Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Professor Aniebo and the State of Literature in Nigeria

No! Hell No! This professor doesn't represent the state of education or scholarship in the Nigerian University system. The era of handout is long gone and the proliferation of office textbooks is a story, probably for distance learning or part time centers. Funding might have been a problem but the situation has improved drastically with intervention funds and the TETFUND Research and project funds. I cannot authoritatively speak on the literary world but our students are sufficiently exposed to contemporary and emerging scholars that no one except that professor can give such blank and uninformed responses to everyday questions. In all fields, Nigerian scholars are competing favorably and our students are excelling at international scholars' meet and competitions. This response is generalized but it is what I can offer to respond introductorily to the vexatious opinions of the professor.

On Sat, Aug 1, 2020, 12:34 PM Abdul Salau <salauabdul@gmail.com wrote:





 

It is a shame that most of the netters on this network are disconnected from the reality of Nigerian power problems. I have been to Nigerian the last ninety days.  I was in Nigeria this time last month it

On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 8:38 AM, Otieno Janet A. <kikijanty@gmail.com> wrote:

As a literary artist,this is outrageuos.Dons should be well read
people and this man is a disgrace to not only Nigeria but African
professors. It is a clear evidence that he does not read.He should
either resign or adopt the reading culture.

On Apr 5, 12:11 pm, Chidi Anthony Opara <chidi.op...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Ikhide,
> As my friends at Arugo motor park Owerri would say, "abeg make we
> leave matter".
> I was at the Portharcourt literary feastival where I met one of our
> renowned Professors of Literature and literary critics,  I was shocked
> to learn from him that he owned no internet facility, nor does he
> think he needed one.
>
> I also met a former President of Association of Nigerian Authors(ANA)
> at the same festival, when he was told that I publish mainly on the
> Internet, he retorted, " I do not visit Internet sites". Ikhide, you
> will also be surprised to hear the views of some ANA Executives on
> this issue. This is however, one of the problems.
>
> The other major problem is "the hegemonization of Nigerian literature"
> which is still going on depite the advent of the Internet age.
>
> Chidi Anthony Opara
> Publisher/Editor-In-Chief
> chidi opara reportswww.chidioparareports.blogspot.com
>
> Member: (1) Association of Nigerian Authors(ANA)
>              (2) World Poets' Society(WPS)
>
> On Apr 5, 4:48 pm, Ikhide <xoki...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > Professor Ifeanyichukwu Ndubuisi Chikezie Aniebo's recent interview in the Guardian should alarm lovers of Nigeria.
> >  http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/arts/article01//indexn2_html?pdate=040...
> >
> > I was personally distraught to read the thoughts of an apparently highly respected Nigerian academic on the state of creative writing in our Nigerian universities. His is a sad, sad, commentary on the criminal state of education in our country. Something needs to be done. Fast.
> > After reading Professor Aniebo's interview, one got the distinct impression of a man who has not read a single word of anything contemporary in the past twenty years; a man devoted to the arduous act of survival by merely selling handouts to hapless university students. He is asked if he has read new writings by Nigerians in recent years and he replies that he has not because, get this, he does not know where to go get them. That from a respected professor of literature is downright alarming and disgraceful. I am sorry people, but this man is really annoying me this morning!
> >
> > Worse, he would not accept responsibility for his own apathy or laziness. He says his voluntary immersion in literary darkness "says terrible things about the state of publishing in the country right now." It says terrible things about Professor Aniebo and the state of the students that pass through his pretend-classroom. That man ought to do the right thing and retire.
> >
> > Lord have mercy, is this man living in the same space as Obododimma Oha, Tolu Ogunlesi, Kaine Agary, Toni Kan Onwordi, Sefi Atta, Akachi Ezeigbo, Promise Okeke, Jude Dibia, etc, etc? If I can get up at dawn in America and without the help of my lantern find these warriors of letters, why O why is he looking for new writing in the dusty bookshelves of the bookstores of yesterday? This my people rises to the level of a major scandal. Where for God's sake is Shehu Usman? Where is Ahmed Maiwada? Those two writers are hereby tasked to go find that man and re-introduce him to Nigerian literature. Our writers are rocking! And why this fixation on Nigerians who just happen to still live in Nigeria? By his own admission, he has not read Helon Habila, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Chris Abani, Obi Nwakanma, Ogaga Ifowodo, Chika Unigwe, Unoma Azuah, Lola Shoneyin, Sarah Manyika, Obiwu, Niyi Bandele, Nduka Otiono, etc, etc. It appears that not only does he not read
