http://www.thisdaylive.com/articles/boko-haram-a-million-mistakes/93477/
Thisday Editor's View on Boko Haram

Simon Kolawole Live!: Email: simon.kolawole@thisdaylive.com

Did you get the joke doing the round on social media after last Thursday’s bomb attack on the police headquarters? It said: “What is the difference between shakara and action? Shakara is when the IGP says he’ll deal with Boko Haram, Action is when Boko Haram bombs police headquarters the following day!” The Inspector General of Police, Hafiz Ringim, had, while presenting some armoured personnel carriers (APCs) to his men in Maiduguri last Tuesday uttered these triumphant words: “The days of Boko Haram are numbered.” They would have turned out to be Ringim’s famous last words had the bomber been a bit lucky.
Ringim’s words and the prompt action of Boko Haram graphically remind me of a scene in The Good, The Bad and the Ugly. Tuco, the bandit, is in a bubble bath. The One Armed Man enters the room and begins to boast: “I've been looking for you for eight months. Whenever I should have had a gun in my right hand, I thought of you. Now I find you in exactly the position that suits me. I had lots of time to learn to shoot with my left.” While the One Armed Man is busy talking and glamorising his intent, Tuco pulls a gun in the foam and kills him. Tuco retorts: “When you have to shoot, shoot. Don't talk.”
The 16/6 bomb attack, which the police hastily attributed to a suicide bomber, is exactly what we need to remind ourselves that we are not safe in this country. The government cannot protect us. It is the mercy of God that has been keeping us alive. The security agencies—with all the billions and billions and billions of naira we allocate to them every year and the colossal security votes always unaccounted for by the executive—are far too complacent, too incompetent and too clueless to protect us. Boko Haram has demonstrated yet again that it can strike anywhere, anytime, any day.
We have been making a lot of mistakes with Jama’atu ahlus Sunnah lid da’awati wal Jihad, better known by its street name, Boko Haram, since it was allegedly founded by Ustaz Mohammed Yusuf in 2002. It is a known fact that every local government in Nigeria has a security attaché. The job description is simple: gather intelligence in your domain. When Boko Haram was founded and the leaders began to recruit people and proclaim the message that Western education and culture are sinful, their activities should have been of interest to the security agencies. The fact that the group was proliferating right under the nose of security says a lot about our lack of proactive ability.

And yet another mistake: a good security system would have infiltrated the group to get to the root of the matter. What is it about? Who is funding it? How are they getting devotees to recruit? What kind of indoctrination are the recruits served? What makes the group attractive to young people? What are the ultimate goals of the leaders? How do they want to achieve these goals? Is this a case of just a religious sect with a strict interpretation of religious injunctions or a religious group with a strong political intent? These bits of information should have been gathered by the security agencies all along; it would have helped them to understand what Boko Haram is all about and how to approach it.
My understanding of Boko Haram group is that it started as a non-violent movement of religious people who were dissatisfied with the political leadership. Many governors introduced the Islamic legal system, Sharia’h, in their states just to be popular and win elections. They neither lived by the injunctions of Islam in their personal lives nor improved the lot of the people they were elected to govern. Boko Haram, in my thinking, was, in part, a rebellion against this opportunism. The ordinary people who had lost faith in the political leadership sympathised with the sect and embraced the message which was laced with extremist views.
There is the aspect of their creed that says everything non-Islamic is haram (sin or abomination). Western education is haram. Western music is haram. Watching TV is haram. I don’t have any problems with this. In every religion, you must have extremists, moderates and liberals. That is the way human beings are wired. I am a Christian and I know that we also have different tendencies. There are those who believe that you should not listen to secular music or watch home video. In my former church, an elder came all the way from the headquarters one Sunday and told us that it is a sin for a woman to sit beside a man in public transport. We were told that women should not wear trousers or jewellery. Different shades of beliefs exist in every religion. So that is not really the problem.

