Reporting President Jonathan

“Never give a sucker an even break.” W.C Fields

While presenting its report to President Jonathan, chairman of the Advisory Committee on Dialogue and Peaceful Resolution of Security Challenges in the North, Kabiru Saminu Turaki SAN, Minister for Special Duties read out some of the key recommendations the committee was making to the President. Among them were the need to improve the technical and operational capacities of the armed forces, establish early warning systems on security threats; establishment of an Advisory Committee on Continuous Dialogue and the setting up of a Victims Support Fund. The President’s response specifically endorsed the idea of setting up an Advisory Committee on Continuous Dialogue, and supporting the suggestion that victims of the insurgency should be supported. In fact the President said the idea of victims support formed part of the terms of reference of the Committee, and the decision to use the words victims support, rather than compensation was deliberate. Government, he said, is committed to supporting victims of the insurgency in as many ways at it can, but to say it will compensate them will be wrong and misleading. On the whole, he said government was going to look into the report of the committee and see how the implementation of its recommendations will aid the search for an end to the insurgency.

I know all these because I was there. The media reported correctly on the comments regarding the Advisory Committee and other issues raised by the President, but for some reason, the lead stories and headlines were all about the President saying that federal government will not compensate victims. The comments on victims support, rather than compensation have been lost in the developing outrage that victims will be abandoned to their fates. 

Presumably those with responsibility for the President’s image are reading the deluge of complaints and condemnations over the spin on comments made by the President regarding victims’ support and compensation. The opposition APC is leading a potentially-damaging chorus line which will build upon an untreated misrepresentation of the President’s position. Its National Chairman, Chief Bisi Akanda issued a statement blasting the government over what President Jonathan was supposed to have said. The administration failed to provide citizens with security, he said, and now it is saying it will not provide succour for the victims of its failure. “This constitutes double irresponsibility and double jeopardy for the thousands of victims who have been killed and wounded by the insurgents.” This, the APC says, “is unacceptable and President Jonathan must have a rethink. The APC believes that the issue of compensation for victims of Boko Haram should not be subject to any debate. All victims of the Boko Haram insurgency must be compensated without delay. They must be made to feel that their government cares for them.”

The APC will only be the leading voice in a predictable line-up that will build up huge stores of hostility around the perception that President Jonathan has ruled out any relief or support for victims. Ethnic organizations and Christian groups which had opposed any idea of dialogue or Amnesty until all victims were compensated will now build upon this distortion. Most Nigerians will share their outrage as the perception that federal government has no plans for victims support and relief gains wider ground. A new chapter in the debate over the roots, dimensions and effects of the insurgency will now open. Old wounds over assaults on the nation’s security and economic assets by Niger Delta militants who reaped bountiful benefits from their own insurgency will be revisited. Statistics of victims in churches, homes and business places will be reeled out as reminders of a murderous onslaught on non-Muslim targets by an insurgency which claims to be rooted in Islamic ideology and interests. Others will reel out statistics to show that Muslims and communities in the area of conflicts have been worse victims of the insurgency than non-Muslims. Tensions will rise again in areas where victims fell; where lives and limbs were lost and some form of relief is being expected; and where the debate is still raging over whether you can grant amnesty or even speak with people who cause so much anguish.

And all these because people who should serve President Jonathan have failed to do so. A simple clarification over the issue of victims support and the comment on the word compensation would have solved this problem. Why hasn’t it been made? Laziness? Indifference? Incompetence? Subversion?

I suspect that there may be a more sinister motive behind the silence and inactivity of people whose jobs is to improve the image of the President. This is not the first time, nor is it likely to be the last, that the President made comments over sensitive issues, and many other comments had to be made to clarify his comments. The failure or refusal of his many spokespersons to make a simple clarification in this instance suggests that they are willing to allow a damaging controversy to develop where none is necessary. 

The committee on which I was privileged to serve exhaustively examined the term of reference on advising government on how victims can be supported. It visited and directly interacted with hundreds of victims, from those with horrifying injuries to orphans and families who lost everything. It visited communities that lost entire social and economic assets. It adopted categorization of victims which was informed by the facts on the ground as we saw them. We saw victims in detention, in hospital beds, and in the thousands of children and young people in many of the theatres of this devastating conflict who cannot go to schools that have been destroyed, or have had fellow pupils and students murdered in large numbers. We saw victims in families of slain security men and women who were breadwinners; in graves and in grave circumstances. And, as the government requested, we made elaborate and painstaking recommendations on how succour, support and relief can be given to them. The President publicly agreed with the recommendation to provide these, so why does no one close to him correct the impression that he said there will be none?

President Jonathan will not count me among his most ardent admirers, and I certainly have no qualification for being a foot soldier. For once, I feel that all the faults heaped on the President may not be entirely deserved by him. Someone somewhere is letting him down very badly. The idea that the federal government is turning its back on victims will polarize the population just it is coming to terms with the fact that the insurgency has made everyone its victims. The case for supporting victims is not for Igbo traders and bus owners; is not the preserve of churches and Christians destroyed and murdered during acts of worship; and it certainly is not for everyone except members of communities which the insurgency first made victims and hostages.

The imperative of supporting victims of the insurgency is rooted in the duty of the state to address one of its basic responsibilities. It will find victims among all faiths and in communities in Borno, Yobe and neighbouring states who will require massive investments in rebuilding economic and social infrastructure, lives and livelihoods, and restarting basic processes which give substance to ordinary life for millions. The federal government will offend every Nigerian if it says it has no plans or obligations to bring relief to victims of the insurgency. Fortunately President Jonathan said it will honour to its responsibility by using state resources to help citizens and communities. Sadly, his people do not appear to want Nigerians hear him say so. Perhaps someone is interested in assaulting one of the few areas on which all Nigerians are in agreement; which is that victims of the insurgency who cut across ethnic and religious boundries must be supported by the state.