To say that the Boko Haram conundrum has thrown the country into a sort of a Catch-22 situation is a gross understatement in today’s Nigeria, especially given President Muhammadu Buhari’s past utterances and current body language regarding the worsening insecurity across the country.
Before Buhari won the 2015 presidential election and was sworn in as Nigeria’s President, he saw the fight against Boko Haram insurgents in the North-East by the administration of his predecessor, Dr Goodluck Jonathan, as a fight and “gross injustice” against the entire North.
And what started in the North over ten years ago as a fitful breeze in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, has today become a Tsunami of wanton violence and killings sweeping across the North-East, the North-West, North-Central and even the Southern parts of the country now threatening to carry the whole of Nigeria into the dark abyss.
Today, no part of the country is insulated from the widespread spate of violence that has gripped the entire country by its jugular. Yesterday’s Boko Haram insurgents in Borno State and the North-East have today graduated and transformed to bandits, killer herdsmen and kidnappers for ransom in the other parts of the country. Nigerians all over the country now sleep with their two eyes wide open throughout the night, and in the daytime, constantly look beyond their shoulders, as no one knows when and where the agents of cheap death in Nigeria – Boko Haram insurgents, bandits, killer herdsmen and kidnappers – can strike.
Incessant killings by Boko Haram, bandits and kidnappers have somewhat become part of the norm in Northern Nigeria. In fact, the current situation in the North is nothing short of the Hobbesian state of nature, where life has become ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.‘ Primary, secondary and tertiary educational institutions’ students are not spared by these vampires baying for blood. Unfortunately, this is creeping into the Southern part of the country through the deadly activities of killer herdsmen who have taken to kidnapping for ransom.
But the reasons for all these are not far-fetched: President Muhammadu Buhari’s past utterances and current body language have gone a long way, over the years, in thrusting the country deeper into the current security logjam.
Below is the chronology of Buhari’s past utterances and his administration’s current laid-back attitude that have fuelled the activities of the Boko Haram insurgents and foisted on the country the current intractable security situation that is now threatening the foundation and continued corporate existence of the entire Nigerian nation.
November 2012: BOKO HARAM PICKS BUHARI AS ITS CHIEF NEGOTIATOR WITH JONATHAN’S GOVT
Buhari’s critics are always quick to recall his choice by the Boko Haram insurgents in 2012 as its chief negotiator with the then President Goodluck Jonathan administration.
The insurgent group had in November 2021 opted for dialogue with the Jonathan-led Federal Government and had picked Buhari, then a former military head of state, as mediator.
Earlier in 2011, Buhari had contested the presidential election on the platform of his Congress for Progressive Change against President Jonathan of the Peoples Democratic Party, who had defeated him, triggering a post-election violence in which hundreds of Nigerians were killed and property worth hundreds of millions of Naira destroyed in the Northern states.
In addition to the choice of Buhari as mediator, Boko Haram also proposed Saudi Arabia for the talks suggested long ago by the Jonathan government to ascertain the sect’s grievances.
Other prominent Northerners picked by the Boko Haram along with Buhari as members of its negotiating team were Dr. Shettima Ali Monguno, Senator Bukar Abba Ibrahim, Ambassador Gaji Galtimari, Mrs Aisha Alkali Wakil and her husband, Alkali Wakil.
Boko Haram, on its part, named Abu Mohammed Ibn Abdulaziz, said then to be the next in command to the group’s leader, Abubakar Shekau, as leader of its team to the talks. He was scheduled to be joined by Abu Abbas, Sheik Ibrahim Yusuf, Sheik Sani, Kantagora and the then detained Mamman Nur.
June 2013: BUHARI WARNS JONATHAN TO STOP KILLING BOKO HARAM MEMBERS
In championing the cause of the Boko Haram insurgents and serving as its unofficial mouthpiece, Buhari in June 2013, attacked the Jonathan administration for allegedly killing Boko Haram members and destroying their properties.
Buhari, who spoke on a Liberty Radio programme, Guest of the Week, monitored by the various national newspapers, had warned the Jonathan government to stop the clampdown on members of the insurgent group, saying Niger Delta militants were never killed and their properties not destroyed as it was being done to the Boko Haram insurgents.
He had accused the Jonathan government of giving preferential and special treatment to the Niger Delta militants.
