Former Chief of Army Staff and ex-Minister of Interior, Lt.-Gen. Abdulrahman Bello Dambazau (rtd), yesterday, traced the origin of the Boko Haram insurgency to a police error in 2009.

He said the insurgency witnessed today, especially in the Northeast, was a failure of policing that spiralled into one of Nigeria’s worst security crises.

He stated this in his keynote address at the seventh yearly lecture of the Just Friends Club of Nigeria (JFCN) in Abuja, titled “Nigeria’s Security Challenges and the Quest for National Cohesion: A New Paradigm for Internal Security Architecture and Governance.”

The event was chaired by former Director-General of the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), Professor Tonnie Iredia.

Dambazau, who led the Nigerian Army during the early years of the Boko Haram uprising, recalled how a simple enforcement of a crash-helmet law by police officers in 2009 turned into one of Africa’s deadliest insurgencies.

The ex-military chief said the crisis that began in Maiduguri as a minor confrontation between the police and followers of the late Mohammed Yusuf grew into a full-blown insurgency due to poor handling, weak governance, and lack of accountability.

His words: “I want to note this that some of the things happening today, if we had police that had been effective in law and order enforcement several years back, some of the things we are experiencing today would not happen. This is because most of these issues started as very local issues, issues that could be handled through law enforcement alone.”