MANY WRONGS OVER OUR RIGHTS

“If a chicken does not dig, it does not feed.”

Cameroonian Proverb

On the 8^th of December, 2011 the Senate approved the President’s request to appoint the Governing Council of the National Human Rights Commission. In January 2012, the Secretary to Government of the Federal issued letter of appointment for a term of four years to members of the Council. The chairman of the Governing Council is Professor Chidi I. Odinkalu, an accomplished citizen who had earned his stripes in the difficult terrains of human rights activities. With an Executive Secretary in place, and plans to recruit and boost the capacity of the Commission, it looked as if all was set for the nation to benefit from an institution it badly needs these days when governance issues and escalating threats to security make it necessary to accord priority to policing the rights of citizens.

Seven months since then, nothing. The Governing Council which should oversee the work of the Commission has not worked for a single day. Its members are required to subscribe to an oath of secrecy before assuming duties. It is doubtful if anyone of them has done this; and if they did, it must have been through the exercise of their own initiative. The office of the Secretary to Government of the Federation or Minister of Justice could have arranged the oath taking, which would have required assembling the members. No one has done this.

The oath-taking could also have been administered at the point of inaugurating the Council, but it has not been inaugurated. This inauguration itself is not, strictly, a requirement for the commencement of the work of the Council, but this ubiquitous Nigerian habit has become so much a part of our lives that very few people, Boards, Councils, or Commissions will dare take off without being inaugurated, whatever the law says.

So what started as a right step towards improving the manner the basic rights of Nigerian citizens are protected and enhanced has been frustrated by shocking tardiness and lethargy on the part of government, and unacceptable complicity or indifference on the part of members of the Council themselves. There can be no acceptable explanation for the failure of the government to facilitate the full operation of the Council of the NHRC seven months after it was appointed. But there could be reasons why the government has been indifferent to the take-off of the NHRC. These are very trying times for a government fighting daily to keep the hid on evidence of bad governance such as corruption, waste and impunity. An active Commission led by competent and patriotic Nigerians will place the government very much on the defensive. The linkages between citizen and state are many and profound, and rights of citizens to live under honest and good leaders is fundamentally enshrined in our constitution and other laws. An alert citizenry with access to institutions such as a working NHRC will take on governments at all levels on abuses, excesses, impunity, unlawful neglect and many other infringements on its rights. The last thing an incompetent and corrupt administration needs is a facility or avenue which empowers citizens to demand for answers over the conduct of leaders or agents of the state.

The security crisis the nation faces is, however, the most compelling reason why a vigorous institutional capacity needs to be deployed towards protecting the rights of Nigerians. The administration which is fighting an unfamiliar enemy on many fronts needs the NHRC to help it chart a course that minimizes the flak it draws when security agents lean hard on citizens or communities. The federal government short-changes itself in the manner it dispenses with all approaches that are not rooted in brute force. The sensitive nature of its engagements in and around communities should advise that earning the goodwill and cooperation of local populations is the best strategy for success. But when lives and property are daily trampled upon by boots and bullets in an undeclared war, and citizens are caught between the state and an insurrection, and they are not sure which is safer, you know something is wrong. Government may believe that the peculiarities of the battles it fights entitles it to some collateral damage in the community. It will be wrong to do so. The rights of citizens to life and security, their rights to live without harassment or undue threat are not surrendered automatically whenever the state chooses to dispense with them. The battle against the insurgency in parts of the north will be that much more difficult to win with a hostile population in the middle. Now communities are waking up to the fact that they can challenge the government over unlawful killings, torture and other abuses by security personnel, as was recently demonstrated in Kano. This will make life for the federal government altogether more difficult.

The absence of institutions such as the NHRC are also hindering the search for solutions to stubborn issues such as the settler/indigene problem which are at the center of many conflicts across the nation. The on-going efforts to address the weaknesses of the 1999 constitution would have been vastly enriched with inputs from the NHRC. The Commission would have had something to say on the recent controversy over the relocation of Fulani villagers in Plateau State. It would have something to say on the raging debate over the fate of Gonin Gora, that slaughter slab which sits on the Kaduna-Abuja highway.

