Boko Haram: Buhari and burden of political hypocrisy.

                                                            June 13, 2015

 

 

Jonathan, Buhari

President Muhammadu Buhari’s visit to Niger Republic and Chad to seek regional collaboration against Boko Haram is considered laudable. Analysts in this report by FISAYO FALODI, however, describe his action as political hypocrisy

One of the key issues Nigerians expect President Muhammadu Buhari to deal with post-May 29 inauguration is the total defeat of the Boko Haram sect that has killed thousands of innocent people and destroyed property – private and public- worth several billions of Naira in the last six years.

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This is because the President and the All Progressives Congress, during the campaigns, vowed to totally eradicate Boko Haram insurgency in the North-East of the country if elected into power. The APC therefore launched its full arsenal against the then ruling Peoples Democratic Party with promises of change which climaxed in the March 28 presidential election won by Buhari. With Buhari elected as President, Nigerians no doubt expect a quick end to the Boko Haram insurgency.

Not a few Nigerians would recall that the APC, which had on various occasions described the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan as clueless, callous, incompetent and corrupt for its failure to fight the terror group to a standstill, turned itself and Buhari to apostles of change that the citizens were waiting for.

On every available occasion, the party and Buhari had also rubbished all the initiatives carried out by Jonathan to tackle the dangerous sect. To them, attempts by the former President to seek regional cooperation to find solution to the insurgency were senseless.

“The government has also failed in any effort towards a multi-dimensional response to this problem leading to a situation in which we have now become dependent on our neighbours to come to our rescue,” Buhari had said at the Chatham House, London, the United Kingdom.

Buhari also reiterated his ability to bring the insecurity to its knees in his Chatham House speech, where he painted the gloomy damage the Boko Haram insurgency had done to Nigeria. He particularly blamed Jonathan for failing to take a multi-dimensional response to the country’s security challenge, culminating in Nigeria’s dependence on Niger Republic, Chad and Cameroon for anti-Boko Haram war.

He had said, “There are other reasons why Nigerians and the whole world are intensely focused on this year’s elections, chief of which is that the elections are holding in the shadow of huge security, economic and social uncertainties in Africa’s most populous country and largest economy. On insecurity, there is a genuine cause for worry, both within and outside Nigeria. Apart from the civil war era, at no other time in our history has Nigeria been this insecure.”

He added, “Boko Haram has sadly put Nigeria on the terrorism map, killing more than 13,000 of our nationals, displacing millions internally and externally, and at a time holding on to portions of our territory the size of Belgium. What has been consistently lacking is the required leadership in our battle against insurgency.”

No doubt, Buhari’s speech at the Chatham House boosted his popularity with voters desperate to see implementation of decisive and tough policies to wipe out the Boko Haram insurgents and other challenges such as corruption among public officials and revitalisation of the economy.

In whispering and open campaigns, Buhari and the APC continued to blame Jonathan for his proclivity for minimum use of force to tackle the sect and his patience with some people in the country suspected to be close to the insurgent group. They therefore raised the hope of Nigerians that once the party was able to form the government at the centre, the persistent killings and destructions by the violent sect would become a thing of the past.

Even while inaugurating his campaign team in Port Harcourt before the election, Buhari stressed that the insecurity posed by the sect had reached a level that could no longer be tolerated thus assuring that effective strategies would be taken to fight the menace.

The highlight of the President’s determination to end the insurgency came early in the week when the command centre of the military relocated to Maiduguri, the epicentre of the Boko Haram activities.

But barely four days after the inauguration of his administration, Buhari realised that the promise to tackle the insurgent group had become a big burden on him. To the amazement of many Nigerians, the President took his anti-terrorism campaign to Niger Republic and Chad to seek collaboration on how to curb the Boko Haram insurgency. The move, according to some observers, leaves Nigerians wondering if the President is not engaging in double standard and hypocrisy for toeing the same path he and his party had initially condemned. They said though nothing stopped the President from seeking regional collaboration to end the sect’s activities, his decision to rehash a method he had once chastised raised moral questions.

