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| Boko Haram's late founder, Muhammad Yusuf who was killed extra-judicially in 2009 by the Police after being captured alive |
With the manner in which the attack was carried out, it has shown the total lack of professionalism, deep decay and complete corruption in the rank and file of the nation's Police force. If the headquarters of the nation's Police force can be bombed this way with the IG of police standing few meters' away, then no-one nor part of Nigeria is safe at all.
Aside the issue of the bombing of the force headquarters, it is pertinent to note the greatly alarming rise in the spate and frequency of violent bombings in parts of northern Nigeria, especially in Maiduguri; which had characterized the last few weeks culminating in the attack on the force headquarters.
As things stand, President Goodluck Jonathan may be forced to declare a state-of-emergency in Borno State, even if reluctantly. That wil not bode well for democracy, and would please neither the president nor Governor Kashim Shettima, who has spent only a week in office. The former would be exercising his constitutional rights of safeguarding the lives of Nigerians, while the latter would feel cheated of his four-year mandate which he won at a hotly-contested election.
No doubt, the governor’s political appointees would also cry wolf, claiming victimization of the ANPP by the PDP-ruled federal government, and wonder why state of emergency was not declared in Plateau, Bauchi and Kaduna, all of which are PDP-ruled states that recently witnessed deadly violence.
But it would be a mistake to compare the crisis in Borno State with those of Kaduna, Bauchi and Plateau. Whatever others would say, the violence in Bauchi and Kaduna was not a pre-meditated action, but was a spontaneous reaction by aggrieved masses displeased with the outcome of the April presidential elections, which was allegedly rigged by the PDP. Whether the allegations were real or imagined remain to be decided by the courts. However, violent reactions to election results in Nigeria are not a new phenomenon. As former President Ibrahim Babangida said recently, similar political violence was witnessed in the South-West during the 1983 elections. In any case, elections are conducted only once every four years in Nigeria, which somehow limits the effects of political violence.
The Jos crisis between Hausa and Fulani-speaking Muslims on the one hand and indigenous Christian tribes on the other is over resource control, and has resulted in the deaths of hundreds of people in the last 12 years. However, we have lived through similar crises in this country; for example, that between the Itsekiri and the Ijaw ethnic groups of Bayelsa State and that between the Ife and the Modakeke tribes of Ile-Ife, Osun State, both in the 1990’s. While the Plateau crisis has lingered longer, there is reason to believe that we may have seen the worst of it, since the recent elections did not spark off fresh hostilities, despite events in neighbouring Bauchi and Kaduna states.
The Boko Haram crisis in Borno State is a rather different matter altogether. For the first time in Nigeria’s history, our government is not only facing a domestic enemy that is determined and well-armed, our security agencies also find themselves the targets of the enemy’s attacks. This makes Boko Haram even more dangerous than MEND, which operates out of creeks in the Niger Delta and restricts itself to blowing up oil pipelines and kidnapping foreigners for ransom. The modus operandi of Boko Haram, or the Yusufiyya Movement as it now calls itself, is more difficult to combat.
The group has recently assassinated soldiers, policemen, prison wardens and politicians allied to the Borno State Government and the ANPP. The list of victims is long and include the former Borno State ANPP Chairman and in-law to former Governor Ali Modu Sheriff , the former governor’s elder brother, the Borno State ANPP Governorship Candidate and two men of the State Security Service attached to him, several policemen attached to the Borno State Government House, a ward head, a political adviser to former Governor Sheriff, a senior officer of Nigeria Prisons, several prison wardens, many more policemen and soldiers and an officer of the Nigerian Civil Defence Corps who also happened to be a younger brother of the present Shehu of Borno.
The Boko Haram members attack their victims with Kalashnikov rifles, and ride to their targets on motorcycles, with which they escape from the crime scene. Unfortunately, the Borno State Government and our security services have failed to capitalize on this weakness to anticipate and avert attacks. However, the group seems to have added a new dimension to the problem, with the recent use of explosive devices and now, suicide bombings in their operations.
When members of the group recently killed a senior prison warden outside the premises of a private school in Maiduguri, they detonated a device which exploded and burnt his vehicle, after evacuating his three children. And the group has claimed responsibility for the recent bomb blasts in Bauchi, Zaria, Maiduguri and now the FCT Abuja, which claimed the lives of many and injured more.
The Boko Haram crisis first erupted in July 2009 when a little-known Islamic sect operating in Bauchi and Maiduguri decided to fight the Nigerian Army and the Nigeria Police in response to the killing of their members by officers of Operation Flush, a joint police-military task force operating in Borno State.
In that conflict, soldiers and policemen fought pitched battles with armed members of the Boko Haram sect, which ended with the capture by the Nigerian Army of Muhammed Yusuf, the sect’s leader. What followed then was perhaps the lowest point in Nigeria’s human rights history. While the Nigeria Police claimed that Yusuf died as a result of injuries sustained during his arrest, the Nigerian Army asserted that they in fact captured Yusuf without a fight, and handed him to the police in good health. The army later released a video showing a healthy Muhammed Yusuf being interrogated by the army. Subsequent evidence suggests that Yusuf was killed in cold-blood by the Nigeria police, to avenge the deaths of their colleagues who had earlier lost their lives in that conflict.
Following the release by Al-Jazeera TV Network of a video showing the cold-blooded executions of Muhammed Yusuf and his supporters, world-wide condemnations by Amnesty International, the United Nations, the U.S. and other countries forced the Nigerian government to re-assign the Borno State Police Commissioner and appoint a commission of inquiry to look into the allegations. But as i am writing this, i am not aware of the results and recommendations of that inquiry. I have not heard or read of a single policeman or woman who was tried and convicted of their roles in that affair. Nor have i learned of the role of the Borno State Government in nurturing Boko Haram from infancy and later turning its back on the sect when it proved too hot to handle, which is what many people familiar with the issue have been claiming ever since.
This brings us to the issue of human rights and personal accountability. During the Nuremberg trials of 1945 and 1946, many Nazi officers accused of genocide and crimes against humanity during the Second World War claimed in their defence that they only acted under military orders, which they could not disobey under German military law.
Did the Nigerian government breach international laws and the 1999 Constitution by the extra-judicial killing of Muhammed Yusuf and his followers in 2009? The answer is yes. Is Borno State a better place now after the death of Muhammed Yusuf? The answer is no, going by the increased spate of assassinations after Yusuf’s death, which have got even worse after the recent elections. Ominously, an olive branch extended by newly-elected Governor Kashim Shettima and the Federal Government was rejected by Boko Haram, after a careless statement attributed to the IG of Police saying the Police force will "...smoke out" the sect and that "...the days of Boko Haram are numbered."
The sect has vowed to fight not only their perceived oppressors, but to keep on fighting until they see the establishment of a strict Sharia Law in the whole of Nigeria. That would not happen even if Nigeria was a purely Muslim state, which it is not. How then, do we address the problem?
President Goodluck Jonathan can begin by releasing the full report of the judicial commission of inquiry established to look into the Boko Haram crisis by his predecessor, late Umaru ‘Yaradua in 2009. Those policemen found culpable should not only be named and shamed and dismissed from service, they should also face prosecution. That may not make members of the Boko Haram lay down their arms at this stage, but it would at least deprive the group of the current sympathy they seem to enjoy from ordinary Nigerians, making it harder for them to attack their victims, and easier for the government to combat their activities.
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