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On 7/24/14, 'Kennedy Emetulu' via USA Africa Dialogue Series
<usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> "I am personally involved in a clearly targeted
> bomb attack today at about 2:30pm on my way to Daura.
>
>
> "The unfortunate event, clearly an assassination
> attempt came from a fast moving vehicle that made many attempts to overtake
> my
> security car, but was blocked by escort vehicle.
>
>
> "We reached the market area of Kawo where he took
> advantage of our slowing down and attempted to ram my car and instantly
> detonated the bomb which destroyed all the three cars in our convoy.
>
>
> "Unfortunately, when I came out of my vehicle, I
> saw many dead bodies littered around. They were innocent people going about
> their daily business who became victims of mass murder.
>
>
> "Thank God for His mercy, I came out unhurt, but three
> of my security staff sustained minor injuries. They have since been treated
> in
> hospital and discharged."
>
>
> - General Muhammadu Buhari (Ret) (Statement
> released to the press, Wednesday, 23 July, 2014)
>
>
>
>
>
> Now
> that General Muhammadu Buhari himself has released a statement indicating
> that
> he was the target of an assassination attempt in Kaduna, we need to stop
> and
> think as a nation going forward.
>
> First,
> I note that many partisan supporters of his are gleefully pointing to this
> as a
> justification that General Muhammadu Buhari is not a sponsor of Boko Haram
> as
> certain elements within the ruling PDP have been implying. As that
> reasoning
> goes, if he were, the terrorists wouldn't be targeting him. But the fact
> that
> such thinking has taken root at all in the political space is an indictment
> of
> our politics, because the accusation itself is based on a lot of political
> hot
> air, rather than any shred of respectable evidence.
>
> As I
> write, the two main political parties are yet to make any official
> statements,
> but if we follow their antecedents, you would expect that they would, as
> usual,
> politicize this and lose the sense of what we should be taking away from
> this
> incident and what we should be acting on as one as a nation. President
> Goodluck Jonathan is right to call the attack "an odious attempt to
> inflame passions and exacerbate disquiet, fear, insecurity and sectional
> divisions in the country", but whether his own media people, his party and
> the
> opposition are going to read the script that well going forward is another
> matter. Desperation seems to rule the Nigerian political roost on all fronts
> nowadays.
>
> Though,
> at the moment, Boko Haram are yet to claim responsibility for the attack,
> there
> is enough uncontested information for us to make informed speculations, all
> of
> which would easily lead us to conclude that they are behind the attack. For
> instance, even from Buhari's account, we know that the attack on his convoy
> was
> carried out by a lone suicide bomber, after another suicide bomber on foot
> had
> lunged at a moderate Islamic leader, Sheikh Dahiru Bauchi at the prayer
> ground
> at Murtala Muhammed Square in the commercial area of the city where
> thousands
> had gathered for prayers.
>
> Even
> though the suicide bombers in the twin attacks did not succeed in killing
> their
> main targets, reports say over eighty people were killed in both attacks.
> Clearly, these attacks bear all the hallmarks of a Boko Haram attack.
> Nigeria
> is a funny place politically and we must thank God that the nature of the
> attack has removed any doubt about its perpetrators, because we wouldn't
> have
> put it past some to claim it's an Abuja-inspired attack, because Buhari is
> such
> a feared opposition leader that forces loyal to President Jonathan would
> want
> him out of the way before 2015 and blame it on Boko Haram. Of course, that
> claim would be silly and unsupportable, but with Nigeria, with the kind of
> politics being played now, anything to stain President Jonathan seems fair
> game. We can see it clearly from the fact that many opposition figures do
> not
> respect the office of the President or the man at all and that's a big
> shame.
> We should be grateful that the way this happened reduces the chance for
> these
> characters to ratchet up their mischief.
>
> Beyond
> all that, what I would personally advise is that Nigerian political leaders
> must see the significance of this attack in the context of what we have
> suffered as a nation in national, communal and personal security for the
> past
> five years of Boko Haram and related terrorism. It is instructive that
> while
> this menace has been on, the political opposition, of which Buhari is a key
> figure, has treated it as though it is the problem of President Goodluck
> Jonathan and his party and some of their members have spoken and acted in
> all
> manners indicative of that belief. They have obviously framed a political
> strategy around presenting the President as clueless in matters of national
> security, even where they themselves have never provided workable
> suggestions
> or solutions on the matter.
