In the early hours of April 14, 2014,
Boko Haram militants invaded the sleepy little town of Chibok in Borno
State. They made off with about 234 schoolgirls, and then the school was
razed to the ground.
On
May 5, in an attack lasting several hours, Boko Haram attacked a
village used as a base by our security officers in the search for the
missing schoolgirls. On May 13, there was an attack on three villages;
June 2, three communities in Gwoza were sacked. On May 20, three
villages not far from Chibok were attacked. Between May 29 and June 5,
six attacks were carried out and 20 women were abducted. On June 3, Boko
Haram attacked four more villages; June 10, 20 more women were
kidnapped from a nomadic settlement near Chibok. June 13 to 19 saw two
more attacks. July 4 to July 10, four more attacks. On August 6, Boko
Haram attacked Gwoza on a large scale. Its men reportedly arrived on
motorcycles and up to 50 Toyota Hilux trucks. On August 11, during
attacks on local villages, 97 men and young boys were kidnapped. In all
of these attacks, hundreds of innocent people were killed, homes and
properties were destroyed. Quite a few of our military personnel lost
their lives too.
All of these attacks
took place in the general Chibok – Gwoza axis, an area supposedly
suffused with military presence, and under a State of Emergency. Yet,
Boko Haram continues to operate there and elsewhere with impunity.
Clearly, something is wrong. It is akin to Al-Qaeda never leaving
Manhattan in New York immediately after 9/11, and just kept going back
and bombing “Ground zero.”
We are
talking about the Nigerian military here; a body that has acquitted
itself excellently well since the 1960s. A force that has conducted
successful operations in much more volatile environments – from the
Congo to Sierra Leone. And now we are to believe that this same force
that has garnered even more experience and more expertise over time is
suddenly unable to see off a ragtag band of criminals? Something is not
right.
That is not all.
One
Stephen Davis recently went to town with revelations about Boko Haram.
Davis, an Australian, is something of a “hostage negotiator.” He had
invited himself to Nigeria on the back of the Chibok schoolgirls’
abduction. After about four months of negotiations, the girls are still
in captivity; however, Davis cut loose on the alleged sponsors of Boko
Haram. He alleged that Ali Modu Sherrif (a former Governor of Borno
State), General Ihejirika (a former Chief of Army Staff), and a couple
of Central Bank of Nigeria officials (one “who recently left the bank,”)
were all in on it.
For me, the
surprise is the Ihejirika and CBN links. Now, I don’t know whether the
good Reverend has been duped or not, but if I were Ihejirika, I will
insist on an immediate and thorough investigation to clear my name.
As
the COAS, Ihejirika was a real thorn in the flesh of Boko Haram. At one
time, he shut down the telecommunications network in the North-East.
That began to strangulate Boko Haram until some elders and politicians
up there protested. Ihejirika then went after the insurgents with a
singleness of purpose that caused the Northern Elders Forum to cry “time
out.” The NEF claimed that the General was committing “genocide against
Northern youths.” They prevailed on President Goodluck Jonathan to have
him removed. Not satisfied, the NEF promised to drag Ihejirika to the
International Criminal Court at The Hague to face prosecution for human
rights abuses.
Sherriff is a different
kettle of fish. After his electoral victory, Sherriff didn’t give the
boys the type of Sharia they craved; instead he gave them a short-lived
commissioner. To add salt to a religiously-fermented injury, Sherriff
was allegedly complicit in their leader’s earlier-than-planned
coadunation with his afterlife virgins. The battle line between the two
camps had been drawn ever since.
You
could see why – assuming the people with whom Davis have been hanging
out wanted to be mischievous – Ihejirika and Sherriff’s names would be
top of the list of possible Boko Haram sponsors.
But
who knows. The whole thing gets messier every day. Running for elective
office in Nigeria is very expensive. The speed with which Ihejirika
jumped into partisan politics so soon after his controversial stint as
COAS has not helped matters either.
All
I know is that the North-East is being used as a cannon fodder and a
laboratory in a macabre test of political wills in Nigeria. Look at the
huge money being spent to keep Boko Haram in business. Imagine the
difference it would have made on the lives of the people if that same
money had been spent in the same region on youth employment, training
and the provision of social infrastructure. But would any government
deliberately allow a section of its domain to go to ruins for electoral
purposes; and would we not automatically treat as suspect any
presidential candidate who campaigns on the theme of restoring security
and bringing Boko Haram to an end?
Clearly,
there’s more to this whole Boko Haram business than meets the eye and
things are beginning to point in uncomfortable directions. And as if all
that isn’t troubling enough, the Federal Government owns up to a
dubious act of money laundering and/or a covert arms purchase deal gone
bad, using – of all things! – the private jet of the president of
Christian Association of Nigeria. That just puts the cherry on the
parfait, doesn’t it? Yep…something is not right.