> >  anything outside of books, he does not read, period.
> >
> > I am afraid to ask him if he has ever logged on to the Internet (I know, Nigeria hard, garri expensive, gen too make noise, armed robber, blah! blah! blah! Whine! Whine! Whine!). I definitely am not going to ask him if he knows what a blog is. Has he heard of Molara Wood, Afam Akeh, Sola Osofisan, Chuma Nwokolo, Nnorom Azuonye, Amatoritsero Ede and their brilliant (yes, brilliant) pioneering work with the digital medium (blogs, websites, etc, etc)? I am so irritated, I could spit! Lord have mercy, the educational system in Nigeria is in worse shape than I thought. I mean, people, I wake up in the morning praying that folks like Obododimma Oha and Tolu Ogunlesi and Jeremy Weate (yes, Jeremy is a Nigerian, sue me) have written something, anything  to make my day and they never disappoint. What is this man talking about?  He asks aloud where to find Uwem Akpan's new book! Hello! Somebody, hold me! This man is a professor of something teaching other
> >  people's children in Nigeria. That is child abuse ;-)))))  In what century is this man living? Thank God that man is nowhere near my children! Gulp!
> >
> > It is true that the publishing industry in Nigeria is challenged but Professor Aniebo's statements on the subject are indicative of a man totally oblivious of the renaissance going on today thanks to the efforts of brave people like Bibi Bakare-Weate, Jeremy Weate, and Mukhtar Bakare.  These folks are doing some pretty amazing work despite the daunting odds over there.
> >
> > Abeg people, let me yab this man. Hear him talk about Adichie:
> >
> > "If Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (author of Purple Hibiscus and Half of a Yellow Sun) had been writing in Nigeria, who would have heard about her? But because she is writing from America and the Americans are giving her awards, now every lecturer in Nigeria wants to write about her, whether they are saying something revealing or not. Is that helping Chimamanda? No!"
> >
> > Are we talking about the same Adichie? Na wa O! My response is an apoplectic !!!!!!!!!!! This man should retire abeg! Oga Professor Aniebo, Happy Birthday sha!
> >
> > - Ikhide
> >
> > ps
> > Below are some excerpts of the offensive interview that irritated me. And y'all know, I am not easily irritated! Ai! Ai! Ai! Dis man really really vex me today! Let us start a petition demanding his retirement ;-)))))
> > ==================================================================
> > Have you read new writings by Nigerians in recent years? What is your view about them?
> >
> > I have not because I don't know where to get them. This says terrible things about the state of publishing in the country right now.
> >
> >  Sir, are you saying that you're not conversant with new writers like Sefi Atta, Niyi Bandele, Helon Habila as a teacher of creative writing? Are you only fixated in writers of the 60s, 70s and 80s?
> >
> > The problem is actually that the type of publishing here in Nigeria is so bad that you rarely get the opportunity to see new works being written. The publishers will not send you copies to buy. The lecturer is so poorly paid that by the time he finishes taking care of his family needs and others, he find it difficult to find enough money to go in search of new works. I'm still driving a 1984 car; it's always at the mechanic's workshop. Any book you lay your hands on is N1000, N800, N900 or more. And if after you've bought it and you find you are very unhappy with the content. So, why buy it? The young ones don't seem to know about these books either. If they did, they will suggest it to you.
> >
> > What do you see as the problem confronting literature today in Nigeria?
> >
> > The problem lies with the educational system as a result of past activities by Nigerians who continually changed our educational system. As a result, we keep creating people who cannot and do not want to read. I have a Boys Quarter in my house. The way I know that electricity has arrived is when I hear their radio or music blaring. And I say to myself, these are undergraduates, when will they read? We're creating students who don't like to read. Within our own university system, if you recommend a book, students don't buy it. It's such that students brag that they went through university without buying a book; they brag about it. For them to buy a book, you have to set examination on it.
> >
> > Then there's the usual complaint that students are forced to buy hand out. Of course, it's because they will not buy the books you recommend for them. They would rather have the hand out than to buy a book. Why don't I make some money out of the hand out, which students prefer for me to survive?