Buhari had then also said Jonathan failed from the beginning to address the security situation in the country, adding that he had never supported declaration of a state of emergency in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states, a measure adopted by the then Jonathan-led Federal Government to checkmate the activities of the rampaging Boko Haram insurgents.
He had condemned the then Jonathan government’s military offensive against the Boko Haram insurgents as gross injustice against the north.
Justifying the insurgent activities of the Boko Haram vis-à-vis the Niger Delta militants and faulting the clampdown on the sect by the Jonathan administration, Buhari had then added, “What happened is that the governors of the Niger Delta region at that time wanted to win their elections. So, they recruited the youths and gave them guns and bullets and used them against their opponents to win elections by force.
“After the elections were over, they asked the boys to return the guns; the boys refused to return the guns. Because of that, the allowance that was being given to the youths by the governors during that time was stopped.
“The youths resorted to kidnapping oil workers and were collecting dollars as ransom. Now, a boy of 18 to 20 years was getting about 500 dollars in a week, why will he go to school and spend 20 years to study and then come back and get employed by government to be paid N100,000 a month, that is if he is lucky to get employment.
“So, kidnapping becomes very rampant in the South -South and the South -East. They kidnapped people and were collecting money.
“How did Boko Haram start? We know that their leader, Mohammed Yusuf started his militant group and the police couldn’t control them and the army was invited. He was arrested by soldiers and handed over to the police.
“The appropriate thing to do, according to the law, was for the police to carry out investigations and charge him to court for prosecution, but they killed him, his in-law was killed, they went and demolished their houses. Because of that, his supporters resorted to what they are doing today.
“You see in the case of the Niger Delta militants, the late President Umaru Musa Yar’adua sent an aeroplane to bring them, he sat down with them and discussed with them, they were cajoled, and they were given money and granted amnesty.
“They were trained in some skills and were given employment, but the ones in the north were being killed and their houses were being demolished.
“They are different issues; what brought this? It is injustice.”
NOVEMBER 2018: BUHARI STOPS SOUTH AFRICAN MERCENARY FIRM HIRED BY JONATHAN FROM FIGHTING BOKO HARAM
Following Buhari’s election as Nigeria’s President in 2015, his administration terminated the contract previously entered into by the government of his predecessor, Jonathan, with South African mercenaries to combat and bring an end to the Boko Haram menace in the Northern part of the country.
Founder of the South African mercenary company, Specialised Tasks, Training, Equipment and Protection, Eeben Barlow, later revealed how Buhari stopped his firm from carrying on the fight against the Boko-Haram terrorists in Nigeria.
Barlow, in a Facebook post, had accused Buhari and his team of antagonising and politicising his firm’s proposal to help Nigeria to fight and defeat Boko Haram “even before they assumed office.”
FEBRUARY 11, 2020: FG SETS FREE 1,400 BOKO HARAM SUSPECTS
In February 2020, the President Buhari-led Federal Government released about 1,400 Boko Haram fighters earlier arrested by the military, an action kicked against by some soldiers at the war front in the North-East.
Borno State Commissioner for Information, Babakura Jato, told newsmen that the 1,400 suspects were released in three tranches since the launching of Operation Safe Corridor programme.
Operation Safe Corridor is an initiative for the deradicalisation and rehabilitation of all ex-Boko Haram fighters.
But Jato said majority of those released had already been cleared.
However, in their reactions to the development, soldiers, who confirmed the release of the suspects, queried why suspected Boko Haram members were being released in such large numbers when the war against insurgency was still far away from ending.
They complained that the Boko Haram suspects being released had often taken part in killing soldiers capture by the sect in the ongoing war against the insurgents.
According to one of the soldiers, “A lot of soldiers are not happy about this. We were there at the Maimalari barracks when some of these Boko Haram people were released.
“The authorities are releasing them, but Boko Haram are killing soldiers that they capture. This does not make sense to us at all. We continue to sweep across the bushes to flush these people out, and then the government will release them. Does that not amount to wasted efforts?”
Another soldier said most of the released suspects were not repentant and would sooner than later find their way back to the forest to re-join the other insurgents to continue their atrocities.
“You wonder why Boko Haram members are on the increase. When we arrest them and bring them here, some top people would come and start negotiating their release. But, I will tell you some of these so-called suspects are returning to the bush and they were never repentant,” he said.
But the then Defence Headquarters spokesperson, Onyema Nwachukwu, argued that the release of the ex-Boko Haram fighters were in line with Operation Safe Corridor.
