The wink and nod that spur Boko Haram

 

The wink and nod that spur Boko Haram BY LEWIS OBI

It was Shehu Sani, President of the Civil Rights Congress of Nigeria, who wrote a most significant letter on May 20, 2014, urging the Sultan of Sokoto to spearhead the search for the Chibok girls. Five days later, the Sultan, Sa’ad Abubakar III, took up the gauntlet and told a congregation of Muslims at the National Mosque, Abuja: “Terrorism has no place in Islam… we must rise up, as always, with one voice to condemn all acts of terrorism, condemn those terrorists wherever they are and try our possible best as Muslims to ensure peace reigns in our community.”

“The insurgents have consistently justified all their actions on religious (Islamic) ground,” Sani had argued, adding that the Sultan, as the supreme head of all Muslims in Nigeria, ought to demonstrate “a moral duty and a spiritual responsibility to be visibly and actively involved in seeking the resolution of this impasse…”
The Sultan then pledged to help the government at all levels to bring peace in Nigeria. “Whatever we can do, as long as it is not against Islam, we are ready to do it 100 per cent,” he declared. But much as he would work for peace, “Muslims want and also demand to be treated with equality, with justice, with fairness and, Inshallah, (God willing) things will turn around.”
Although the Sultan’s remarks came 40 days after the abduction of the Chibok girls, the ambiguity or conditionality in the remarks was not lost on anyone. This ambiguity is pervasive in the Muslim hierarchy; it is dominant in Muslim media and is Boko Haram’s primary sustenance.
By 30 July 2009, Boko Haram had been annihilated and left for dead by Nigerian security forces. The northern governors had issued a statement in triumph: “We believe in the values of Islam and we will defend the values of Islam. But we would not tolerate people who exploit the ignorance of our people and try to cause mayhem. We would do whatever is necessary to protect the lives and property of our people. We would do whatever is necessary to get rid of such a group.”
The Borno State Governor at the time, Modu Ali Sheriff, was effusive in his praise of President Umaru Yar’Adua of blessed memory. “I requested him (Yar’Adua) to intervene and Borno State is grateful to him because if not for his quick intervention, what happened would have been beyond comprehension… As far as I am concerned, he (Mohammed Yusuf, Boko Haram’s founder) was a devil and God made it possible for him (Yar’Adua) to intervene at the right time to stop the madness once and for all.”
The Police were unapologetic about killing Yusuf: “We had arrested him several times and he was remanded in Kuje Prison. Yet the court always released him. So what do you expect the police to do.”
Governor Sheriff explained: “I saw this crisis coming the very moment I got an audio tape of Yusuf’s sermon where he dared me, and the Nigerian State, as well as the Commander-in-Chief of this country, (President Umaru Yar’Adua).”
“He was daring every leader. What made me feel bad was that he was boasting that he had been arrested before and released and that even if he was arrested again, nothing would happen. At that stage, I got really worried.”
“He threatened that they knew where we slept, our route to the offices and therefore they would deal with us. He specifically mentioned my name and said I was the biggest ‘kaffir,’ unbeliever, who must be dealt with.”
The then governor remarked that Boko Haram was more dangerous than the Maitatsine sect of the 1980s. “It was more scary, nobody knew they had the capacity to do what they did. The police could not contain them.”
To the Police, therefore, Boko Haram was history. To northern governors, they had got rid of a murderous group. To Governor Modu Sheriff, the government had stopped “the madness once and for all.” To the military, it was a two-day blitz to uproot some miserable violent jihadists root, trunk and branch. That was July 2009.
So, what happened? Who resurrected a left-for-dead Boko Haram into the most blood-thirsty terrorist group in the world, one of the best bomb builders ever? The answer is ambiguity and manifest ambivalence in Muslim ranks. Ambiguity, like the one in the Sultan’s statement saved Boko Haram. Much of that ambiguity is manufactured. Some of it comes from cowardice. Some of it is plain old political pandering.
Nigeria daily violates many known rules of fighting terrorism. “Muslims want and also demand to be treated with equality, with justice, with fairness…”, said the Sultan. Now even if this charge were true, and it is not, indeed, Muslims are royalty in Nigeria, how does this charge arise in a discussion of a group that has slaughtered hundreds of high school students who were sleeping in their dormitories?
It is part of the country’s self-delusion over Boko Haram that the beast cannot be called by its real name. All we hear is insurgency. Well, Boko Haram may be insurgent, but what it does, indeed, what it says it is doing, is waging a violent jihad to compel Nigeria to adopt nation-wide the Sharia, the Islamic legal system. Boko Haram has stated and reaffirmed this objective at every turn, in every video, even a deaf and dumb knows this as fact.
The struggle was not started by Boko Haram. It began in earnest in 1978 and reached a crescendo about 2006-2008. The Nigerian Constitution prohibits the adoption of state religion. Yet by 2006 or so, the war-like agitation for sharia took such a hysterical fervor that 12 Northern states of Nigeria adopted Islam as state religion.
Boko Haram is saying “that’s not good enough,” Sharia should be extended to the 36 states. Thus, Boko Haram merely picked up where Ahmed Yerimah, who led the charge as Governor of Zamfara State, stopped.
Boko Haram, therefore, is a child of the sharia lobby, sustained by the sharia lobby, and will wither away when the sharia lobby so wills it. The issue is not complicated. It is not about poverty, or equal rights, or anything of the sort. The influence of the sharia lobby is pervasive which is probably what President Jonathan meant when he said there was Boko Haram in his government.
The second delusion is the pretense that there is a military solution. No, there is not. But should you insist on it, prepare a 30-year campaign. Boko Haram will never lack money or recruits. Think about this. In 2009, it took less than a battalion-strength force of the Nigerian Army 48 hours to rout, indeed, obliterate Boko Haram. Today Boko Haram has effectively tied down an entire 20,000-man Nigerian Army Division, not counting the Nigerian Air Force.
The glimmer of hope was that like all fascist organisations Boko Haram was bound to over-reach sooner or later. It did, first, in bombing the United Nations complex, and, second, in the abduction of the school girls. Islamic terrorists have tended to stay away from women. From Osama Bin Laden’s Al Queda to Al-Shabaab to Al Queda in the Maghreb, there is no record of any noteworthy “messing” with girls. Boko Haram has brought down the wrath of the civilised world on its head.
The abduction is like a God-sent opportunity to the Federal Government to end pandering, and push, nudge or arm-twist the sharia lobby to ask its “boys” to fold the struggle, at least for now.

• Obi, a policy and communications consultant, is the former managing director and editor-in-chief of the African Concord