Boko Haram: Is there conspiracy among Borno stakeholders?

The occasional attempts by Boko Haram insur­gents to make state­ments with poorly thought out but nonetheless daring at­tacks is a thing of concern. I am concerned, not because I think the group can resurge to the sick height it got to in its de­pravity, but because factors and persons outside of the group would want it to and seem to be doing all they can to return the country into the nightmare scenario.

These concerns are neither misplaced nor exaggerated. For instance, I have constant­ly asked myself what it is that the people of the North-East, particularly Borno want. To the best of my knowledge and based on new reports, Boko Haram has been largely de­graded while several pledg­es have been made toward re­building the area – there is even a Northeast Develop­ment Commission in the off­ing with the enabling Act in the making before the National As­sembly. What is however miss­ing is the buy-in and support of those that parade as the lead­ers in Borno state.
Their contributions, if they can be so called, have been mostly petty politics, bicker­ing and self-interest that have only served to distract the an­ti-terror fight. In some instanc­es, these attitudes transcend the scope of distraction to look like deliberate acts of sabotaging ef­forts at bringing peace back to the place.
I consider the case of the Senator representing Bor­no Central, Baba Kaka Gra­bai, who as recently as Febru­ary this year claimed that the terror group controlled half of the state when the reverse was the case. He made this allega­tion at a time when the insur­gents barely controlled one lo­cal government or have been largely funneled into Sambi­sa Forest where troops are still cleaning out remnants of the terror group. There are other politicians in the state that are of the same bend. They act to boost the morale of insurgents and they cannot claim this was being done unwittingly.
The Chibok Girl’s Parents Association has been no less disruptive. Its chairman, Mr. Yakubu Nkeki, was more in­terested in the place of ances­try of a rescued girl than in the hope offered by another child escaping slavery and depriva­tion. The throve of intelligence she could offer and assist with the rescue of scores of the chil­dren still in the grips of terror­ists was insignificant so long as she was not abducted in Chi­bok or not on a list that the mil­itary had compiled of the stolen girls. The association through its utterances after the rescues suggested Chibok is a distinct state of the federation or even an independent republic that had no business with the rest of the country.
I am equally challenging Borno Elders Forum to prove they have done enough and that they have not been used or being used by embedded inter­ests in their ranks. They have taken positions in the past that left me wondering whether as elders they truly want the cri­sis to end and life returning to normal.
No less deserving of my dis­satisfaction is the National Se­curity Adviser (NSA), Brig-Gen. Babagana Munguno (rtd), who incidentally hails from that state. Layman think­ing would project that he would pitch in his best to use his office to restore peace to the state but nothing – body language, utter­ances and actions, has shown that he has any interest in end­ing the insurgency even now that Boko Haram has been bat­tered to its weakest. He should, in my expectations, be on the case of the Ministry of Defence and military services to deliver the last surviving Boko Haram terrorist to him for trial. Such request would follow only after properly empowering them of course. I don’t think any right thinking person would have accused him of being partial or sectional because the northeast is deserving of all the national attention it can get now.
And there are the other as­sorted collection of groups and caucuses that are used as fronts by the vicious politicians from the state and at federal level, who possibly want terrorism to be sustained because they have turned it into an indus­try; there is money to be made from federal government fund­ing and international organiza­tions’ intervention. If the group that necessitated the interven­tions gets wiped out, then the cash runs dry so for them this is not a desirable outcome. So they cook up the most outra­geous of stories to float so that troops can be distracted and the federal government left in con­fusion. Among their ranks are the collaborators that validate bogus claims of questionable NGOs that attempt to cripple troop’s ability to fight.
Not to be outdone are the so called activists from other states and the FCT that have some­how discovered that there is money to be made from disas­ters. The continued existence of Boko Haram guarantees their meal tickets since each atroci­ty the group commits provides another item to use for black­mailing the government.
I advise the Presidency that whatever progress is being made in the fight against Boko Haram must be weighed against the true intention of the lead­ers in Borno state. Do they want terrorism to be defeated or are they kin on retaining it as an in­dustry? How much has the col­lective attitude and influence of the all the groups identified above contributed to our not having finished the fight? Who else among the state’s popula­tion are working to continue giving the incentives to terror­ists? What roles have these vari­ous groups played at the various stages of the conflict?
I strongly think it would be damaging if President Buhari in his May 2017 speech has to again refer to the Boko Har­am fight in the present con­tinuous tense simply because the very people of the state are frustrating the war to end the insurgency. In case they have not noticed, the war is costing anything in the re­gion of a fourth of our (real) national expenditure in ad­dition to costing the lives of other Nigerians from oth­er states. There is another se­curity concern brewing up in the South-south for which the military is needed. So we can­not be fixated on Borno state forever. Those sustaining ter­rorism in the state – actively, through inaction or just sab­otage – should know that the fundamentals of the crisis are not inelastic; something will give soon.