There have been many wrongs done over efforts to improve or protect our rights. But for me, the biggest is the manner members of the Governing Council appear to have sat on their rights to work since being appointed. It is difficult to understand why good Nigerians will be appointed to perform very important and sensitive tasks, and will then sit back and wait for a few formalities and ceremonies to decide whether they do work. If these people cannot demand for their rights to work in accordance with the law establishing the NHRC, then we should worry over the fate of our rights in their hands.

THE MANY FACES OF NORTHERN GOVERNORS

“If you want to burn down your own house, your enemy will lend you a match.” Zimbabwean Proverb.

Northern Governors rose from a meeting last week Friday, and reeled out a long list of decisions and resolutions. The media had whetted public appetite that the governors were to discuss the state of insecurity in the north and the nation. You would have been forgiven if you thought the governors planned to discuss fresh perspectives and far-reaching decisions on dealing with the damaging impact of the insurgency of the Jamaatu Ahlil Sunnal Liddaawati Wal Jihad (JASLIWAJ) and the crippling collateral damage being registered in the economy and the social values and structures in most of the north from the responses of security agencies. The communiqué released at the end of the meeting did say something about security, as well as plenty on constitutional amendments, the President’s maneuvers towards 2015, the judiciary, on management of the nation’s accounts, on the Petroleum Industry Bill, the national minimum wage and the role of traditional rulers, among others.

The meeting of northern governors took place against the backdrop of a public spat involving chairman of the northern governors’ forum, Dr Muazu Babangida Aliyu and the governor of Plateau State, over the decision of the federal government’s military to relocate Fulani villagers for an operation against terrorists. The chairman had kicked against the decision, and the governor had questioned his right to do so on behalf of all northern governors. The quarrel was drowned by the intense interest drawn to a drama which had all the appearances of tipping the balance in the attempts at ethnic cleansing in parts of Plateau State, one way or the other. It was never clear whether all northern governors (except Governor Jang) supported Babangida, but not one of them spoke in his support, or in support of Jang. In the end, Jang’s point that Babangida spoke for himself, and not for northern governors appeared to have been validated. There certainly was no reference in the communiqué to events in Plateau State, unless you count an obscure reference to the resident/indigene issue, and the plea that people should be encouraged to integrate.

Northern governors meet and speak in a context they are thoroughly familiar with, and with colleagues who insist that peaceful co-existence and effective integration can only be achieved if some citizens accept severe limitations to their rights to live with full and equal rights. The governors know where these citizens live with severely abridged rights. They know colleagues who are the architects of their misfortunes, and whose political platforms are the  fear, blood and guts of innocent people fed fiction that their salvation lie in the subjugation of fellow citizens who have lived all their lies a stone throw away.

Because northern governors cannot set benchmarks on good governance that should allow them to assess unacceptable conduct from colleagues and deal with them appropriately, no one really takes them seriously. They cannot set these benchmarks because each, in his own way, is guilty of major breaches of the basic elements of good governance. So when they speak of setting a committee on Reconciliation, Healing and Security, the general reaction will be one of outright dismissal. The States of Borno, Yobe, Kano and to a lesser extent, Bauchi, Gombe, Kaduna, Adamawa, Taraba and Kogi are virtually battle fronts, with economies crumbling by the day. What stops State Governors from effectively mediating the conflict between the JASLIWAJ and the Nigerian state (including state governments) as well as facilitating a breakthrough in the basic doctrinal impasse among Muslims is that they have very little moral authority. They can bestow huge quantities of patronage in contracts, fertilizer, Hajj and Jerusalem seats, appointments and selective investments in limited infrastructure, but all these are centered only around their primordial need to feel politically safe. The governors build their own world in which only sycophants and party men live. So they fear their own people, and fear even more the days they will not be governors anymore.

While in power, they treat public funds and trust as personal assets. Governor Murtala Nyako appoints 50 Special Advisers and 37 Development Area Administrators at public expense on the same day Governor Babangida said northern governors will study the new Petroleum Industry Bill and take steps to re-visit the on-share off-show dichotomy. Governor Gaidam of Yobe State orders 11,760 bags of assorted grains to be sold at N1000 instead of their market price of N8000. If experience is anything to go by, the bulk of the grain will go back to the market to be sold at N8,000. This was on the same day a federal legislator complained that N5b of the N6b released by the Federal Government for dam projects across the nation was spend entirely in the south south zone. Honourable Kaita said N83b was budgeted, but only N6b was actually released. The rest of the nation shared N1b, and some of the largest dams and irrigation assets in the north, such as Sokoto Rima and Hadejia Jama’are got nothing.

