Since the imposition of the State
of Emergency (SoE) in 3
northern Nigerian states namely
Borno, Adamawa and Yobes
states about 6 weeks ago, I
haven’t heard from or been able
to contact family members in
these states. There is very little
news in the print and digital
media about how the states are
faring under the SoE rule. To
police the states effectively and
ensure that saboteurs amongst
its ranks do not give away plans
of pre-emptive strikes, the Joint
Task Force (JTF) has completely
cut off all means of mobile
communication; this means that
phones and the internet do not
work. This strategy appears to be
effective, if only in the short
term, judging by the reports of
only sporadic Boko Haram (BH)
attacks since the SoE came into
effect. We hear BH has been
pushed to the fringes and its
members have fled to
neighbouring countries.
I fully support the SoE and
commend the efforts of the JTF
and local communities in
combating the BH insurgency.
Personally, I think the
government should have used
the provisions of SoE sooner
than it did instead of offering
amnesty to BH. Anyone with the
faintest understanding of
Jihadists ideology would have
known that BH was not going to
accept the amnesty. Short of the
imposition of Sharia rule and the
islamisation of the entire country,
no proposition is acceptable to
this group. The group has made
this position very clear. On this
basis, therefore, it was very naïve
of the government to offer
amnesty to BH despite the
government’s earlier assertion
that the group was faceless. How
was it going to negotiate with
people it claimed it didn't know?
Why am I bothering to write? I
am concerned that the
government does not appear to
have long-term strategies for
dealing with this problem. I have
not heard any plans other than
the use of military force; I
apologise in advance if anyone is
able to prove me wrong. It’s
important for JTF to be
professional in its use of force
and avoid extra-judicial killings
and other human rights abuses,
which would be counter-
productive and only lead to
further radicalisation. There
might be peace for a short while
but soon, BH and its new army
of sympathetisers, would emerge
from the fringes a bigger and a
more organised group.
It’s important to consider the
factors that have led to the
emergence of BH if we are to
have lasting peace. In my
opinion, they are a combination
of: failure of governance,
corruption, poverty, lack of
education, political thuggery and
the imposition of Sharia law in
northern Nigeria. Intricately
related to all of these are the
almajiris (Hausa word for
disciple) and the Quranic schools
whose curricula are not
regulated. I will explain these
factors briefly before I offer my
suggestions on how to tackle
them.
There is a general failure of
governance in the country but
nowhere more so than in
northern Nigeria. This region lags
behind others on nearly all
indices of human development.
Its people are predominantly
fatalistic, unquestioning, and
accept whatever happens to
them as the will of Allah (God).
Islam is the major religion here;
polygamy is rife and it’s not
uncommon to find a man with
30-40 children. A man can simply
divorce one wife whenever he
wishes and marry another giving
him endless access to 4 wives at
all times. This practice is seen as
normal and no one questions it.
Often, these men are unskilled
and uneducated, and their
means of livelihood consist of a
small stall containing household
items such as sugar, salt, washing
powder, groundnut, cola nut,
fish all tied in small ‘nylon’ bags;
really nothing to sustain their
large families. It is usual for them
to choose one or two favoured
children whom they send to
school and leave the others to
fend for themselves. The little
girls hawk on the streets where
they are vulnerable to physical
and sexual abuse. They are given
away in marriage in their teenage
years to much older men; some
of these in their 50’s and 60’s.
This explains why vesico-vaginal
fistula is common in northern
Nigeria. The boys end up on the
streets as almajiris often
hundreds of miles away from
their parents. Having
experienced little or no
emotional love, these boys are
tough and hardy. They attend
Quranic schools where they are
taught to recite the Qur’an and
they roam the streets all day
begging for food from strangers.
The curricula in these schools
are unregulated and anything
can be taught including hateful
and extremist notions. Like their
parents, the almajiris are given
no life-changing skills
whatsoever. Very few of them, if
any at all, attend conventional
Western-styled schools.