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Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - “De-radicalization” of Terrorists Doesn’t Work

Farooq, I believe this Facebook post of mine from earlier in the week is relevant here.

Three Factors Driving Buhari's Release of "Rehabilitated" Boko Haram Members

Commentaries are pouring in to express dismay over the ongoing release of hundreds--perhaps thousands--of so-called rehabilitated Boko Haram members/fighters into society.

The problem is that many of these commentaries miss the three factors sustaining this tragic policy despite outcry from people in the insurgency-ravaged Northeast and the rest of the country.

Here are the three factors driving a BH rehabilitation program:

1. One obvious driver is corruption. Clearly, a lot of money is being budgeted for this program and there are contractors, subcontractors, and consultants working in this program that are getting paid. There are also top defense officials, politicians, and bureaucrats that are skimming off big margins from these these contracts.

2. The second factor is what Abdulrazak Ibrahim calls "clerical bullying." Here is how he explains its workings: "It appears that the idea of the so-called amnesty is founded on the erroneous and unscientific notion that "you do not sever your hand from your body just because it has gangrene". It would seem that government has bought into that idea, with a possible clerical bullying that 'these are our brothers, who also practice sunna, but in an erroneous way, so let's embrace and correct them', as echoed by a powerful Sokoto cleric recently. You will know who else once defended them with "they are our brothers."

3. The third driver connects to the second but I would argue that it is the precursor to it. People forget that this is not the first program to claim to "rehabilitate" Boko Horam members. During the early days of Boko Haram in 2009-2010 when the group had only carried out a few bombings and other terrorist activities in the north, Northern traditional rulers and clerics led by the Sultan of Sokoto pressured the Yar'Adua administration into releasing many arrested Boko Haram suspects under a misguided program called "Perception Management." The rationale for the program was that rehabilitating and releasing these terrorists would help manage the perception that the North was a hotbed of terrorism, hence the name "Perception Management Program." In other words, the clerics and traditional rulers who came up with the idea were more worried about the image of the North than they were about the risk of releasing these terrorists. Like the clerics that Abdulrazak Ibrahim describes above, this group of traditional rulers and clerics felt that the terrorists were "our brothers" and were only misguided in their practice of sunna and should be corrected and set straight instead of punished. One of the released terrorists, Kabiru Sokoto, would later lead his cell to bomb the Catholic church in Madalla, near Abuja. Another one, Habibu Bama, rose to become one of the top commanders of Boko Haram before he was reportedly killed in battle. This history is important to establish the fact that this is only the latest iteration of a long-running lucrative and potentially treasonous game being played by a group of clerical and secular leaders who have no concern for the victims of Boko Haram.

On Sat, Aug 1, 2020 at 7:04 AM Toyin Falola <toyinfalola@austin.utexas.edu> wrote:

Farooq:

The economy of crime is a profitable business in Nigeria: Politics—making money without work; the oil industry, making money without work (both connected to banks in schemes, illicit flows, transfer, etc.); and crimes—kidnapping, massive theft, Boko Haram, etc. In all, those who are supposed to govern or protect us are involved and interpret data in a certain manner. They see the logic! Boko Haram has opened the treasuries of Nigeria to many folks. The insurgency must be allowed to fester in different forms and at different levels as a way of making money. If you make insurgency lucrative, you open up more avenues. Develop the Northeast, we are now talking about a missing N100 billion!

