STILL ON BOKO HARAM AND THE SO-CALLED REPENTANT ELEMENTS.

The Boko Haram insurgency has been on for about 11 years now. To date, this is the longest engagement the Nigerian government and Armed Forces have had to contend with. With all the resources at the disposal of the Nigerian government both human and material, the best that has been achieved in the Counter insurgency effort thus far is that the insurgency which at a point had spread like a wild fire in the Harmattan to other parts of our nation has been forceded back to where it started. The masterstroke to end it all does appear a long way off. That the insurgency has lasted this long would suggest that a lot of factors are involved. From a military point of view a few of the principles which for convenience I call factors in this post are worthy of examining. These will not be discussed in their order of priority and they are not exhaustive::

a. Local Support. Local Support is perhaps the most important factor that has sustained the insurgency for this long. Without the support of the local population the insurgency would naturally have suffered asphyxiation and therefore died out. The local population provides many of the combatants making up the rank and file of the insurgents. The insurgents use the local population as cover making it difficult for the security forces to easily identify. They are almost certainly being used for intelligence gathering as well as for some other logistic requirements. During a visit to the Area of Operation of the Multinational Task Force some years back just before leaving the Service yours sincerely saw and witnessed the level of neglect and deprivation in the area. The situation in the Lake Chad settlement of Duguri was particularly pathetic. There was completely no government presence of any sort here. No roads, no schools, no medical facilities of any sort yet the population there belongs to a District in a Local Government Area of a State in a country called Nigeria. The population of this area in a democracy ought to be represented by a a Councillor, a Member in the House if Assembly, a Senator as well as a Governor. This village is simply stranded or abandoned in the middle of nowhere. I have to mention here that it is the contingent of our soldiers station in the village of Duguri that set up a place where young kids from the population were being thought ABCD and 12345 and onwards. The population in Duguri in my honest view has no business identifying themselves as Nigerians because they were simply abandoned.

b. Ideology. Believing in an ideology or a cause is the oxygen, water and food that has sustained the insurgency for this long. Whatever radical ideology the local population may have been subjected to believing it is a herculean task to get the population truly de-radicalized.

c. Foreign Support. It is very difficult to recall any insurgency that succeeded in sustaining itself and survived without some girm foreign support. Usually, the foreign State will either provide the bases for initial training, part of the manpower requirement, weapons, logistics as well as funding. In the case of Boko Haram, the theatre is encompassed by Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Cameroon. Paradoxically, these nations were contributors to the Multi National Task Force which has been in operation in the area. The honesty of some of these countries will need to be urgently reassessed. That Boko Harsm has survived for this long does suggest that the lines of supply of weapons and ammunition has been open and operational. Failures by our foreign intelligence services and diplomatic failures have all contributed to prolonging the life of Boko Haram

d. Lack of Will. From the onset, it did appear that the government of Nigeria at the time the insurgency came to the open was tardy and lethargic in the approach to fighting the insurgents. At a point Boko Haram operatives were everywhere even as far south as Lagos State. The coming of a new government did indicate a will to tackling the insurgents thus pushing them to within areas bordering the Lake Chad. It is beginning to appear as if fatigue is setting in which may be responsible for the seeming stalemate.

Driving this assay is the information mostly in the Social Media on the issue of the so-called repentant Book Haram fighters. Nigerians are made to believe that the captured insurgents have been de-radicalized and therefore will be injected back to the society. Worried Nigerians are asking questions regarding the entire processes called de-radicalization and how thorough it is. Such skepticism to me is justified given the brutality depicted in the videos which the insurgents take delight in streaming on Social Media in order to instill fear in Nigerians. Since it has since been established that not all the insurgents are Nigerians we are yet to be told how many if the so-called repentant Book Haram members are foreigners and where they have or are going to be deported to as was done after the defeat and collapse of the Islamic Caliphate in Syria and Northern Iraq. Further down this dirt road would the entire effort not amount to recircling the so-ca repentant fighters back to the battle field. There is also the demoralizing effect on the part of our troops who fought to capture the insurgents seeing that these individuals are let loose once again and might just end up going back to rejoin the insurgents? The entire programme in my humble view is not only a dangerous gambit but a huge risk.

Since life is so hard in Naija, has the risk factor been taken into consideration that the so-called repentant Book Haram after they may have been returned to society may not be able ri survive the difficult times and may therefore be tempted to go back to the insurgency? I hope that due consideration is given to the risk of granting foreigners Nigerian citizenship simply because they claim to have repented. The very candid advice of the Borno State governor Prof Xullum to the effect that the nation should put an additional 100,000 men/women under arms for the counter insurgency effort is brilliant and should provide the final solution to Book Haram. I pray that the President acts in this advice.