One noose, many necks

You may either win your peace or buy it – win it, by resistance to evil; buy it by compromise with evil. John Ruskin 1819 – 1900

For observers of developments in the North, the report of a confident Emir of Kano asking a Federal Government delegation on a sympathy visit to Kano to convey his advise to President Jonathan to implement the report and recommendations of the Northern Elders Forum on security, economy and related matters in the northern states will be a significant development. The delegation itself could not have missed a slight change in the body language of the Emir, something many prominent people who had visited to welcome him back from the United Kingdom where he travelled after the assassination attempt on his life would also have noticed. Suddenly the Emir of Kano is in full public glare, daily receiving very prominent politicians who demonstrate the highest forms of reverence to a man who was literally left for dead a few weeks ago by assassins on a street in his city.

Perhaps politicians and many leaders now recognize how close the nation came to losing a rare symbol of genuine authority and a cultural icon. Or perhaps they recognize that distances which grow daily between them and the sources and symbols of power in a community being torn to shreds will hurt them in the long run. In any case, prominent leaders such as the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Governors, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, a Presidential delegation made up of ministers and many others have all visited and bowed in reverence, contrived or real, before a man who barely a year ago shed tears in public at the mayhem visited on the ancient city of Kano by insurgents of Jamaatu Ahlil Sunnal Lid’daati Wal Jihad (JASLIWAJ).

And it appears the Emir himself now recognizes that his recent personal experience is an opportunity to reassert the full weight of his symbolic authority. Certainly, all these VIPs cannot line up to take full advantage of media coverage to visit the Emir without a strong political pull. Most of them would have had to pass numerous military and police checkpoints, or actually hear of blasts even as they visit the elderly Emir. So they also realize that Kano is an active frontline in an escalating war that has taken many of the northern communities as hostages.

The reference to the report of the Northern Elders Forum which its Secretary, Professor Ango Abdullahi says has been dumped by President Jonathan could not have been made casually by the Emir. Few people can request Ministers to remind the President to take up suggestions and observations made by a valuable segment of the political stock of the North today. That report, presented to the president amidst full publicity by people who had stepped forward in advanced ages, partly to atone for past sins, and partly to fill yawning gaps in the leadership assets of the North, had raised hopes that the presidency will be open to high quality inputs from people it will be foolhardy to ignore.

Well, apparently, the President appears to have ignored them and their report. Eight months since a blind and bowing Dammasanin Kano led a delegation of distinguished northern elders, not a word has been heard from the Villa. The northern governors have not received the elders to discuss their report either. And the elders are very, very angry. The Emir told the Presidential delegation that the Elders had complained that their report has not been acted upon, and they have not been communicated with. When the Emir of Kano lends his voice to the demand for a consideration of the Elders’ report which included, among others, a recommendation for a political, rather than a military solution to the insurgency destroying the North, the President can only ignore it at additional cost to his already poor standing and image in many parts of the North. Just about everyone else, from the Sultan, the JNI, ACF, Borno Elders and professional groups have joined in making demands for amnesty.

The noose which is the insurgency is closing in on many necks. It is a dangerous contraption on the neck of President Jonathan who is increasingly being perceived by a widening circle of northern opinion leaders as hostile to the idea that a political solution (or, as is more widely mentioned, amnesty for the insurgents) will make a genuine difference in its terms of cessation of hostilities and long-term resolution. More and more people in authority in the North (and people like Asiwaju Bola Tinubu) are now insisting that only the grant of amnesty will begin to roll back the widening and deepening conflicts with the many-headed insurgency.

This noose is being made tighter by the absence of a consensus around the value and justice of amnesty; as well as the utility and possibility of a political settlement with a group or groups that fundamentally repudiate the legality of the Nigerian state. Opinions which President Jonathan listens to also say amnesty will be worthless, and unjust to victims. It advises that the calls for amnesty from leaders and elders whose children kill them, their economy and society, as well as security agents of the state is an abdication of responsibility. It insists that elders or leaders must know who these killers are, and will, in the long run, either stand up to them or collaborate with the state to defeat them.

The noose is also around the neck of many northern elders. Basically, as Muslims, they recognize that their faith is hostile to concepts such as amnesty, if it is defined as unconditional pardon for mass murder and other atrocities and crimes. Yet they are comfortable with the concept of general pardon for these crimes, in part because they think it worked in the Niger Delta; and in part because they have no means of standing up to the insurgency. They are also worried that an intensification of this conflict and the possibility of its spreading will amount to a civil war in the north. So any solution is better than one which simply creates more of the enemy.

The amnesty noose hangs dangerously around more and more people who ask for it. The people on whose behalf it is pleaded have escalated the conflict. Since the President’s visit to Borno and Yobe State, the insurgency appears to be more active. Kano state in particular has witnessed one of the most violent series of attacks, with the motorpark bombing looking as if it was a plan to trigger anti-northern hostility in the south. Clearly, the current strategy of the government is not working. So the demands to grant amnesty are becoming louder, possibly because they are the easiest or only option presently available.

The President should not just ignore demands for a political resolution of this conflict, and leaders in the community must go beyond the shrill calls for amnesty for people who appear bent on fighting the Nigerian state. The indignation of Northern leaders and elders in various form should be channeled into more productive avenues. The North Elders Forum is already involved in engineering a wider and more cohesive and inclusive platform which should, among others, raise the quality of northern political leadership. The engagement of this insurgency at the political level is vital to the resolution of the issues it claims to fight for. There must be the political will and courage to engage the insurgency at all levels. This will require a political leadership with support, clout and vision to engage the foundations of this conflict, and chart a course for reconciliation and rehabilitation. Northern opinion leaders should recognize the reality that many other Nigerians sympathize with their positions, but are not northerners. They must build bridges to these important sympathies, and limit the damage from perceptions that this is basically a northern problem. On the other hand, it is important to keep in mind that there are also very strong views and interests against political solutions which involve matters such as amnesty, or even measures which involve huge expenditure to reverse the economic decline of the North.

Amnesty for insurgents represents only one possible element in a political solution to this problem. A lot needs to be done to give the political solution a shape and substance; which is why we need to more beyond the singular issue of amnesty. The most urgent need for now is to improve the political resource of the north so that it can engage both the insurgency and a reluctant presidency. At this stage all leaders do is beg. This wont work.