Former President Obasanjo has
said the Libyan revolution that
ousted long-time leader
Mu’ammar Ghaddafi let loose
trained militants and weapons
that found their ways into
Nigeria, fuelling the Boko Haram
insurgency.
In an interview with the British
Broadcasting Corporation radio
and television aired yesterday,
Obasanjo said also that the rise
of the insurgency could be
linked to bad leadership.
“There is an element of that,” he
said when asked if bad
leadership contributed in
propping up the sect.
“There is an internal element,
which you have mentioned—
inadequate education in the
North, or in fact inadequate
education generally in the
country, 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.
“But then there are also external
elements. Now, the fallout from
Libya, which of course as a
result what happened in Libya,
those that have been trained in
Libya in the time of Gaddafi from
other countries who are
neighbors of Libya, when
Gaddafi fell they moved out. They
moved out with their training,
their weapons and they started
to wreak havoc on the
communities in which they have
moved out to. And that is the
situation in northern Mali,” he
added.
When asked if he meant there
was a connection between the
overthrow of Ghaddafi and the
Boko Haram insurgency, the
killing of the US ambassador in
Libya on Tuesday and the
instability in northern Mali,
Obasanjo replied: “There is
connection.”
He said those who
masterminded the fall of
Ghaddafi, as well as the whole of
Africa, have already started
paying a price for that.
“And we know that there will be
a price to pay in the way that it
all went in Libya. At the end of
the day all of us in Africa, and all
those who masterminded the
way it happened will have to pay
a price, and we are now paying
the price,” Obasanjo said.
He said the Arab Spring was
celebrated too early, as there are
always consequences of violent
overthrow of leaders.
“Now it was too early to shout
‘uhuru’ with the Arab Spring,
and some of us said that. That
look, what will be the final
outcome of this? Let us wait and
see. When you have violence and
violent overthrow of regimes
you do not know exactly what
the final outcome will be.”
‘Boko Haram can’t win this war’
Chief Olusegun Obasanjo said
Boko Haram’s stated objective of
imposing Sharia law on Nigeria
will never work because of the
religious diversity of the
population.
“Now, talking to people who
know the history of Nigeria, you
will know that you cannot
impose any particular religion
on Nigeria as a whole. These
people cannot impose Shari’a in
the North where most of our
people are Muslims let alone in
Nigeria,” he said.
“Now, they should know that,
and someone should make them
know that. So I see a bit of
naivety in that objective that
they have given to themselves
and it is an unattainable
objective.”
Obasanjo added: “If you are
prepared to kill more people, if
like somebody says “we will
fight to the last drop of our
blood”, now, one does not know
whose blood would be the last
to drop. How many would they
kill, how many of them will
survive at the end of the day?
“I believe you should go with…
you should carry carrot and
stick, at the end of the day there
would be area where carrot
would work and there would be
area where stick would work.
And I believed the authorities
are now adopting that.
“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.”
www.dailytrust.com.ng/index.php/other-sections/lead-stories/176786-ghaddafis-fall-fuelled-boko-haram-obasanjo