But was Boko Haram trying to force its beliefs on the rest of us? Were they planning to launch a violent jihad? Were they trying to take over government? This is the point at which everything became blurred. My conclusion, after reviewing events since 2009—the first time most Nigerians would hear of the existence of such a group—is that Boko Haram started as a non-violent group, but preaching extremism in the main. They were preaching against the political leadership and were fast gaining followership. It was easy for them to gain followership because people were unemployed and hungry. The politicians became very uncomfortable and began to set the police after them. That marked the beginning of the confrontation between Boko Haram and the security forces, particularly the police.
In fact, early morning on July 26, 2009, after a mass arrest of their leaders, members of the sect launched their first reported attack. It was on the Dutsen Tanshi Police Station, Bauchi. A spokesperson for the group, identified as Abdallah, told Reuters: “The police has been arresting our leaders that is why we decided to retaliate.” Over 150 suspected members of the group were killed by the security forces. The action was authorised by President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, who obviously did not have a post-operation plan. The government thought killing members of the sect would resolve the problem. Another mistake.
The next port-of-call was Maiduguri, Boko Haram’s headquarters. Its members were being arrested and killed by the security forces. They fought back, killing policemen mercilessly. Anybody suspected of being a member of Boko Haram was killed, including a former commissioner, Mohammed Baba Fugu, whose hand was tied at his back before being shot. At the end of a war that lasted for days, thousands of people lay dead. Maiduguri was littered with corpses—some with their crutches by their disabled bodies. My suspicion is that the victims were not all Boko Haram members. It was an opportunity for some politicians to take out their opponents with their supporters.

Another mistake made during the massacre was the belief that killing the founder, Yusuf, would end the menace. He had been captured alive by the military guys and interrogated. They handed him over to the police. Typically, the police later showed his body riddled with bullets, claiming he had tried to escape from custody. Our policemen always do that. Unfortunately, it is a big mistake to think that if you kill a man, you have killed his ideas. Ideas don’t die. The security forces went to sleep after the Maiduguri Massacre, thinking the death of Yusuf had marked the end of Boko Haram forever. What a mistake. And why does Boko Haram always target police stations and roadblocks? I suspect that the Maiduguri Massacre and the extra-judicial execution of Yusuf are still playing on their minds.
How do we correct our mistakes? Many people have suggested unconditional amnesty. After all, it took a Fulani man, Yar’Adua, to end militancy in the Niger Delta via unconditional amnesty. President Goodluck Jonathan, it is suggested, must also choose the path of unconditional amnesty. Guerrilla warfare is the most difficult to contain. So it would appear the way out is to replicate the approach to militancy in the Niger Delta. The downside of this, however, is that a wrong signal may be sent out that anybody can do anything and then demand unconditional amnesty later. It could become a precedent and an industry.
That is why, above all, we must improve the capacity of the security agencies to deal with insurgencies. We cannot afford to be throwing up a white flag of surrender all the time. A basic function of the state is security of life and property. I am not opposed to amnesty for members of Boko Haram, at least to rein them in, but ultimately the state must be able to guarantee security and rebuild confidence in the citizens. Why do we have a government anyway?
And Four Other Things,

Security ‘Shakara’
Our security agencies are at their best protecting VIPs from harmless citizens. You see them whiplash poor Nigerians, crush their car bumpers and harangue them off the road for the siren-blasters. God help you if their “big men” are heading for a guest house to “cool off” and you don’t leave the road for them on time—you would end up molested and stripped like Uzoma Okere. Any time I’m at a public function and I see the theatrics of the security agents, I just laugh in amusement.
They can only harass poor citizens. They cannot protect anybody. Even their “big men” are as vulnerable as ordinary Nigerians. Boko Haram has exposed their underbelly yet again. Now that Boko Haram has announced that their fighters have been trained in the lawless Somalia, we have a big problem in our hands. The fighters have arrived, their spokesman said, and they have been dispatched to Northern states to carry out a series of attacks on government buildings. That means in the days and weeks and months ahead, we should expect more explosions and more casualties. I shiver.

End of Article

well said my broda. nigerian politicians and security agents are easy targets and they are clueless. nigeria is a failed state.