Former President Olusegun
Obasanjo has said more could be
done to reach out to the Boko
Haram sect to find out what
leads it to carry out acts of
violence.
In an interview with American
television network CNN
yesterday, Obasanjo suggested
the Federal Government should
adopt a dual-track approach
rather than just cracking down
on the group.
“To deal with a group like that,
you need a carrot and stick. The
carrot is finding out how to
reach out to them,” he said.
“When you try to reach out to
them and they are not amenable
to being reached out to, you
have to use the stick.”
But Obasanjo said President
Goodluck Jonathan was “just
using the stick” in his efforts.
“He’s doing one aspect of it well,
but the other aspect must not be
forgotten,” he said.
Obasanjo has previously spoken
in favour of the carrot and stick
approach to Boko Haram, and in
a BBC interview in September, he
said he “believed the authorities
are now adopting” this method.
His interview with CNN yesterday
was the first time the former
president publicly said Jonathan
is not using the “carrot” option
in solving the Boko Haram issue.
President Jonathan has
repeatedly said government was
willing to dialogue with Boko
Haram but that the sect leaders
needed to come out in the open
first.
Analysts suggest that reaching
out to Boko Haram may be
increasingly difficult because the
group has split into different
factions.
Obasanjo said he had tried to
reach out to the sect about a
year and a half ago through a
lawyer who was acting as the
group’s proxy, and had asked if
they had external backing.
The lawyer told him that the
group was receiving support
from other Nigerians who have
resources overseas or “other
organizations from abroad,”
Obasanjo said.
“If they had 25% support a year
and a half ago, today that
support has doubled,” the
former president said.
Resolving the Boko Haram issue
is key to Nigeria’s progress,
according to Obasanjo, who now
heads an eponymous foundation
that is working to promote
human security across Africa.
“Boko Haram undermines
security, and anything that
undermines security undermines
development, undermines
education, undermines health,
undermines agriculture and food
and nutrition security,” he said.
Boko Haram has claimed
responsibility for numerous
deadly attacks on mosques,
churches and businesses in parts
of the North in the past three
years.
The attacks on mosques and
churches are believed to be
intended to incite tensions
between the two religious
groups, hoping to drive a wedge
between them.
However, despite the ongoing
challenges the country faces,
Obasanjo said he does not
foresee Nigeria ever splitting in
two, into north and south.
“We in Nigeria now know that it
would cost us much more to
break up than it will cost us to
come together,” he said.
In the BBC interview in
September, Obasanjo said bad
leadership contributed in
propping up the Boko Haram
sect.
He said “inadequate education in
the North…inadequate
employment opportunities in the
country, all that are part of what,
if you like, is remote cause of
Boko Haram as far as I am
concerned.”
He said the sect’s stated objective
of imposing Sharia law on
Nigeria will never work because
of the religious diversity of the
population.
“Those who are on the other
side, Boko Haram, and those who
believe in their cause or waiting
for their cause, know that it is
not the war that they can win,”
he had said.
In November, Obasanjo also
spoke on the need to forcefully
tackle the insurgency, saying his
successors did not face the Boko
Haram issue like he did with the
Odi killing of soldiers in 1999.
Speaking in Warri, Delta State at
an event in honour of the
Christian Association of Nigeria
president Ayo Oritsejafor,
Obasanjo said, “My fear is that
when you have a sore and you
don’t attend to it early enough, it
festers and becomes very bad.
Don’t leave a problem that can be
bad unattended.”
Referring to the Odi crisis of
1999, he added: “I attended to a
problem that I saw; I sent
soldiers. They were killed, 19 of
them decapitated. If I had
allowed that to continue, I would
not have the authority to send
security anywhere again. I
attended to it…. If you say you do
not want a strong leader, who
can have all the characteristics of
a leader, including the fear of
God, then, you have a weak
leader and the rest of the
problem is yours.”