you know some of the vigilante groups are members of Boko Haram? They give information to the Boko Haram. They tell Boko Haram members, families that are involved in the vigilante groups. But it’s actually supposed to be the other way round. There should be use of human intelligence. This is using of people; people who can dress, talk and behave like them in order to infiltrate them. With that infiltration, using the ordinary people, the information would be brought out to our law enforcement agents and they in turn will protect the common people like me and you. But in our situation, it’s not like that. We don’t have eyes, ear and we’re fighting a war. How do you expect to win the war?
Do you mean that we’re losing to Boko Haram because of lack of intelligence gathering?
Yes! That’s it!
You don’t think it has a lot to do with the fact that Boko Haram has superior weapons to our soldiers?
That’s another matter! With appropriate information gathering, we will even be able to know where they’re getting their supplies and block it. With appropriate information and infiltration, we will be able to know when they would be coming to strike and stop them. There’ what we call, delay and deny under terrorism. If there are people who can infiltrate them and gather information, then the law enforcement agents can deny them the opportunity of attacking us. In our situation, there’s nothing like that. There was a time international communities came to help in the rescue of the Chibok girls, what happened? Do you want to tell me that if this sort of thing happened in England it will take up to two days before they round up the Boko Haram? We have problems because they’ve resorted to what we call sabotage. This is also going on and it shouldn’t be. We’re supposed to have informants there.
Are you saying the problem will not go? We should lose hope?
No! How can! The moment Nigeria is ready to face the truth and does it right, you’ll see that everything will work out.
Have you being following the Australian negotiator’s revelations? He said he spoke with Boko Haram, that some banks and opposition are sponsoring them. What’s your reaction to that?
That’s just one person’s opinion. He also said that it was not the federal government that employed him. He said one Emir employed him. But his coming here was not to negotiate between Nigeria and Boko Haram. He came for the Chibok girls. Everybody knows that banks are involved. But it’s not only in Nigeria. Let’s be realistic. In terrorism, people must benefit. It’s wrong and inhuman and a criminal act.
Who are those benefitting?
Those benefiting are the politicians or sponsors! Terrorism emanates from thuggery. These are the set of people politicians use during election. When the politicians win their elections and leave to take up their post, they abandon the thugs. What do you want them to do? They’ll need to survive. Some of them, because of no employment, food or education go into crime. But all these are not the primary purpose of terrorism. If terrorism is happening in any place, people get involved. Mr. Stephen Davis mentioned some names. It’s left for our federal government to check out those names. In a corrupt-free society, any name mentioned in connection to crime or terrorism, must be verified.
Don’t you think there’s a global Islamic agenda, which only the Islamist militants know about? Why is it that across the world, Islamist militants are up in arms?
Let me tell you, radicalisation by recruitment is very easy now. It’s because you can be radicalised on the internet. Boko Haram is affiliated to al-Qaeda. Boko Haram has been black listed. The UN will take sanctions against them. They’ve been banned from travelling and their assets can be freeze. They can be arrested and tried wherever they’re seen. That’s to tell you, that they’ve been linked with international terrorist groups. Of course, they all communicate. It’s a link. It’s a sort of association. If you’re doing well, the other organisation, in another place, would help by giving you tips and information. Before, the only way to stop terrorist or catch them, is when you get them on the act.
Now they communicate through emails. This is also why it’s necessary for us to advance our systems. In US and other places, they can be arrested through the internet by security agents who may begin to monitor their emails. If we’re advanced in several ways of intelligence gathering, things would be easier for us. There’re many ways of intelligence gathering; human, imagery, technical and open source intelligence. If we’re advanced in all these, the case would be easier for us. The fact that Islamist militants are fighting in some countries makes it a big issue. I don’t look at Boko Haram as ordinary anymore. It’s not ordinary now. Before it was a domestic violence; but it has now transcended that.
Do you think there’s an agenda globally among these Islamist militants?
You know that the al-Qaeda’s aim is to globalise Islam. But that’s a dead dream!
Why do you say it’s a dead dream? They appear to be winning everywhere. ISI is killing and beheading. And online journalists are claiming US President is scared stiff.
Listen, terrorism is a faulty weapon that always misfires. What I mean is that it hardly achieves a strategic goal. Have you ever seen a country where a terrorism organisation removed the president and a terrorist becomes the president? It had never happened. That’s why it’s a faulty weapon that always misfires. Yes they’re killing Nigerians, killings others, shedding blood, wasting lives and engaging in mass killings, but they don’t go too far.
The appropriate mechanism is the problem we have here in Nigeria. How is terrorism tamed? What is the way, the experience and honestly of people involved in the counter terrorism fight? A lot of Nigerians still have sympathy for the Boko Haram!
What! I don’t think so. I don’t agree.
I was in England during the 7/7 bombing. Everybody stood up together. England was together and within a short time, all those people involved in the bombing were rounded up. But in our case, if you stop somebody that he’s involved in Boko Haram, you’ll find somebody somewhere, already making a phone call, claiming the person is his driver or something. This is the problem. So how do you sort the issue of Boko Haram when the system would not allow you to try or sentence a Boko Haram member? It’s a big problem. It means the whole Nigeria is not united on the fight against terrorism.
Since this Boko Haram issue started, some people have been arrested, yet none has been sentenced. Is that what you’re saying?
Yes! Thank you! I don’t want to go into that. That’s why I said, only until we’re willing to uphold our legitimacy, that’s when the whole problem would be solved. Boko Haram is not so high and mighty as people portray them. Do you know that before the best of the Boko Haram in 2002, the father of the late Mohammed Yusuf, who is the founder of Boko Haram, preached about Boko Haram? And when Boko Haram came to be in 2002, he opened schools and started recruiting people.
A school where he started Islamising people. Didn’t we have a president by then? Little by little, the recruits graduated. People still gives Boko Haram safe haven. There’re places they gather to eat, recruit and meet their sponsors. If people don’t give them give safe haven, and report them, we would have overcome them. All hands must be on deck on this issue. If someone is arrested, someone will quickly make a call.
Are Nigerian soldiers no longer at the borders to check influx of firearms? How does the Boko Haram sect bring weapons, even Armoured Personnel Carriers (APC) into the country?
Thank you. That area is part of the reality I talked about. When we’re ready, we’ll face reality and tackle it as a country. As long as people continue to turn blind eyes to what is going on in their communities, giving safe havens to militants, not divulging information to the soldiers, rather to the opposition, allowing arms to scale through the borders, we’ll go nowhere. We as people need to say, enough is enough! Weapons are coming into the country every day. One of the ways of fighting terrorism is to close the borders and begin to monitor what is coming in and going out. But corruption is the bone of contention in the whole fight.
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