By Wole Olaoye
When a chain breaks, the weakest link is the problem. To ensure that our organisational structure in all sectors of national life is geared to cope with whatever challenges life brings, we must first identify where our weaknesses might be. In the security sector, for instance, why have terrorists been so successful in running rings around our armed forces and security agencies and turning vast swathes of Nigerian territory into ungoverned spaces?
We have weak links in the apparatus of government. Right from the Buhari era when suspected Islamic zealots seemed to call the shots, to the current dispensation, where even the military seems to have been infiltrated, as evidenced by stories emanating from the avoidable loss of Brig-General M. Uba, the need for the removal of identified weak links has become urgent.
Nigerians welcomed the ‘resignation due to health reasons’ of the Defence Minister, Mohammed Abubakar Badaru who had served as Jigawa State governor before his Defence appointment. His recent replacement by General Christopher Musa received a loud ovation all over the federation. Nigerians say he is a round peg in a round hole. Even President Tinubu is perceived as having become a new, improved version of himself!
MATAWALLE
One of the weak links that many analysts expected the president to remove is the Minister of State for Defence, Alhaji Bello Matawalle. There is a general perception that Matawalle is pro-banditry. His successor as governor of Zamfara State, Dauda Lawal, alleges that Matawalle, as governor, paid ransom to bandits and hosted them at the government house during his tenure.
According to Lawal, “Certainly, Bello Matawalle cannot claim to be innocent in supporting terrorism and frustrating security operations. We can tell that his previous amnesty programme only empowered some bandits.”
But Matawalle countered: “I have no connection with bandits… I am innocent of accusations. Then as Zamfara State elected governor, I only engaged in dialogue with bandits and created an amnesty program for them as a non-kinetic strategy.”
I think President Tinubu should request Matawalle to submit his own resignation letter immediately so that the new broom in the person of General Musa can sweep maximally. Matawalle is a weak link!
The call by the Northern Governors’ Forum for the immediate establishment of state police is welcome. I don’t want to say, ‘I told you so’, but I’ve been campaigning for state police for the past decade. Welcome to the club!
IDEOLOGUES
Apart from financiers of terrorism whose list the government has so far refused to release, there are known ideologues of terrorism. You may call them spiritual fathers of terrorism — people like Sheik Ahmad Abubakar Gumi. The cleric says the terrorists are fighting for their rights and that the government should negotiate with them rather than sending the military to engage them.
On learning of President Trump’s declaration of intention to take out the terrorists, Gumi warns the American president to stay off: “Donald Trump has no right to come and attack our Nigerian brothers. Bandits are our brothers that we need to talk to calmly. The Nigerian government should negotiate with them and give them what they want… There will never be peace in Nigeria if the Tinubu government fails to negotiate with the bandits because they are fighting for their rights. It will be worse than it is right now if Donald Trump attacks the bandits.”
Weighing in, former presidential aide Bashir Ahmad has criticised calls from the United States for Nigeria to abolish Sharia law and disband Hisbah commissions, describing the move as an attempt to interfere in Nigeria’s internal matters.
“The United States has absolutely no right to dictate to us how we should live, govern ourselves or practice our faith as Nigeria is a sovereign nation with our own Constitution, democratic institutions, cultural values and legal frameworks,” insisted Ahmad.
Alhaji Bashir Dalhatu of the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) and other terror enablers justify banditry by comparing it to the militancy in the oil producing Niger-Delta areas. They advocate for the implementation of a compensatory scheme similar to the amnesty programme which provided alternative livelihood for the fishing communities whose environment had been defiled by oil producing operations.
Niger-Delta militants were activists with a globally recognised environmental cause. What is the cause for which northern bandits are killing, maiming, kidnapping, collecting tributes from terrorised territories, and, indeed, holding court as de facto rulers in their conquered spaces?
The Gumi school of thought seems to believe that the apparently choreographed export of bandits and kidnappers to the South, which has become an open secret, will pressurise southern leaders to negotiate to give a slice of the federal budget to bandits for peace to reign. He is counting on the famed lethargy of the Nigerian security system.
Surely, he must have heard the story of three foul-mouthed mullahs who met their match in Burkina Faso earlier in the year. Three extremist Muslim preachers— El Hadj Traoré, Mohammed Bachir and Ouédraogo Moussa— were each sentenced to one year in prison in Burkina Faso for publicly denigrating a national day dedicated to African ancestral traditions (May 15) by sermonising that ancestral practices were fetishistic, and for inciting violence.
Against the run of play, another video clip has been lately making the rounds crediting Gumi with praying to God to expose and punish sponsors of terrorism in Nigeria. Now, which version of Gumi should we believe? Or is this all about Taqiyya to avoid President Trump’s doomsday threat?
While terror enablers are playing their games, there are alternative voices untainted by agendas of doubtful integrity. One of such, Prof Salisu Shehu, indicts the political leaders in the North for bad governance and calls for an immediate change.
“In the North,” says the scholar, “we are now living in two worlds and the two worlds never meet. We have the world of the rich and the other one for the poor. Unlike what used to happen in the past, the schools of the rich are different from those of the poor. We have separate hospitals for the rich and the poor. Other facilities and social programmes are designed to favour the rich. The poor have no security while the rich are protected by the security agencies that are supposed to protect the whole society.”
Like Prof Shehu, Lawyer Malcolm Emokiniovo Omirhobo argues that honesty is the key in locating the causes of the problems afflicting the North and proffering solutions to them. Omirhobo argues that, “If Northern leaders are serious about ending insecurity,” they must, among other things, “Dismantle ideological support for banditry; end selective justice; reinforce constitutional supremacy over Sharia criminal law, and mandate compulsory education for all children.”
MINING
The request of the Northern governors that mining activities in the region be suspended for six months to break the nexus between mining and banditry is a well-considered one. This is not the time to start shaming the traditional, religious, political and social leaders whose incompetence and complicity rendered their states spreadeagled. However, considering how normalised lawlessness has become, we need foreign partnership. It cannot be a gradualist affair. We can’t afford another hit-today-miss-tomorrow.
I am all for bringing in military contractors to augment the efforts of our armed forces immediately. Existential threats deserve prompt annihilation!