TF

 

From: dialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of "Farooq A. Kperogi" <farooqkperogi@gmail.com>
Reply-To: dialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Date: Saturday, August 1, 2020 at 6:34 AM
To: dialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - "De-radicalization" of Terrorists Doesn't Work

 

 

Saturday, August 1, 2020

"De-radicalization" of Terrorists Doesn't Work

By Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D.

Twitter: @farooqkperogi

 

The de-radicalization, rehabilitation, and reintegration of so-called repentant Boko Haram terrorists have emerged as one of the centerpieces of the Buhari regime's governance, which is not surprising given that Buhari had said in the past that government-sanctioned retaliatory aggression against Boko Haram terrorists was an attack on the North.

 

 Every sober observer knows that de-radicalizing, rehabilitating, and reintegrating remorselessly bloodstained mass murderers into the very societies they drowned in oceans of blood—especially without compensating and mollifying the people they displaced, widowed, and orphaned— is a singularly wooden-headed policy.

But it helps, nonetheless, to look at evidence from research— and from the experiential data of societies that attempted to de-radicalize terrorists. Since Nigeria isn't the only country that grapples with the question of what to do with— and to—nabbed terrorists, what can we learn from other countries?

 

The UK has a program that it calls "Desistance and Disengagement Programme," which works to de-radicalize terrorists. The US state of Minnesota, which has a large number of Somali immigrants and a fair amount of domestic terrorism, also has a "Terrorism Disengagement and Deradicalization Program" designed to jolt terrorists back from the precipice of fatal extremism. So do many countries in Europe and Asia.

 

The data from the UK is mixed, but it nevertheless provides a cautionary tale for Nigeria. For example, three past beneficiaries of the country's "Desistance and Disengagement Programme" went on to murder 24 people between 2017 and 2019 in the aftermath of their "deradicalization." Other countries have similar experiences.

 

Deradicalization of terrorists is not always a failure, of course. According to the Business Insider, "Between 2001-2012, Malaysia put 154 extremists through deradicalization schemes. Of those, 148 had 'successfully completed the de-radicalisation programme and were released, without later re-offending,' the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence (ICSR) wrote in a 2012 paper."

 

However, an emerging consensus is that because terrorists are often animated by a single-minded, tunnel vision of society, it is often impossible to be certain that a deradicalization program can reverse their predilection for violence. A 2019 research by the European Union's Radicalization Awareness Network, for instance, concluded that, "Even after the very best of prevention efforts, some individuals still go on to become (violent) extremists."

 

The Center for Research and Evidence on Security Threats (CREST) also said there is "limited evidence about what supports positive change, which makes it difficult to determine if an intervention's approach is likely to be successful."

 

Similarly, the UK's Christopher Dean, a psychologist who created a deradicalization program called the Healthy Identity Intervention (HII), admitted that it's difficult to be certain that a terrorist has been completely deradicalized. "People can get more reassured and confident about change and progress that people are making, but I think we have to be very careful about saying someone has totally changed or has been cured," the Independent of the UK quoted him as saying.

 

I don't know how Nigeria's Boko Haram terrorists are being deradicalized and rehabilitated—and I hope someone will systematically study this—but the result of their work stares us in the face. Many of the so-called deradicalized and reintegrated Boko Haram terrorists actually only reintegrate to their former terror cells from where they murder soldiers and civilians alike.

 

On July 26, for example, a soldier fighting Boko Haram in Borno sent the following social media message that tugged at my heart strings: "Good evening sir. I'm presently in Monguno. I've been wanting to hint you on the recent happenings. During the last two attacks June and July (in Monguno), some of the so called rehabilitated Boko Haram guys- Non State Armed Groups (NSAG) joined their former colleagues in attacking the community and ran back to the BUSH with them. This is to say that the whole rehabitation [sic] narrative is a sham."

 

Ali Ndume, who represents Borno South in the Senate, told ChannelsTV on July 30 that a recently "de-radicalized," "rehabilitated," and "reintegrated" Boko Haram terrorist murdered his father, stole his father's cows, and vanished.