If northern governors cannot influence strategic spending on northern economic infrastructure by the federal government, with all northern ministers, legislators and the dominance of the PDP all over the north and at the federal level, one really wonders what leverage they will exploit to accomplish a whole battery of other tasks which were lisled in Governor Babangida’s communiqué. For instance, what muscle will they use to influence the federal government to amend section 215 of the constitution to give them more influence over the operations and disposition of the Police, since, unlike their southern counterparts, they dislike the idea of State Police?

By the same token, what influence will northern governors use to stop President Jonathan running again in 2015? Most of the 14 PDP Governors are on their second terms. Most were actively involved in the enthronement of President Jonathan as President. They are also aware that his grip on the party machinery is a lot firmer than theirs, and will be even stronger as we move nearer to 2015. They underrate public knowledge over issues around the legality or otherwise of Jonathan’s touted interest, and their vacuous demand that the provision of two terms of four years be maintained will be meaningless. In short, they must either be too far removed from the tenuous control of the PDP in northern affairs, or they intend to abandon it in unprecedented scale and style to ensure that their stated preference for a northern president in 2015 will materialize. 

At this stage, most Nigerians from the north have no faith that PDP governors from the region can influence President Jonathan in the slightest. It is also clear that the President has his favorites among them, and these are both the weak links in the chain that create the resistance against his current policies and his touted ambition, and his strongest asset in a north that is currently prostate politically.

Northern governors are a major liability to the people in a region bleeding badly from mismanagement of its resources and the absence of competent and committed leadership. It is doubtful moreover, if they command much respect, or have much influence around President Jonathan. He is not likely to respect them more than he does unless they improve their own support levels and image among their own people. To do this, they have to radically improve on their qualities of leadership, which must include major assault on corruption and waste. The President and the rest of Nigeria will not yield an inch to the north, so long as its governors are those that make its case. The regeneration of the north in Nigeria is not likely to start under the watch of these governors.

NIGERIAN MILITARY: ONE EGG IN ALL BASKETS

“If spider webs unite, they can tie up an elephant.”

Ethiopian Proverb.

The rather untidy involvement of the military in the relocation of villagers around Jos to enable operations against identified terrorists has thrown into sharp relief the current engagement and disposition of the military in the affairs of the nation. The fiasco which attended the relocation order amidst deep suspicions and recriminations, some of them targeted at the military itself is yet to settle down. An institution which exists essentially to wage war, the military has been left virtually alone to conduct sensitive public relations, separate warring communities, provide relief, and undertake confidence-building measures while it plans an operation against what it says are identified terrorists.

Ordinarily, the operation around Barikin Ladi and Riyom should have been preceded by sound legal advice and guidance on relocating the villagers and the manner in which their basic rights may be protected or shielded from undue assault. The National Human Rights Commission should have had a say in this. The National Refugees Commission should have been involved in all stages of the relocation, documentation and provision of relief once the movement became necessary. The National Emergency Management Agency would also have been involved in mitigating hardships and further threats to the I.D.P.s. The Plateau State Government would have been involved in every stage of the exercise. Ward, Village and District Heads and other community leaders would all have been involved right from the beginning in every stage of the controversial movement of thousands of Fulani villagers and herdsmen who were deeply suspicious of both the Plateau State Government and the military.

The military operation itself should have been preceded by professional collaboration to gather intelligence. If the process of intelligence-gathering had worked well, building on the cooperation of the community and local-level vigilance as well as the capacity of the police and the SSS to monitor suspicious movements, this rather labored approach to flush out terrorists detected through air surveillance may very well have been avoided. As it was, the military may very well have had to rely entirely on its own means of detecting the enemy, and choosing its mode of engagement.

The pervasive role of the military in dealing with severe challenges to internal security and threats to law and order has been a feature of our nation’s approach to handling national crises. Because the police and other security agencies were not involved, the military’s brutal efficiency in suppressing internal challenges to security have left indelible marks in Zaki Biam, in Udi, in Maiduguri, in Kano and many parts of the north today. Every spectacular impact of the military represents a major setback in the capacity of our police and other security agencies to do their jobs well. Every major involvement of the military leaves behind it massive wreckage of rights of citizens and communities, huge collateral damage in social and economic assets while they raise new political problems in place of security issues.