The northern leaders have
known about these problems for
ages and have done nothing
about them. In fact, they have
exploited the ignorance of their
people and encouraged these
practices so that they can
continue to rule without the
poor masses (the talakawa)
challenging the status quo. They
send their children to school
abroad and upon returning
home the kids take up important
positions in government, big
corporations or the private
sector thus replacing their
parents. And the cycle is
repeated endlessly. Lacking any
life-changing skills or education
or money, the almajiris and the
talakawa continue to be used as
pawns in the hands of the
northern elites and politicians
and have no chance of breaking
free from this cycle of
subjugation. When political
scores need to be settled, it's
these individuals that are asked
to do the dirty jobs (political
thuggery).
The politicians and northern
elites employ all sorts of tools
cleverly to continue the
subjugation of their people. One
such tool is the Supreme Council
of Sharia in Nigeria, which was
formed in 1999 (approximate
date) and wants to see Sharia
law imposed all across Nigeria,
albeit in stages; no difference,
really, to what BH demands. The
founder of BH, the late
Mohammed Yusuf, was said to
have been a member of the
Sharia Council. More than a
decade after its formation, the
Council has no website or any
statement of purpose that is
accessible to the public. This is
shocking when one considers
that Sharia is currently either
partially or fully implemented in
nearly all of Northern Nigeria
and impacts the lives of
nearly160million people in one
way or another. In any case,
because the almajiris and
talakawa have already been
blinded by poverty, lack of
(Western) education and
assimilation of radical notions,
they cannot see beyond this
political gimmick. No thieving
politician has had their hands
chopped off since Sharia rule
was imposed in northern Nigeria
nearly 15 years ago. What it has
done however is emboldened
radical elements who now seek
to extend the boundary of
Sharia law to the entire country.
The northern elites and religious
leaders are very powerful and
their words are obeyed without
questions. This attitude, coupled
with the fact that these leaders
can be very disingenuous can
have quite disastrous results.
Take for instance the polio
vaccine debacle. One of these
leaders, who happens to be a
medical doctor, made a bogus
claim that the Western world
had tampered with polio vaccine
to induce infertility in northern
Nigerian men. This singular
pronouncement has lead to
increased morbidity and
mortality from this preventable
disease. Health workers helping
to immunise children have been
shot dead in northern Nigeria in
circumstances not too dissimilar
to those that happened recently
in Pakistan. Nigeria remains one
of only 3 countries in the world
where polio is still endemic; the
other two being Pakistan and
Afghanistan!
What should we the citizens and
the government do? I can’t
decide which of the factors is the
most important. But I think all of
us have to start from a position
of honesty and acknowledge
that the northern elites and
politicians are responsible for the
emergence of BH through
systematic failure of governance.
We need to have a critical and
non-emotive look at the issue of
almajiris; this army of people is a
menace to the survival of the
north and Nigeria as a whole.
The north (and the Federal
Government) needs to separate
religion from governance. We
need a system of social and mass
mobilisation that will expose the
hypocrisy of the northern
leaders/elites and at the same
time educate and empower the
talakawa. We need a
dispassionate look at the issue of
family planning, polygamy,
teenage marriage, poverty
alleviation and education,
education and education. And
more education! The
government needs to find a way
of regulating Quranic schools or
at least integrating conventional
school curricula into those of the
Quranic Schools. The public
cannot afford to have a
clandestine Sharia council; if it
impacts our lives we need to
know what its objectives are. If
these run contrary to the values
and dignity of humanity that we
espouse, then it should be
proscribed.
Finally, I believe that we need
(and now is the time) to have a
robust and honest dialogue
which is selfless, non-partisan
and devoid of ethno-religious
prejudice about if, and how we
should remain together as one
nation. These are long-term
strategies that I believe will
assure long-term peace and we
need to start implementing them
from yesterday!! The use of
military force alone will not
guarantee lasting peace.