 

"Some of them that returned to Damboa, after two, three days, they disappeared," he said. "I learnt reliably that even in the course of de-radicalisation, they said they are not willing to come to live with the infidels. This programme really needs to be looked into immediately. I am gathering information and position of my people and even go legal."

 

Ndume's observation has support in research. A German researcher by the name of Daniel Koehler who studied German neo-Nazis and terrorists inspired by religion found that, "The solitary problem for these individuals is always that there's a global conspiracy against their race or religion; the solitary solution to such persecution is violence, with the goal of placing themselves and their group in control of a revamped society."

 

They are not persuaded by moral or theological arguments, he said. He makes the case for "the careful reintroduction of problems and solutions into a radicalized person's life, so that they can no longer devote all their mental energy to stewing over their paranoia."

 

I doubt that the people who are tasked with the responsibility to "deradicalize" Boko Haram terrorists in Nigeria—if there are any, that is— have the intellectual resources to do what the German researcher suggested. How do the Boko Haram "deradicalizers" determine that "deradicalized" Boko Haram terrorists have "repented" and are ready to be unleashed to the societies they terrorized before their capture since even people who research the deradicalization of terrorists say no one can be certain that "deradicalized" terrorists won't relapse to their old ways?

 

 Plus, people in the communities that the Nigerian government is reintegrating Boko Haram terrorists to don't want these washed-up terrorists in their midst. Don't the people's opinions and preferences matter? TheCable of July 24 reported Borno residents to have told the government to integrate the terrorists back "to govt house or Aso Rock" instead of their communities.

 

The anger of the communities is understandable. While government is "reintegrating" terrorists, it is disintegrating the victims of the terrorists. While villainous Boko Haram terrorists are pampered, the surviving victims of Boko Haram's murderous barbarism endure precarious existence in filthy, dangerous Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps.  It's like they are being punished by the government for being victims of terrorists' brutalities.

While Boko Haram terrorists are being treated with excessive indulgence, their victims in IDP camps are serially raped—both figuratively and literally. Babachir David Lawal stole millions from them, and he is still walking free. Umar Farouq Sadiya stole date palms (worth millions of naira) donated to them by Saudi Arabia. She has been rewarded with appointment as minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development. The cruel irony!

 

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), women in IDP camps in the Northeast "resort to transactional sex for survival." Because of the unsanitary conditions of the IDPs, there are periodic outbreaks of cholera that kill scores of people. Plus, even in their state of helplessness, they are still subject to episodic Boko Haram murders.

 

When a Nigerian Airforce jet bombed an IDP camp in Rann, Borno State, on January 17, 2017 in error, which caused the death of at least 115 people, Buhari didn't find it worth his while to console them, much less visit them. About three months later, on March 22, 2017, Boko Haram bombed another IDP camp in the Muna Garage area of Maiduguri. Again, there was insouciant silence from the same government that is bending over backwards to please Boko Haram terrorists.

 

Obviously, the Buhari regime rewards and celebrates homicidal outlaws. Its message to Nigerians is unmistakably this: if they want to be taken seriously and indulged by government, they should be organized, vicious mass murderers.

Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D.

School of Communication & Media

Social Science Building 

Room 5092 MD 2207

402 Bartow Avenue
Kennesaw State University

Kennesaw, Georgia, USA 30144
Cell: (+1) 404-573-9697
Personal website: www.farooqkperogi.com

Twitter: @farooqkperogi

Author of Glocal English: The Changing Face and Forms of Nigerian English in a Global World

Nigeria's Digital Diaspora: Citizen Media, Democracy, and Participation

"The nice thing about pessimism is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised." G. F. Will

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Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - “De-radicalization” of Terrorists Doesn’t Work

Draining.

Yet we elected this terrorism sympathiser even as he never hid his orientation.

We should ask ourselves why we did it so we don't do such a thing to ourselves again.