The observers recalled that Buhari and the APC tagged Jonathan’s administration various derogatory names for seeking regional collaboration against the sect. They said the President, apart from relocating the command centre to Maiduguri as promised, should devised more effective and practical strategies to combat the terror gang. They also asked him to focus on some of the initiatives adopted by Jonathan to combat the insurgency, which they said had already started yielding results even before Buhari was elected as the President.

The observers said though Boko Haram insurgency pre-dated Buhari’s administration, they pointed out that the sect had carried out no fewer than five attacks in the North since he assumed office in the last two weeks.

The National Conscience Party presidential candidate in the last general elections, Mr. Martin Onovo, who did not see anything new in the President’s visit to the neighbouring countries to seek regional cooperation against the sect, flayed Buhari and his party for engaging in “hypocritical politics” over their earlier criticism of Jonathan’s administration for adopting same approach.

He said now that Buhari had seen some atoms of senses in the strategy; he should improve upon it in the interest of national development and security.

Onovo said, “We must focus on our objective, which is to tackle insurgency and other related activities. Now, based on the military report, some of the terrorists are operating across borders. Like Dr. Jonathan did, Buhari will need the cooperation of neighbouring countries to achieve success in his anti-terrorism battle.

“What I see President Buhari doing is not new; he is only trying to improve on Jonathan’s approach. So, we must focus on our objective. Whatever we need to do to contain the insurgency and terrorism must be promoted. Therefore, I don’t see anything wrong or new in Buhari’s initiative to hold talk with the neighbouring countries.

“Nigeria needs to focus on the right thing to get the right result. One of the right things to do is to get the cooperation of our neighbours, which the former President has started anyway. So, Buhari should improve on what Jonathan has started.”

An Abuja-based social commentator, Mr. Malachi Ugwummadu, believes that Buhari and the APC might have made the statement based on the reality on ground at that time; it nevertheless undermined the capacity of Nigeria’s government to tackle the Boko Haram insurgency.

He said as the President himself is aware, the fight against the sect required collaboration, support and concerted effort with relevant stakeholders.

Ugwummadu said there was no deliberate effort to improve the capacity of Nigerian military in terms of sophisticated weapons until the country was compelled to do so by the circumstances of her weakness.

He, however, urged Buhari to stop at nothing in fulfilling his avowed pledge to tackle insecurity in the country.

“There is an end to politics. Politics must end where governance must begin. Buhari must now direct his energy in the direction that will benefit all Nigerians,” Ugwummadu said, asking the President to lead by example.

Like Onovo, a rights activist, Mr. Olufemi Aduwo, said it was unfortunate that the insecurity posed by the sect was politicised by those who should know better. He said no doubt, the fight against terrorism anywhere in the world required collaboration of relevant stakeholders, but added that it was regrettable that the APC played to the gallery by deceiving and misinforming Nigerians over the initial regional collaboration the administration of former President Jonathan sought to curb the sect’s activities.

Aduwo said, “What they accused Jonathan of is what they are now doing. Nobody said they should not seek foreign collaboration, but they ought to have understood before now that anywhere there is anti-terrorism war, the people and the government there must be serious to fight it.

“The President must realise that the Boko Haram sect has been existing in Nigeria since 2002. Its activities were only pronounced a few years ago. Relocating the military’s command centre to Maiduguri may not be enough to tackle the sect’s activities; the President may need to review and improve on some of the approaches taken by his immediate predecessor.”

While stressing that it was not always easy to tackle terrorism, Aduwo said the militants in Colombia celebrated their 60 years of existence last year. Despite the over $7bn the United States had spent to fight terrorism in Colombia, he said the militants’ activities had yet to subside.

He said, “Terrorism across the world has become a cultural evolution. What the people are trying to do across the world is to make sure that they reduce activities of the terrorist to the barest minimum.

“So, for Buhari to record success in his anti-terrorism war, he needs collaboration and improvement upon what the previous government had done.”

Though the APC has risen in defence of Buhari, saying the President should be praised rather than pilloried for the move, adding that the decision showed that he understood the regional dimension that the insurgency had assumed, the PDP asked Buhari to apologise to Jonathan and Nigerians for toeing the path he and his party had once chastised.