“We’ve made some releases, that’s the truth. We should know what the operation is about. But take note, it’s not that we capture Boko Haram suspects and then go back and release them. No,” he said.
He said that the operation was under the direct supervision of the defence headquarters and was being managed in conjunction with 13 civil society organisations.
“The civil organisations involved in the operation include UNICEF, International Office on Migration (IOM) and relevant government ministries and security agencies. Not left out of the oversight structure of the operation is the Gombe state govt where the DRR facility is located. As a testimony to the effectiveness of the Safe Corridor initiative, so far, about 800 ex Boko Haram fighters who would have unleashed unimaginable terror on citizens have been admitted and out of which 287 of them have been successfully rehabilitated and reintegrated into society, with many still undergoing the DRR programme,” he said.
During the launch of the operation in 2016, the military said the aim was to rehabilitate and reintegrate repentant Boko Haram members back into the society.
But more than four years after, the story has not changed. Insecurity created by the insurgents has even grown worse with many of them migrating to other parts of the North and even the South, where they are now operating as bandits, killer herdsmen and kidnappers.
JULY 2020: FG RELEASES 603 ‘REPENTANT’ BOKO HARAM TERRORISTS BACK TO SOCIETY
Again, in July 2020, the Buhari government released another batch of 603 repentant Boko Haram terrorists back into the society after they had completed Deradicalisation, Rehabilitation and Reintegration programme.
Justifying the latest release of the captured insurgents, the then spokesperson for the Defence Headquarters, Major-General John Enenche, had said the DRR programme under Operation Safe Corridor had recorded tremendous success, judging from the feedback from previous trainees.
Enenche had added that OPSC had admitted 893 ex-combatants for the programme out of which 280, including two Chadians, had been successfully reintegrated back into the society through their respective national and state authorities.
According to him, “Presently, there are 603 of them undergoing the DRR programme and would be graduating by July 2020.
“The operation is a success story as feedback from those reintegrated are positive.
“A particular one in Bama who learnt barbing as a vocation has successfully empowered four locals and is happily married with children.”
But rather than the security situation in the North-East to improve, it got worse with the Boko Haram insurgents ambushing and killing scores of soldiers involved in the war against insurgency in the region inspite of the frequent “technical defeat” the military under the Buhari government claimed to have recorded against them.
JULY 12, 2020: 356 SOLDIERS FIGHTING BOKO HARAM RESIGN FROM ARMY, CITE LOSS OF INTEREST
These frequent ambushing and killing of soldiers by the Boko Haram fighters prompted many members of the Nigerian Armed Forces to begin to desert and abscond from the war front.
In July 2020, about 356 soldiers fighting Boko Haram in the North-East took the bull by the horn and tendered their resignation to the then Chief of Army Staff, Lt General Tukur Buratai, citing loss of interest their reason for applying for voluntary disengagement from the military.
The soldiers wrote to Buratai on July 3, 2020, under Reference NA/COAS/001, quoting the Harmonised Terms and Conditions of Service soldiers/rating/airmen (Revised) 2017.
The approval of the voluntary disengagement of the 356 soldiers was contained in a 17-page circular from Buratai, AHQ DOAA/G1/300/92, signed by Brig Gen T.E. Gagariga for the army chief.
Also, the document was copied to Headquarters, Theatre Command, Operation Lafiya Dole, Borno State, the Headquarters of 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 81, and 82 Divisions of the Nigerian Army and other formations.
It was, however, observed from the list that the majority of the soldiers applying for voluntary disengagement and citing loss of interest were from the North-East theatre of operation – a development which military sources attributed to loss of morale, poor weapons, unimproved allowances and the continuous loss of soldiers to Boko Haram attacks.
BOKO HARAM KILLING OF TROOPS IN NORTH-EAST WORSENED FROM JANUARY 2020
Since the beginning of 2020, Boko Haram onslaughts on military locations in the North-East also intensified with large casualties on the part of troops of the Nigerian Army.
In March 2020, the Defence Headquarters, Abuja, said 47 soldiers were killed by a bomb explosion triggered by Boko Haram in Gorigi near Allargano Forest area in Borno State.
Within the same month, the army confirmed losing three soldiers while others were injured in a Boko Haram attack in the Damboa Local Government Area of Borno.
Similarly in May 2020, the insurgents also attacked an army location belonging to the 156 Battalion in the Mainok area with at least 10 gun trucks, killing five soldiers and injured others.
