How would you react to allegations from the military that some elders in the Northeast are compromising their efforts in the fight against Boko Haram; what should the security agencies be doing in the light of this allegation?

WHAT this means is that the Chief of Army Staff, who is from this area, is telling us that his own people of impeding his own effort in other to solve the problem destroying this area. That is what he is saying. Therefore, is it not better for the nation and whoever is coming in as the Minister of Defence, to call a meeting of those elders they are talking about? I don’t think it makes sense for the military to be making such allegation on the pages of newspapers through his director of public information. If he did not come from that area, I can understand.

But in this instance, the man is from that zone. The chief of Air Staff also comes from the northeast. What are they talking about?
Should the military throw up his arms in helplessness that some people in the community are impeding their effort?

This is strange, it should have happened at all. Such matters are never supposed to be subject of media. Frankly, there are some issues you don’t just speak about so openly. You have the State Security Service (SSS) people as the intelligence arm of the system. There is also a Defence Intelligence Agency. Then, there is Airforce Intelligence and there are their Army and Naval counterparts. Also, we have the Police Intelligence, as well as, the Civil Defence Corp. What are all these intelligence agencies doing? What exactly is their job at this point in time? They are supposed to working together and penetrating the communities. Curiously, they have people working in these organisations. They are supposed to know who is doing what, when and how. It is just like you, the media, when you have an issue, you sought out certain individuals for informed views on the issue; that’s what the intelligence agencies do.

What the military is telling the world now, as far as this matter is concerned, is that ‘we are failing in the task assigned to us.’ I remember what one Chinese philosopher, Sun Tzu, said: ‘If you know yourself and you don’t know your enemy, there is no way you can win any battle.’ And if the enemy is within you, according to what the military are saying, then there is a big problem. And we need to ask, how then do you hope to defeat Boko Haram? It does appear to me that there is no strategic thinking or any thinking going on.

According to a sixth century philosopher, if you separate thinking man from fighting soldier, you will have your battles being fought by fools and your thinking being done by cowards. Cowardly thinkers, fighting fools or foolish fighters; I hope our military don’t fall in this area.

Would you say the present accusation has any background in the elders’ position?
It is obvious now that if the Amnesty International report is correct; and it is correct, military ethics is one of the important subjects soldiers are exposed to, in addition to international law. And most importantly, they also receive serious lectures about the workings of the International Criminal Court (ICC). The fear of ICC is the fear of all wisdom, both for the soldiers and the rebels (or the insurgents). For example, the man suspected to have destroyed some of the monuments in Timbuktu, Mali, is now facing justice at the ICC. Remember he’s not a soldier, but a rebel. Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi is suspected of war crimes over the destruction of nine mausoleums and a mosque in the ancient Malian city in 2012. So, the fear of ICC is beginning of all wisdom.

Therefore, the military has no alternative, but to have that fear in them. If the ICC could indict a sitting President like General al-Bashir of Sudan, hounding him into a fugitive, and many others like him on the continent, the Nigerian military has no alternative than to cooperate, especially after President Muhammadu Buhari has promised that the report would be looked into. Blackmailing people would not solve their problem. Because of the fear of ICC, we now see them releasing some people they are now saying they couldn’t find anything against.

So, I think they have started respecting rules of engagement in this type of situation. Though, in war you cannot be 100 percent sure that the soldiers would do what is desirable, but you must make sure the majority of them do what is right. If any soldier step out of line, you punish him according to the military law. Every organization has its law of trying its members.
But the Borno State elders reacted by challenging the military to name those they allege of supporting the insurgents.

Would you expect the military authority to take up the challenge?

I’m glad they take that position; they are confirming what have been saying. In the first place, the Chief of Army Staff, who comes from that area, did not need to make any allegation openly without consulting his own people. I believe he’s above 50 years of age, so he’s getting to be an elder too. Is he telling the world that since he took over, he has never had any meeting with the Borno elders? If this is the case, then he doesn’t know what he is doing. And if he has had meetings with them and he did not put these allegations to them, then something must surely be missing. And in this light, for the military to go all out openly to make these allegations, then something is wrong with him. And like I said, I am happy that the elders have replied him. But beyond this, it is apparent that there is intelligence failure. Now that they have thrown back the challenge at him, let him go ahead and name names. Otherwise, he should keep shut until he finishes his job. He should arrest the people he’s talking about and arraign them before the court for what they alleged to have been doing.

In any case, most of the people they have arrested on allegation of terrorism, we don’t hear of the cases any more. There is one young man they accused of Abuja bombing, we are not sure of what has become of the case. A senator was so indicted sometime ago, how the indictment panned out is mystery. Nigeria is wonderful country. I don’t understand this country anymore.

In this matter, what would you expect the President to do, especially in the run up to the December deadline he gave?
The December deadline is a joke. I doubt if it is going to happen. While it is worrisome that there is intelligence failure and annoying that the Chief of Army Staff seems to be telling the world he has problems with his own people, but in this country we tend to believe that the President is a demi-god and therefore he is omnipotent and omnipresent.