On Sat, Aug 1, 2020, 13:04 Toyin Falola <toyinfalola@austin.utexas.edu> wrote:

Farooq:

The economy of crime is a profitable business in Nigeria: Politics—making money without work; the oil industry, making money without work (both connected to banks in schemes, illicit flows, transfer, etc.); and crimes—kidnapping, massive theft, Boko Haram, etc. In all, those who are supposed to govern or protect us are involved and interpret data in a certain manner. They see the logic! Boko Haram has opened the treasuries of Nigeria to many folks. The insurgency must be allowed to fester in different forms and at different levels as a way of making money. If you make insurgency lucrative, you open up more avenues. Develop the Northeast, we are now talking about a missing N100 billion!

TF

 

From: dialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of "Farooq A. Kperogi" <farooqkperogi@gmail.com>
Reply-To: dialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Date: Saturday, August 1, 2020 at 6:34 AM
To: dialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - "De-radicalization" of Terrorists Doesn't Work

 

 

Saturday, August 1, 2020

"De-radicalization" of Terrorists Doesn't Work

By Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D.

Twitter: @farooqkperogi

 

The de-radicalization, rehabilitation, and reintegration of so-called repentant Boko Haram terrorists have emerged as one of the centerpieces of the Buhari regime's governance, which is not surprising given that Buhari had said in the past that government-sanctioned retaliatory aggression against Boko Haram terrorists was an attack on the North.

 

 Every sober observer knows that de-radicalizing, rehabilitating, and reintegrating remorselessly bloodstained mass murderers into the very societies they drowned in oceans of blood—especially without compensating and mollifying the people they displaced, widowed, and orphaned— is a singularly wooden-headed policy.

But it helps, nonetheless, to look at evidence from research— and from the experiential data of societies that attempted to de-radicalize terrorists. Since Nigeria isn't the only country that grapples with the question of what to do with— and to—nabbed terrorists, what can we learn from other countries?

 

The UK has a program that it calls "Desistance and Disengagement Programme," which works to de-radicalize terrorists. The US state of Minnesota, which has a large number of Somali immigrants and a fair amount of domestic terrorism, also has a "Terrorism Disengagement and Deradicalization Program" designed to jolt terrorists back from the precipice of fatal extremism. So do many countries in Europe and Asia.

 

The data from the UK is mixed, but it nevertheless provides a cautionary tale for Nigeria. For example, three past beneficiaries of the country's "Desistance and Disengagement Programme" went on to murder 24 people between 2017 and 2019 in the aftermath of their "deradicalization." Other countries have similar experiences.

 

Deradicalization of terrorists is not always a failure, of course. According to the Business Insider, "Between 2001-2012, Malaysia put 154 extremists through deradicalization schemes. Of those, 148 had 'successfully completed the de-radicalisation programme and were released, without later re-offending,' the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence (ICSR) wrote in a 2012 paper."

 

However, an emerging consensus is that because terrorists are often animated by a single-minded, tunnel vision of society, it is often impossible to be certain that a deradicalization program can reverse their predilection for violence. A 2019 research by the European Union's Radicalization Awareness Network, for instance, concluded that, "Even after the very best of prevention efforts, some individuals still go on to become (violent) extremists."

 

The Center for Research and Evidence on Security Threats (CREST) also said there is "limited evidence about what supports positive change, which makes it difficult to determine if an intervention's approach is likely to be successful."

 

Similarly, the UK's Christopher Dean, a psychologist who created a deradicalization program called the Healthy Identity Intervention (HII), admitted that it's difficult to be certain that a terrorist has been completely deradicalized. "People can get more reassured and confident about change and progress that people are making, but I think we have to be very careful about saying someone has totally changed or has been cured," the Independent of the UK quoted him as saying.

 

I don't know how Nigeria's Boko Haram terrorists are being deradicalized and rehabilitated—and I hope someone will systematically study this—but the result of their work stares us in the face. Many of the so-called deradicalized and reintegrated Boko Haram terrorists actually only reintegrate to their former terror cells from where they murder soldiers and civilians alike.

 

On July 26, for example, a soldier fighting Boko Haram in Borno sent the following social media message that tugged at my heart strings: "Good evening sir. I'm presently in Monguno. I've been wanting to hint you on the recent happenings. During the last two attacks June and July (in Monguno), some of the so called rehabilitated Boko Haram guys- Non State Armed Groups (NSAG) joined their former colleagues in attacking the community and ran back to the BUSH with them. This is to say that the whole rehabitation [sic] narrative is a sham."