The military’s professionalism has been an early and costly casualty in the manner it has been stretched and stressed to perform every task in the name of security, law and order. An outfit which has achieved international acclaim for peace-keeping and peace-building, our military has been put in a situation where it closely resembles our police. It was intimately involved in fighting militancy in the Niger Delta, but was suspected to be actively involved in large-scale bunkering and crude theft. It has been accused of connivance to commit electoral fraud. It has been used to suppress civil protests, separate warring communities, enforce curfews, provide physical security for V.I.Ps and protect key and vulnerable points routinely. Now it is involved in fighting terror, and appears to be alone in this. Once the police withdrew its hundreds of checkpoints in town and highways in the north, the military was left alone and exposed. Soldiers man checkpoints, and behave the same way the police did. Opportunistic agencies such as F.R.S.C, N.I.S and N.D.L.E.A set up shop close to military checkpoints to stop, search and make brisk business.

This is no way to treat an otherwise vital national asset. The more the military performs tasks or responsibilities which should be handled by other agencies, or should be performed jointly, the less likelihood there is that these agencies’ capacities will be improved enough to enable them to do their jobs properly. The military is not likely to yield ground to the police and SSS in the fight against JASLIWAJ (Boko Haram) it will claim it earned with valour and blood. With the frightening amounts being spent on security by state and federal governments, as well damaging rivalries between the security agencies, the nation may not see the end of the insurgency as early as it wishes.

The pivotal role of the military in all internal security, law and order matters today is a severe indictment of the police and intelligence agencies. The reality is that the average Nigerian has no faith or confidence in the police to do the most basic of its jobs. Still, making the military do police work as well as its own is not a solution. President Jonathan should be more active in finding solutions to the JASLIWAJ insurgency and other internal security challenges, so that he can address the fundamental issue of the collapse of the Nigeria Police, and reversing the damage done to a professional military in the last few years.

TRAVAILS OF THE PLATEAU FULANI

‘Peace is when nobody is shooting. A “just peace” is when your side gets what it wants.’ Bill Mauldin

I am writing this column two days before you read it. The past few days have been full of stories, many of them contradicting each other, on developments in and around the camps to which Fulani villagers have been relocated so that the military can conduct operations against terrorists. Some reports say the military authorities have allowed some of the villagers to relocate back to all but one of the villages. There is virtually no media coverage on the fate of Berom villagers, and the impression one gets is that only Fulani villagers have been involved in these traumatic movements in and out of the villages they inherited from ancestors. It is also unclear what measures are being put in place to police the relationships between the Fulani, the Berom and the STF. The latter has been accused by both sides on numerous occasions of aiding the other party in killings or aiding escape. The question begging for answer is what will happen to Fulani-Berom relations when the military withdraw after their operations. Will attacks on Berom villages cease? Will the Berom sheath their sword against Fulani villagers who they accuse of importing “mercenaries” to attack them at night? Will Governor Jang tone down his own rhetoric and posture which fuels the crisis in Plateau State?

Before the reports that some Fulani are being allowed to return to some of their villages started coming in, indications emerged that many of them were insisting on abandoning the camps in which they had lived for about a week, for their villages. They had been complaining of being virtually abandoned in camps that lacked basic essentials such as good water, food and medical facilities. With the commencement of the Ramadan fast, the pressure to stock-up was mounting, and many had quietly voted with their feet and returned home. On the whole, the life of these villagers in the past few days has been, to say the least, unenviable. Tossed between uncertainly and insecurity, they had become a symbol of a deep crisis over the manner the Nigerian State treats its citizens. It is very unlikely that these Fulani villagers will find peace in the near future, whether they are in camps or in their villages. In that respect, they are not unlike almost every citizen in Plateau State, no thanks to a State Government policy which has very rigid and hierarchical order of rights and privileges of communities and citizens based on tribes and religions.