JUNE 2020: BOKO HARAM KILLS ARMY COMMANDER IN BORNO
Also in June 2020, the Boko Haram terrorists became emboldened and shot dead an acting Commanding Officer of the army, Major K. Yakubu, during a gun battle in the Doron Naira and Magaji areas of Borno State.
The late Commanding Officer, who was in charge of 401 Special Forces Brigade, also lost some of his troops in the terrorists’ attack.
The 356 soldiers, who applied for voluntary retirement citing loss of interest, included Master Warrant Officers, Warrant Officers, Staff Sergeants, Sergeants, Lance Corporals, Corporals and Privates.
The total number on the list of voluntary disengagement is 380; while 356 cited loss of interest, 24 claimed to be preparing “to take a traditional title.”
But writing on behalf of Buratai, in the document, Gagariga said, “In compliance with the provisions of Reference A, the COAS vide Reference B has approved the voluntary and medical discharge of the above named MWO, and 385 others listed as Annexes A and B.
“The soldiers are to proceed on terminal leave December 3, 2020, while their disengagement date takes effect from January 3, 2021, in accordance with the Nigerian Army Administrative Policy and Procedures No 27 Paragraphs 3 and 4. Accordingly, I am directed to request formations and units to release all affected soldiers to report at the Headquarters, Garrison, with their unit service documents for documentation.
“All forms of military-controlled items, arms, ammunition, and items of combat kits are recovered from the soldiers prior to their disengagement date and certify that they are properly de-kitted. Please acknowledge.”
DISCONTENTMENT IN THE ARMY OVER BOKO HARAM ONSLAUGHTS
But a military source said the mass disengagement was indicative of the general discontentment in the army, and against the leaders.
In recent times, soldiers have also appeared in viral videos complaining about the poor quality of their fighting equipment in the North-East and how the Boko Haram terrorists are able to attack and kill troops due to alleged insiders’ connivance.
JULY 2020: 601 ‘REPENTANT’ BOKO HARAM FIGHTERS GRADUATE, PAID N20,000 EACH
In July 2020, 601 repentant terrorists who were being reintegrated into their communities were given N20,000 stipends and some basic equipment to practise their respective vocations.
The repentant terrorists included 14 foreign nationals from Cameroon, Chad and Niger Republic.
Borno State Commissioner for Information, Babakura Jatau, said the funds and the starter packs were given to the repentant terrorists by the North East Development Commission.
Jatau denied reports that the state government gave each of the beneficiaries N100,000.
He said only about 10 per cent of the 601 repentant terrorists were actually Boko Haram members while the rest were those who were abducted and became accomplices.
The commissioner said, “They are 601 of them and the question of government giving them N100,000 each does not arise. What happened is that the North East Development Commission gave them starter packs. Some of them trained as barbers so they were given clippers and generators and then given N20,000 cash and their shops will be paid for.
“What the government will do is that they will be brought to Borno State from Gombe and they will be housed in two orientation camps where there are facilities for training and for them to practise whatever they were taught in Gombe.”
EX-DSS DIRECTOR KICKS
But a former Director of the Department of State Services, Mike Ejiofor, had kicked against the re-integration of the repentant Boko Haram members, saying it was ill-timed.
Ejiofor had said Nigeria’s ability to manage and utilise data was not sufficient.
He had said, “It is an unfortunate decision as far as I am concerned and it is not welcome at all. If you are taking their DNA, that is not enough because do we even have data? It will increase crime rate and banditry in that area.
“The government should have thought this through and not reintegrate them into society just like that. It is not a welcome development.”
BUHARI’S ALLEGED ‘SYMPATHY’ FOR INSURGENTS
Critics of the Buhari administration have consistently accused it of handling the issue of the members of the insurgent Boko Haram group with kid gloves and analysts have argued that with the above cited situations and occurrences, they may not be wide of the mark.
According to them, the somewhat alleged laid-back attitude of the President to the killings and atrocities by the Boko Haram, especially since he took over the reins of governance from his predecessor, President Jonathan, has betrayed his alleged sympathy for the insurgents.
The controversy generated by the recent statement by the Presidency’s backing for the embattled Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr Isa Pantami, over his past comments supporting the activities of two international terrorist organisations – Al-Qaeda and the Taliban – further underscored the claim by Buhari’s critics that his administration had not been decisive enough about the crusade against the Boko Haram insurgents.