AGENCY FOR REPENTANT BOKO HARAM MEMBERS: A WIN OR LOSS FOR OUR DEMOCRACY …..By Lateef Isiaq Adewale

Just few days after proposed agency for repentant Boko haram terrorists, the group launched fresh attack in which four police officers and two civilian militiamen were killed at a military base in northeast Nigeria’s Borno state on Wednesday, security sources told AFP.

For more than a decade now, the north eastern part of the country, particularly Borno, Adamawa states has suffered from boko haram activities. About 36,000 people have been killed either through bomb attack, gunshot, slaughtering and over two million others have been displaced from their homes, villages, towns while countless number of young individuals have been separated from their parents.

In April 2014, Boko Haram kidnapped 276 schoolgirls from Chibok. On 3 January 2015, Boko Haram attacked Baga, seizing it and the multinational joint task force military base. The death toll was estimated to be closer to 150 during the massacre. On 25 January, the militants advanced to Monguno, capturing the town and a nearby military base. Also, Boko Haram militants attacked multiple mosques between 1 and 2 July 2015 where Forty-eight men and boys were killed on the 1st at one mosque in Kukawa. Seventeen were wounded in the attack. Ninety-seven others, mostly men, were killed in numerous mosques on the 2nd with a number of women and young girls killed in their homes. An unknown number were wounded.

Furthermore, Boko Haram kidnapped 110 schoolgirls from the Government Technical Girls College in Dapchi, Yobe, on 19 February 2018. Boko Haram reportedly released all but one of the girls by 21 March same year. Several number of churches, villages, markets and public places have been equally targeted by the sects.

While many will argue that insurgency is a global challenge, the presence of Boko haram and the kind of respect been given to them by the Nigeria government makes it look more like a self-inflicted problem and the lack of direction by the government has dealt us a huge blow as a commoner.

Recently a bill seeking the establishment of an agency for repentant member of Boko haram sect was launched at the national house of assembly to the surprise of many Nigerians. The agency will carry out reintegration process of the Boko Haram terrorists into the Nigerian society. Part of the agency responsibilities according to the proposed legislation, would include education for insurgents. It would also rehabilitate, de-radicalize and integrate the repentant insurgents in the country.
The bill titled, ‘National Agency for the Education, Rehabilitation, De-radicalization and Integration of Repentant Insurgents in Nigeria’ raises a question of responsibility, goodwill and openness on the part of government. People wants to know the what, why and how suddenly enemies could be turned to a friend and be pardoned for no reason.

Judging by the credibility of the bill sponsorer Senator Gaidam who is representing Yobe east district in the senate and also the immediate past governor of Yobe state, it is clear there are lots of grey area on the issue of Boko haram if only the northern leaders and the present federal administration will come out openly to tell Nigerian the truth about Boko haram insurgents.

A security expert and columnist, Ben Okezie described the bill as very unfortunate, stressing that such agency will not work during the peak of crisis. He also condemned the idea of trying to de-radicalize already highly radicalized Boko Haram members.

He pointed out that, “To de-radicalize them, you start from before they join the insurgency and not when they have entered. By the time they join the insurgency; their mind is twisted and made up. The ideology they have imparted into them is like opium just like Karl Max said that the opium of the people is religion. That is why they can shoot and kill anybody.

In his visit to Borno recently president Muhammad Buhari noted while addressing the borno state governor and the Sheu of Borno that “This Boko Haram or whoever they are, cannot come up to Maiduguri or its environs to attack without the local leadership knowing; because traditionally the local leadership is in charge of the security in their own respective areas. In my understanding of our culture, I wonder how Boko Haram survives up to this time.

The biggest challenge is the unknown parameter set up to identify the reality of the self-acclaimed repentant insurgent members. How did our dear Senators hope to instill confidence in Nigerians to live with criminals whose real identity or motives we do not know? Can we consider it enough for a criminal to become a born-again just by utterances or mere tongue proclamation without good intent?

Since president Buhari came to power in 2015, large number of detained Boko haram members have been released on swap deals, and recently for rehabilitation purpose. In 2016, about 294 were freed and each of the released members were paid 3000 Naira as token. Further 1400 repentant members were release February this year and they are soon to be joined by another 606 members as reported by Nigeria tribune.

In a nation where government depends on loan to run its affairs, despite the fact that the larger share of annual security votes is kept for battling insurgency ‘on paper’. Quite number of people are of the view that the propose agency for repentant Boko haram is another attempts to defraud our national reserves and fill the pocket of politicians in the affected states.

Katherine Dixon, Director of Transparency International Defense & Security said:

“The security vote is one of the most durable forms of corruption operating in Nigeria today. Yet instead of addressing its many urgent threats, the ever-increasing use of security votes is providing corrupt officials with an easy-to-use and entirely hidden slush fund.”

“Corruption in the crucial sector of defence and security plays right into the hands of those who seek to sow the seeds of instability and terror. It leaves armed forces under-resourced in the fight against Boko Haram and feeds groups who may destabilize the elections.”

The media, public analysts and in fact general masses have come up with series of conspiracy theory about the identity of this blood-thirsty group and the forces behind their establishment. Some believes that the group was being sponsored by eminent northern politicians to make the country “ungovernable” for former President Good luck Jonathan because he is a Christian and from a minority ethnic group in the south. If this theory were true, Buhari’s victory over Jonathan would have mellowed the group. But it hasn’t up to his second term in office.

There are others who thought Boko Haram was being sponsored or ignored by former President Jonathan—either to depopulate the north ahead of the 2015 general elections or to make Islam look bad in order to enable the former president to use religion as a tool of mobilization for his candidacy. Boko Haram’s continued mayhem long after Jonathan’s loss of power negates any suggestion that he was sponsoring the group—or the similar claim that he deliberately did not do enough to stop them because it was a “northern problem.”

At a certain time, the army accused some influential leaders of the northern state of deliberately undermining their efforts to defeat Boko Haram because they were profiting from the situation. Personally, I agree that northern leaders have not done enough to justify the claim that they are not making money or get appraisal anytime Boko haram attacks.

According to an investigation, a researcher writes on similar issue related to defining the rudiments of boko haram insurgency. He writes in his abstract that:

“There have been widespread assumptions across the globe that the root cause of Boko Haram terrorism in Nigeria is religious rather than socio-economic. An investigation into this dichotomy allowed this study to fully demonstrate that the root cause of Boko Haram’s terrorist actions emanates from the non-fulfillment of socio-economic goals that are prompted by the violation of fundamental human rights, corruption, and poverty, unconstitutional and undemocratic practices in the northern part of the Nigerian state.

The Empirical evidence from the study demonstrated that the evolution of Boko Haram terrorism was a response to socio-economic phlebotomy, political and moral putrescence and the dehumanization of people that stem from a combination of decades of mismanagement and pervasive corruption by various Nigerian leaders.

The study concludes that, as long as the endemic socio-economic problems caused by global capitalism vis-a-vis unequal hegemonic power exchange as expressed in socio-political, ethno-religious and cultural forms persist in the Nigerian society, the terrorism insurgency will recur and remain an inevitable enterprise and indeed a normal social reaction to every undesirable state of affairs. Based on the findings, the study urges the need for the amelioration of the conditions of the vast majority of the Nigerian populace by making socio-economic facilities available to them through the political state”

With the brutal experience and vagueness of hope in surmounting further Boko Haram attacks, should Nigerian in the hope of peace and harmony salute our dear senators for rewarding criminals or accept the bill as a dearth of intelligent on public issues from the bill sponsored?