>
> More
> depressingly, Buhari has made himself the most high profile defender of the
> Boko Haram organization, even if indirectly. He has called for the
> government
> to stop arresting the Boko Haram suspects, to stop killing them and to get
> into
> negotiations with them as they did with the Niger-Delta militants. He has
> compared
> Boko Haram to the Irish Republican Army (IRA), implying that something like
> the
> Good Friday Agreement that paved the way for the political process that led
> to
> peace in Northern Ireland should be employed in Nigeria. Yet, he knew like
> all
> Nigerians that the government has provided all avenues for the Boko Haram
> to
> come to the table, but they won't. In fact, when Buhari himself was called
> upon
> to be part of the discussion to end the bloodshed, he pointedly refused and
> in
> a most unstatesmanlike manner said he was not going to join such an effort,
> because he was not part of those who created the problem.
>
> For
> years, Buhari consistently blamed the Goodluck Jonathan administration for
> the
> Boko Haram insurgency, even though everyone knows it started during the
> President Olusegun Obasanjo administration before it became a full-blown
> insurgency under President Umaru Yar'Adua due to the extrajudicial killings
> undertaken by his administration with a view of quelling the then nascent
> insurgency.
> Buhari for years would not condole with victims of Boko Haram atrocities or
> publicly
> condemn the insurgency until very recently in May when political
> calculations
> made him do so after the Boko Haram kidnap of the Chibok girls.
>
> Indeed,
> if we are honest, no matter the side of the political divide we are, we
> cannot
> doubt the fact that General Buhari has never been an enthusiastic opponent
> of
> the Boko Haram terrorists. I'm not saying he's a sponsor or supporter, but
> he
> has clearly attempted to reap political benefits from it, which makes the
> PDP
> media machine always attempt to imply that he is a supporter. Of course,
> discerning political observers know that whatever the origin of Boko Haram,
> as
> presently constituted, it is actually a Nigerian franchise of international
> terrorism and those with control over the organization are not part of our
> political class. If indeed the Boko Haram are behind this Buhari attack, as
> I
> suspect they are, then here is a clear and unequivocal message from them to
> us
> that nobody is immune from their murderous anger. Even though there are
> opposition politicians who speak as though Boko Haram is their Cerberus, we
> must now know that Boko Haram is not the military wing of the APC. It is a
> terrorist group that we all must try to deal with as one.
>
> So
> that is the message of this Buhari attack. It is time for the government
> and
> PDP media machine to tone down their rhetoric, which claims or implies that
> Boko Haram is being sponsored or supported by the opposition, no matter
> what
> some individual opposition politicians say to disparage the effort of the
> Federal Government in this regard. Doing this is not a sign of weakness, but
> of
> strength. More importantly, supporting such notion of political sponsorship
> in
> the media only energizes the Boko Haram people, because it indicates
> infighting
> amongst the political class over national security, which is something
> they've
> proved adept at cashing in on. Of
> course, this is by no means suggesting that the security services should
> not
> continue to do their job of monitoring all persons, no matter their
> political
> party affiliations and no matter how highly placed, once they have reasons
> to
> suspect them to be part of the threat to national security, including being
> collaborators with Boko Haram elements in any way.
>
> Having
> said this, the leadership of the opposition must also now begin to
> appreciate
> what is at stake here for our nation. The desperation with which they've
> been
> going about this business of claiming power at the centre has made them lose
> sense
> of the fact that national security should be out of bounds to politics and
> politicking. I had thought that the All-Parties Summit convened by the
> President was going to be the beginning of proper collaboration between the
> parties and our national political leadership over Boko Haram, but from all
> indications thereafter it's proven not to be. So, here is an opportunity
> for
> the opposition to go to the drawing board and prepare a proposal to the
> government, a proposal that can get everyone working together to address
> the
> menace of the terrorists.
>
> Of
> course, conduct matters. They must rein in their desperate attack dogs who
> would want to use national security to attack the President or PDP,
> assuming
> that this is their political underbelly. They must know that it's not the
> underbelly of the PDP or Jonathan, but the underbelly of the nation. We all
> have to do something about it now. The political parties can start by
> removing
> national security from the list of campaign issues while they work together
> with
> the government as suggested to provide solutions. Buhari can lead that
> effort. He
> has the training and the stature for such a job. Today's attack against him
> should tell him it's the only patriotic thing to do here.
>
>
> Kennedy
> Emetulu
> London
>
>
> ..
>
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