By Ogaga Ifowodo
PRESIDENT Goodluck Jonathan’s
hostage negotiator, Dr Stephen Davis,
has done Nigerians a great favour
and put his employer in a tight
corner. Davis has broken the official
taboo against naming names of
persons behind Boko Haram, those
who fund the ceaseless bloodbaths,
abduction of adolescent girls as
sexual slaves, arson and more.
We owe Davis a debt of gratitude for
letting us know more than our
government has been willing to
disclose: the mere geographical
location of the Chibok girls coupled
with the rote assurance of their
safety.
Dr Stephen Davis
The utter secrecy surrounding what
the government is doing or not doing
to free the Chibok girls or end the
insurgency has led to the unfortunate
impression that it is helpless and all
we can do is wait for Abubakar
Shekau to become human again,
renounce violence and lay down his
arms. Or wait for the United States to
send us night vision goggles and
remaindered equipment from its wars
in Iraq and Afghanistan before a
proper anti-terrorism war can begin.
Davis spoke first to a television
station in Australia and then to a
Nigerian medium, Arise Television .
On 29 August, ThisDay published
Davis’s revelations under the
headline “Australian Negotiator
Names Ihejrika, Sheriff as Sponsors
of Boko Haram.” Davis points with
the certitude of a chief prosecution
witness to two highly placed citizens:
retired Lt-General Azubuike Ihejirika,
former Chief of Army Staff and field
commander of the offensive against
Boko Haram, and Alhaji Modu Sheriff,
former governor of Borno State where
Shekau has his headquarters and
has planted the first flag of his
dreamed Caliphate.
The evidence against Azubuike
appears thin, but Sheriff, Davis says,
“has been funding Boko Haram’s
terrorism for years.” Davis has also
pointed to an unnamed third person
in Abuja whose three nephews
allegedly participated in the Nyanya-
Abuja bombing that killed 77 people.
In his interview with SaharaReporters,
the New York-based online news
platform, Davis gives further details
concerning this man by claiming that
he is a top official of the Central
Bank and Boko Haram’s banker.
To my mind, other than the surprise
mention of Ihejirika, the real news is
the proof by inference Davis gives of
the charge that the government may
indeed have been playing politics
with the terrorist insurgency that has
laid waste to vast swathes of the
North East, killed thousands and
scarred millions.
This is not the first time Sheriff’s
name would be linked to Boko
Haram, but whereas we could only
watch as the government camp and
the opposition traded accusations of
playing politics with the insurgency,
Davis, in the final analysis, has now
indicted the President. Mostly
through his underlying tone of
incredulity as to why Boko Haram’s
sponsors have not been arrested,
why the SSS “doesn’t seem inclined
to interrogate” the three nephews of
the Abuja man for “concrete evidence
against their uncle in whose house
they were living.”
The implications of his words must
have been clear to Davis, hence, I
suspect, his attempt to absolve his
employer of blame. If Jonathan
arrests prominent politicians who are
likely to run against him in 2015, he
would lay himself open to the charge
of hounding the opposition to
enhance his re-election. To deflect
that charge, he says, there has to be
“a very high threshold” of evidence
sufficient to “keep the Western
nations happy.”
This can’t be higher than the normal
weight of evidence to sustain a
criminal charge and it is obvious that
Davis is convinced the threshold was
reached a long time ago. According
to ThisDay , Davis “was emphatic that
the people he names are current
sponsors of Boko Haram,” that he
had information on “some of them
about three years ago; one of them
four years ago,” and that one even
provided “money and . . . in one
case . . . six (Toyota) Hilux vehicles
used for suicide bombing.”
Yet, by the end of Davis’s testimony,
the line between the bad opposition
politicians and the good government
is blurred. Sheriff, now the de facto
poster-politician allegedly
sponsoring Boko Haram, has
decamped to the ruling Peoples
Democratic Party “in the hope this
will give him protection.” What other
course of action does Jonathan have
now than to order the immediate
arrest of all the persons that his
hostage negotiator claims are the
chief sponsors of Boko Haram?
And to charge them to court
forthwith? Unless, of course, his
hostage negotiator is a rabble rouser,
in which case we must wonder how
and why he has worked for three
successive presidents. It can’t be
the case that the evidence that
emboldens Davis to name names is
unavailable to Jonathan and his
security and intelligence heads.
Jonathan must know that failure to
act would give credence to the
opposition’s counter-claim: a
conviction that the insurgency was
fomented by his political enemies to
make the country ungovernable and
prevent his re-election, but that the
plot boomeranged and so it is best
left unaddressed in order to gain him
sympathy votes. My hunch is that
Davis, an independent contractor,
spoke at the bidding of the President,
but even if he acted independently in
order to force Jonathan’s hand, that
should not prevent decisive action
against any suspected Boko Haram
sponsor, irrespective of party
affiliation or status, against whom
prima facie evidence can be
adduced. All that is needed is
political will.
http://www.vanguardngr.com/2014/09/jonathans-hostage-negotiator-puts-tight-corner/?utm_source=&utm_medium=facebook

Make we c'don look to see How long it will take our president to act on this one or if He'll do anything at all.

Davis is part of d people that predicted about Nigeria break up and now he is acting to break Nigeria.God almighty will break him up on this plan. Nigeria will be one. Davis is too small to do such. He has failed

Why are we so paranoid about the break up of this monstrous entity called Nigeria; a land that consumes its inhabitants and rewards those that love her with bitterness? Please let this country break up but PEACEFULLY. I don't see why rational human beings cannot understand when the game is up and do the needful without much ado.

kennyjubris: Davis is part of d people that predicted about Nigeria break up and now he is acting to break Nigeria.God almighty will break him up on this plan. Nigeria will be one. Davis is too small to do such. He has failed

Sometimes you have to use your senses and not sentiments. Read the hand writing on the wall, and stop whining and living in denial of the facts on ground. Jonathan hired thr Negotiator.....he has been used for negotiations in time past with Niger Delta Militants. When someone is against your pay masters....he suddenly becomes Nigeria's enemy...its you God will break into pieces for seeing the truth and running from it.

Jonathan don enter one chance. His plan to deplete the population of the North East, the stronghold of Buhari, through Boko Haram has been exposed.

Onyegecha: Why are we so paranoid about the break up of this monstrous entity called Nigeria; a land that consumes its inhabitants and rewards those that love her with bitterness? Please let this country break up but PEACEFULLY. I don't see why rational human beings cannot understand when the game is up and do the needful without much ado.

I have wondered about this for a long time.Less than fifteen days from now,the people of Scotland would be voting whether or not to continue their existence as a component of the British union or to go as a different country.We are talking about a union that has existed for the past 300 years.
The possibility that the vote might be YES (for separation from Britain) is just as much as that the vote could be NO(for continued union with Britain).
If a country has managed 300 years under the most peaceful arrangement and still feel incompatible enough to seriously consider separation what would one say of Nigeria.