If these Fulani villagers had abandoned the camps they only moved into reluctantly and with profound suspicions, they would have confronted the security agencies with difficult choices. They had been moved out ostensibly on the grounds that the military operation planned to eliminate terrorists near or around their villages will require about 48 hours to complete, but they may have to stay away for at least two weeks to guarantee that they stayed completely out of harm’s way. If the military insists that it is still involved in flushing out terrorists in their villages, any presence will endanger the Fulani villagers. It is very likely that the military will warn them to stay away, in camps or anywhere else that is not their villages. Any casualties registered among the villagers will be blamed on their stubbornness, and some people may even accuse them of sabotaging the efforts of the military to expose the terrorists hiding in or near the villagers. If the villagers relocate in large numbers and frustrate operations, the military may place their villages under prolonged siege and operations which will place them at great risk.

Although periods have been mentioned by the military for the operation and possible return dates, the Fulani villagers who have been relocated have no say on when it will be concluded, or when they can return to their villages. It is now entirely up to the military authorities to say when it is safe. So if the villagers heed the warning of the military to stay put in their camps, they may be in for a long haul. A long stay in squalid and unsafe environment will be even more difficult to bear during the month of Ramadan. If any thing happens to their villages to make it difficult for all of them to return, they will become permanent refugees. The longer they stay away, the more difficult it will be for them to return. Other communities on the list of “settlers” will read their fate in the travails these villagers.

Still it made sense to advise the Fulani from the villages of Mahanga, Kakuruk, Kuzen, Maseh and Shong to stay in the camps while the military operation goes on. Common sense will dictate that the seeming certainty by the military that there is terrorist presence near their villages, and the steely determination that they must be flushed out should be taken seriously. If indeed, non-local terrorists exist which have been responsible for the mass murders in Berom villages these past few weeks and months, then it is eminently in the interest of these Fulani villagers to facilitate or cooperate in their removal. They are in as much danger of violent criminals who attack Berom villagers as the Beroms themselves. There is also the imperative of the Fulani showing transparent respect of security, law and order, and complying with instructions which enhance their security and those of their neighbours. Finally, non-resistance may persuade the authorities to adopt a more conciliatory stance towards the longer-term welfare of the Fulani villagers, who are, in any case, almost entirely powerless in these circumstances.

But those who encouraged the Fulani to accept all the conditions laid down by the military and suffer the inconveniences will be well advised to recognize some of their important concerns. The Fulani villagers are already substantially guilty by association in the eyes of the security agents and Plateau State Government. The suspected terrorists who kill Berom are related to the Fulani in official and popular perception, because they do not kill Fulani. The heavy hand of the state will most likely be felt by these Fulani villagers, and the slightest expression of grievance will be interpreted as obstruction or complicity.

Second, the Fulani villagers have no faith in the capacity of Plateau State Government to be even-handed or compassionate where it becomes involved in their welfare or plans over their location or relocation. They are already condemned as settlers, even though many of the villages have had Fulani in them for over a century. The military in the locality were reminded of the very deep distrust of the villagers when they initially refused to accept the relief items which got to them on the second day of their relocation. The Plateau State Government will be entirely happier if these Fulani villagers do not relocate back to their villages at all. The government will see this as a solution to a seemingly endemic conflict in which villagers are shot, hacked or burnt mostly while asleep, and their murderers melt into the night. Berom villagers do not trust the Fulani villagers. The reverse is also the case. At least the Berom have a Governor who is unabashedly Berom and Christian. The Fulani have only a poor reputation as settlers who attack indigenes at will, or import “mercenaries” to do it for them. Now they join the Hausa indigenes of the State from Jos, many of whose fellow indigenes would also love to relocate permanently. In Plateau State, you have no citizens, only settlers and indigenes.

The Fulani villagers who are now caught between the hostility of the state and other communities; and the instinct to stay put because they have no safe alternative, must be protected by other Nigerians. They must be protected because they alone are powerless to resist the onslaught of a Nigerian state which sees this operation as an important exercise that will show its seriousness and capacity to tackle terrorism. They must be protected because they represent every citizen or community whose basic rights may be abridged by illegal and arbitrarily actions of those in power, who think our tongue or faith can be evaluated and ranked by them. They must be protected because they represent the tipping point in an emerging disaster being triggered by the Plateau State Government, which will attack the very soul of a plural nation such as ours. The Fulani villagers should not be used to appease the incompetence and arrogance which have brought danger to every citizen of Plateau State. Those villagers are us. They must be protected where they are, and be allowed to relocate as early the imperatives of national security demand.