The North on its own

If you want to go quickly, go alone.

If you want to go far, go together. Hausa Proverb

 

To describe the outcome of the visit of President Jonathan to Borno and Yobe States as an anti-climax would be an unpardonable exaggeration. It will be safer to say that the President has left behind a confused and disappointed people. This will include people who thought their age, pedigree, social standing and proven records of service to the nation will impress the President when they spoke with him. They will now go through a very painful process of self evaluation, and may retreat for a long while owing to a damaging loss of face and prestige.

 

But there are others who will see many positives in the visit. Some will see the President’s refusal to grant amnesty, or respond to demands for removing the JTF as a singular act of courage and statesmanship. In this group, you will count some elements in the CAN and other groups who believe that amnesty for Boko Haram is unjust, a sign of weakness and defeatist. There are also some elements of the security community which will see amnesty as capitulation, and the removal of the JTF as an invitation to the enemy to take over. It is also quite probable that governors and other politicians in the region fear that they will be promptly slaughtered and bombed out of existence without the JTF, even if it had not protected General Shuwa and many other prominent politicians in the past. In any case the appearance of a President unwilling to concede an inch to a community which had expected much would not have gone unnoticed among certain circles that believe that it is not the President’s job to put this fire.

 

Although he broke no new grounds in language, style or substance, President Jonathan opened up some fresh dimensions to this damaging conflict. In one fell swoop, he repudiated the advise of the Sultan and the Borno Elders to grant amnesty to members of the Jamaatu Ahlil Sunnah Lidda’awati Wal Jihad (JASLWAJ) who have shown an inclination towards a settlement. Against evidence that there are splinter groups willing to negotiate, the President says it is all or nothing. Bring out your ghosts who are responsible for your conditions, and we will talk, he told the elders. If amnesty is required, we will consider it.

 

The President also wore his Commander-In-Chief toga very well during the visit. He spoke passionately in defence of members of the JTF and the reasons behind their presence. The community has created the reasons for the JTF, which is doing a marvelous but difficult job. If you do not want them, remove the causes for their presence in the first place. With regards to massive and prolonged detentions and torture of suspected young men and their families, hundreds who died in crossfire or during rampaging vengeance by the JTF, billions in losses, a collapsed economy, dislocated social structures, towns and villages full of orphans, the President’s positions is the same: give me assurances here and now that attacks and violence will stop, and the JTF will disappear. The President was on such a roll, he told the elders to stop playing to the gallery and condemn the insurgency in explicit terms, because they are toying with national security which he will not compromise.

 

The townhall meeting in Maiduguri ended with President Jonathan looking tough and inflexible, and the entire elderly assets of the people of Borno State looking thoroughly whipped and dejected. If some serious thinking and strategizing had preceded his visit, it may have advised him to take a tough stand, the type you take when you talk to a conquered people. For in truth, the people of Borno and Yobe States are a conquered people. Between the insurgency and Jonathan’s security apparatus, their Elders Forum had long been rendered useless. The people have suffered as much as they could suffer if they are in a war, and possibly less if the war had rules. No one can influence the insurgency or the JTF; or so it seems, until you ask who was so spectacularly successful in providing security cover for 10 APC governors just a few days ago, or who convinced all those elders to meet with the President. These elders are themselves targets of the insurgency, which they are accused of harbouring. They and the Sultan and the JNI are now on record as having been repudiated by the President on amnesty.

 

The leaders of the people of Borno State who met with the President would now have suffered a further setback in terms of their image and standing. The insurgency which is destroying lives and the economy would have benefitted immensely from the sorry outing of these elders. Now it can roll out its propaganda drums, and remind the community that it has no cover, and hint at particularly young people that it represents the only solutions to their problems. The federal government appears to have washed its hands clean of any involvement in the search for a solution to this conflict beyond bunkers, checkpoints and towns and cities full of rampaging soldiers. The President declined suggestions and options, and gave none of his own. Everyone reeled out the same old positions: the community wants dialogue and amnesty; the President wants leaders of the community to eliminate the insurgency. And the war goes on.

 

There are very important lessons which can be drawn from the president’s visit, though. One is that President Jonathan has no plans to go beyond the current strategy of containment through the use of force to resolve this conflict. The people of the northeast and the north generally should therefore accept this as a reality. But in this war, hundreds or thousands of people have been arrested. They have rights, and they are not ghosts. If government is under no pressure to intensify the search for resolution, the laws of the land must not stop working until it does. Those arrested without being tried should not have their plight highlighted only by the insurgency. If they have committed crimes, they should be prosecuted. If not, they should be freed immediately.

 

Similarly, the rights of all local citizens against undue harassment and illegal treatment by agents of the state must be protected by all Nigerians, but particularly by those whose jobs are to monitor and police their rights. It is not acceptable that only foreign human rights organizations and media should raise issues around massive human rights abuses.

 

The second lesson from the visit is that the North is really on its own on the issue of this insurgency. Substantial elements from other parts of Nigeria which feel that this insurgency grew under the cover of northern political establishment will clap at President Jonathan on his return from Borno and Yobe. This will be tragic. This insurgency is a national threat, and the north is only its first target. The northern political and religious establishment was its first casualty. A reading of the insurgency which suggests that it is essentially a northern/Muslim affair will have more damaging consequences than it does at the moment.

 

The final lesson is that the north needs to look further inwards and find a solution to this problem itself. The communities which suffer the most from this insurgency must take a stand, and this will involve risks and consequences. There really is no option than for communities to organize and challenge both the insurgency and the excesses of the agents of the state. Right now the people appear and behave like a vanquished people. The only question is whether they have been conquered by the insurgency or the JTF. Professor Nur Alkali told the President that the ancient people of Borno have gone through many disasters in their 1000 years history. They need to look into that rich legacy to find solutions to their current problems. They wont come from Abuja.