Let us look at the issue of Boko Haram!

It would be sheer arrogance on my part to say I have a solution and it would be sheer sophistry on the part of anybody to claim to have a solution to the Boko Haram issue. It is not a local issue.

It is part of a global movement. I dare say – and I expect my fellow intellectuals to tear my idea to shreds if they disagree with what I’m saying – that I have not heard of or seen any insurgency that has been successfully contained when such is operating from its own environment, is it in Chechnya, Somalia, Afghanistan! If you talk about Africa they may say it is because we are incompetent so let us talk about their own. The drug movement in Latin America is an insurgency on its own; have they been able to address it.

Insurgency could have different manifestations you know. The only area where they’ve been able to successfully handle it is a situation whereby the insurgency is not operating in its own environment. So, the Americans and the British and the Europeans can deal with the Al-Qaeda in their own area because it is easy to spot a non- black American or Latino but the fact that they themselves have not been able to extinguish it successfully is because they have a sizable community of people where Al-Qaeda operatives can mingle with.

I’ve heard of the half-baked IRA solution and I was listening to McGuiness the other day where the IRA knew that it could not defeat the British and the British also realized that it could not just extinguish the IRA, then talks entered proper mode.

Therefore, we must get to the point where Boko Haram would realize that the Nigerian nation is capable of absorbing the shocks and therefore, it can not defeat the nation; just as the federal government too should come to the realization that it can not defeat Boko Haram with brute force alone, for it to make sense that there must be talks. In the case of the IRA and the British, they were talking and playing cat and mouse game while the bombings continued. It makes sense for the federal government to say let us talk but all those conditions of release all our people, pull out the troops would not work. No way for that. That is not the way to go.

If you were the President and Commander-in-Chief and people are haranguing you to pull out the troops from their area, that the militarization is hurting their people, how would you handle that?

Let me tell you this, if I were the President and some leaders are saying I should pull my troops out, I’ll simply pull those troops out and leave them to face Boko Haram on their own.

‘You want the troops out’? Yes, I’ll pull the troops out.

They think those troops enjoy being in the rain and under the sun? In spite of the training the troops too panic. They also feel threatened. Look at what happened to the police! You then come out and say your area has been over-garrisoned. You want them out I’ll opal them out and then within one week, the same people will come back to beg for these troops to come back. You know it is convenient to sit in the comfort of Abuja or Lagos and just talk and criticize a government that is trying to do something. Well, may be that is why I am not the president.

What would you say about the proposed creation of a Ministry of Northern Affairs?
Let me be very, very clear about my position: I think the concept of a Ministry of Northern Affairs is a solution that would even create more explosive problems at the end of the day. This is an idea that came from the United States of America, from the concept that the problem that led to Boko Haram, basically poverty, is unique to the North. As I’ve said at many forums before, poverty is not unique to the North – go to Abonema, go to Ajegunle, go to Benin, go to Ibadan, go to Jos, go to any part of this country, poverty among the youths is written bold and clear so I don’t see a Northern poverty. I see poverty among Nigerian youths. Obviously what you need to address poverty in my village would be different from what you need to address poverty in Port Harcourt or Kano or Abonema or Kafanchan; but it is still poverty that is crying out for attention.

At this point let me say it was an error of judgment to have created a Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs and this is what is now leading people to the dead end of creating a Ministry of Northern Affairs.

If you were President Jonathan and you were thrown up the way he was, and people are already trying to harangue you, what would you be telling Nigerians?
I don’t want to address that specific question at all because my position has been very, very basic but unfortunately, it is going to be subject to be subject to misinterpretation and even before now it was misinterpreted. We do not have a sense of history in this country.

People would forget that it was in an address to Yoruba Tennis Club, either in 1999 or 200 and the title of that paper was ON ZONING, POWER ROTATION AND ALL OTHER ABRACADABRA and I said it very clearly that I don’t believe in zoning and I don’t believe in power rotation – mind you, a Yoruba man was president at that time.

If we have clean and transparent elections, it would be irrelevant who rules Nigeria. So if the wrong person comes in and proves incompetent the people can then vote him out at the next elections but this concept of zoning limits the choice; I said so; and I said that what has led to this is because elections were never free and fair and people came to the conclusion that since we can not get the type of leadership that we want through the electoral process and that the electoral process in Nigeria ratifies decisions and selection that had been made elsewhere. I said it at that time; Obasanjo was the President at that time. So I don’t want to be distracted from addressing fundamental issues by now dealing with consequences of concepts I don’t believe in.

Full interview here:http://www.vanguardngr.com/2012/05/poverty-insurgency-and-the-way-forward-by-bolaji-akinyemi/