 

Ali Ndume, who represents Borno South in the Senate, told ChannelsTV on July 30 that a recently "de-radicalized," "rehabilitated," and "reintegrated" Boko Haram terrorist murdered his father, stole his father's cows, and vanished.

 

"Some of them that returned to Damboa, after two, three days, they disappeared," he said. "I learnt reliably that even in the course of de-radicalisation, they said they are not willing to come to live with the infidels. This programme really needs to be looked into immediately. I am gathering information and position of my people and even go legal."

 

Ndume's observation has support in research. A German researcher by the name of Daniel Koehler who studied German neo-Nazis and terrorists inspired by religion found that, "The solitary problem for these individuals is always that there's a global conspiracy against their race or religion; the solitary solution to such persecution is violence, with the goal of placing themselves and their group in control of a revamped society."

 

They are not persuaded by moral or theological arguments, he said. He makes the case for "the careful reintroduction of problems and solutions into a radicalized person's life, so that they can no longer devote all their mental energy to stewing over their paranoia."

 

I doubt that the people who are tasked with the responsibility to "deradicalize" Boko Haram terrorists in Nigeria—if there are any, that is— have the intellectual resources to do what the German researcher suggested. How do the Boko Haram "deradicalizers" determine that "deradicalized" Boko Haram terrorists have "repented" and are ready to be unleashed to the societies they terrorized before their capture since even people who research the deradicalization of terrorists say no one can be certain that "deradicalized" terrorists won't relapse to their old ways?

 

 Plus, people in the communities that the Nigerian government is reintegrating Boko Haram terrorists to don't want these washed-up terrorists in their midst. Don't the people's opinions and preferences matter? TheCable of July 24 reported Borno residents to have told the government to integrate the terrorists back "to govt house or Aso Rock" instead of their communities.

 

The anger of the communities is understandable. While government is "reintegrating" terrorists, it is disintegrating the victims of the terrorists. While villainous Boko Haram terrorists are pampered, the surviving victims of Boko Haram's murderous barbarism endure precarious existence in filthy, dangerous Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps.  It's like they are being punished by the government for being victims of terrorists' brutalities.

While Boko Haram terrorists are being treated with excessive indulgence, their victims in IDP camps are serially raped—both figuratively and literally. Babachir David Lawal stole millions from them, and he is still walking free. Umar Farouq Sadiya stole date palms (worth millions of naira) donated to them by Saudi Arabia. She has been rewarded with appointment as minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development. The cruel irony!

 

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), women in IDP camps in the Northeast "resort to transactional sex for survival." Because of the unsanitary conditions of the IDPs, there are periodic outbreaks of cholera that kill scores of people. Plus, even in their state of helplessness, they are still subject to episodic Boko Haram murders.

 

When a Nigerian Airforce jet bombed an IDP camp in Rann, Borno State, on January 17, 2017 in error, which caused the death of at least 115 people, Buhari didn't find it worth his while to console them, much less visit them. About three months later, on March 22, 2017, Boko Haram bombed another IDP camp in the Muna Garage area of Maiduguri. Again, there was insouciant silence from the same government that is bending over backwards to please Boko Haram terrorists.

 

Obviously, the Buhari regime rewards and celebrates homicidal outlaws. Its message to Nigerians is unmistakably this: if they want to be taken seriously and indulged by government, they should be organized, vicious mass murderers.

Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D.

School of Communication & Media

Social Science Building 

Room 5092 MD 2207

402 Bartow Avenue
Kennesaw State University

Kennesaw, Georgia, USA 30144
Cell: (+1) 404-573-9697
Personal website: www.farooqkperogi.com

Twitter: @farooqkperogi

Author of Glocal English: The Changing Face and Forms of Nigerian English in a Global World

Nigeria's Digital Diaspora: Citizen Media, Democracy, and Participation

"The nice thing about pessimism is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised." G. F. Will

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