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From: Kayode Adebayo
Date: Thu, Aug 30, 2012 at 5:31 PM
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From: Kayode Adebayo
Date: Thu, Aug 30, 2012 at 5:31 PM
This Editorial captured a lot of things I've been saying about Boko Haram. Nigeria is dialoguing with Boko Haram without thinking about the repercussions. Like I said then, Boko Haram has three factions and one of the factions has direct link with Al-Qaeda. Boko Haram originated from Mauritania, Mali and Niger. I've said that many a time since August of 2011, that Nigeria should never dialogue with Boko Haram. Boko Haram might want to dialogue at that time because they were looking for ways to free their members. Like I said then, once their members are freed, they will regroup and become more lethal than ever before. The so-called Northern leaders clamoring for negotiation with Boko Haram are ignorant, selfish and self-seeking. It is the same thing that was wrong with them in the first place when some of them gave Boko Haram a Safe Haven. They accept anybody that claims they want to spread or propagate Islam without investigating their real mission. A lot of them misunderstand Islam as religion; they think they know, but they don't. They are ignorant and that's why they often misinterpret the Quran.
They know where Abubarkar Shekau lives with his fellow terrorists; from their leaders, to their planners and their executors, yet Nigeria is stupidly pretending that they are looking for Abubarkar Shekau. If Jonathan is serious about eliminating Boko Haram, let him release the names of all the Sponsors of Boko Haram and I challenge him today to do that. The day their names get published in Nigerian Newspapers is the day that will mark the beginning of the end of Boko Haram in Nigeria, trust me - Kayode
Source: Punch
PROPONENTS of dialogue as the ultimate panacea for the country's current dire state of insecurity suffered a major reverse last week after the Islamist terror group, Boko Haram, dismissed the Federal Government's claims of an ongoing negotiation and restated its commitment to Islamising the country. For the umpteenth time, the group reportedly warned that "the Federal Government of Nigeria must know that the only recipe for peace is comprehensive implementation of Sharia system (Islamic mode of government)." This declaration, apart from reaffirming the often-stated position of Boko Haram, has also exposed, on the part of those clamouring for dialogue, a complete lack of understanding of the philosophy of the group and the extent to which its members are willing to go to realise their stated objectives.
So far, Boko Haram has spurned invitations to come to the negotiation table with government officials. In its statement dismissing the government's recent claims of opening communication channels with the group, Boko Haram described its supposed representatives in the purported negotiation as "fake negotiators who are pretending that they are in talks with the Federal Government on our behalf. These people are collecting large sums of money from the government under false pretence."
The Civil Rights Congress' National President, Shehu Sani, who organised an earlier ill-fated contact with the criminal group, also declared, "No credible talks are going on. If there is going to be any genuine talks, there should be confirmation from the leadership of the group and not the government." But the Presidency insists that negotiations are taking place through "backroom channels," not at a formal table in an air-conditioned office. There is nothing new in this. The Presidency might have forgotten that previous claims of dialogue, including that of a former President, Olusegun Obasanjo, were not about negotiations conducted in a cozy wine glass-clicking environment.
There are good reasons to be concerned about the dialogue initiative. In truth, dialogue protagonists have ample examples to draw from. They claim, as global studies scholar, Peter Neumann, argued in a 2007 article in the United States-based Foreign Affairs magazine that the British government maintained a secret back channel to the Irish Republican Army even after the IRA had launched a mortar attack on 10 Downing Street that nearly eliminated the entire British cabinet in 1991. Other references include the 1988 Spanish government's dialogue with the separatist group, Basque Homeland and Freedom, and the Israeli and Palestine Liberation Organisation talks that produced the 1993 Oslo Accords. President Goodluck Jonathan must have been persuaded by these examples; but he is wrong.
The question is: What kinds of terrorists are susceptible to negotiations? Definitely, Boko Haram does not fit the description. The truth is that it is not in all cases of terrorism that negotiations are appropriate. While most of the recycled examples are either nations or ethnic nationalities fighting for their own homeland, as was the case with the PLO, or separatist terrorist groups, struggling for autonomy or total independence, as was the case with IRA and ETA, the Boko Haram terror ideology is not secular, but religion-based.
It is said that the key objective of any government contemplating negotiations with terrorists is not simply to end violence, but to do so in a way that minimises the risk of setting dangerous precedents and destabilising its political system. Will the Federal Government negotiate the Islamisation of the country or any part thereof with Boko Haram as the group demands? And why should a democratic government prefer negotiation with a terrorist group to a legitimate demand for national dialogue among its constituent nationalities?
These concerns are valid. The Boko Haram insurgency, which started with bloody clashes with security forces three years ago, has blossomed and is now deeply entrenched in the country because of the support the group enjoys within the main areas of its operation. It has graduated from using bows and arrows to detonating massive improvised bombs. But no matter how attractive the dialogue idea may appear, it will not, at the end of the day, dissuade the terror group from disseminating its putrid ideology.
This hate-filled agenda stems from the growing influence of extreme fundamentalists in the country. In January, the group unambiguously restated its mission: "We will consider negotiation only when we have brought the government to their knees…Once we see that things are being done according to the dictates of Allah, and our members are released [from prisons], we will only put aside our arms – but we will not lay them down. You don't put down your arms in Islam, you only put them aside."
Will these mass murderers be compensated with amnesty? Rather than join hands to fight what is clearly a band of terrorists with an undeniable affiliation with international terror organisations such as the al-Qaeda in the Maghreb and el Shabaab in Somalia, our government has adopted an unworkable policy of appeasement. What this has achieved is to give Boko Haram a semblance of legitimacy and the breathing space to regroup and re-launch attacks on its targets, which, so far, have included newspaper organisations, churches, schools, government institutions, mosques and international organisations. This is dangerous.
What then should be done? Terrorism is based on a perverted logic and Boko Haram's philosophy is not different. Though coming late, the recent decision by the Northern Governors' Forum to take up the security challenge is welcome. NGF must separate truth from fiction. The region must confront the religious extremism that gave rise to Boko Haram in the first instance. The Niger State Governor and Northern Governors' Forum Chairman, Mu'azu Babangida Aliyu, was spot on when he declared in January, "As the elite, we have to take full responsibility for what is happening in the nation; we need to unite to protect the interest of those not so privileged rather than remain fragmented in pursuit of narrow selfish interests; otherwise, we will lose all."
The only negotiation necessary at this stage is the one that would involve all Nigerians coming together to redefine the basis for the continued existence of the country as one. As for Boko Haram, all must unite to defeat this tumour.
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