Presidential monologue – Part 35

Hello, Mr President. I reflect on one issue today. It is the call on citizens to help with intelligence on the activities of terrorists.  The first error of political leadership of a country on a slide to doom is to live a lie about the situation of the country. Do note the biblical quote: seek the truth, only the truth can set you free. General Christopher Musa, the Chief of Defence, provided me with the cue for me to engage with this issue.

On a tour of duty in the Northwest of the country, he emphasised the point that the citizens of this country have a role to play in addressing the security challenges of this country. Late last year on Arise TV, he also indicted citizens over collaborating with the terrorists. According to him:  “We appeal to all Nigerians to cooperate. Security is everybody’s responsibility.

I give you my challenge while in the Northeast; in some places, you find out that there are people even supporting them (the terrorists)…giving them equipment and food. Every day, we fight them to stop taking to them fertilizer, urea, and things that could make them fix Improvised Explosive Devices. It’s a challenge…We have Nigerians that are also doing so much to trade with them; carrying fuel and food to them. If we all pull together and stop this thing, they will not survive.

So, it’s a holistic thing and not only for the armed forces alone. This is not an armed forces war; this is a Nigerian war, and I want Nigerians to take ownership of it”. He also noted in the same interview that terrorism has become an elephant in the room with no end in sight. In his words: “My take is that no country should allow terrorism to start, because it is difficult to eradicate, because the centre of gravity of the terrorist is their ideology, and their ideology is in their mind, so changing the mind-set is what we require.”
 
Earlier in the year, he had expressed shock about the enormity of the security challenges that have dogged the country. On another occasion, the defence chief urged Nigerians to stop denigrating the leadership of the country. On this point, he waxed spiritual to the extent that there is power in the words.

A content analysis of his statement easily reveals an officer who is seized on the security of the country and in a quest for an enduring solution. There is a breakdown of trust in the leadership of the country at various levels. Trust is a relationship concept that is embedded in the social structure of society, and easily discernible at the interpersonal and state-society levels.

At the leadership level trust is released when leadership fulfils the ‘reason of state’, security of the wellbeing of the citizens, and this is done with a great deal of regularity to the extent that it inspires confidence. Leadership in this country has serially failed Nigerians.

They are not to be blamed but leadership, extended here to mean the ruling class, in our case, a narcissistic ruling clique without a nationalist spirit. There is hardly any Nigerian who believes in the leadership of this country because of the lies and failure of leadership. The national anthem is Nigeria’s prayer to the Almighty God, and we pray this prayer every day, and we do the opposite. On this alone, the light of His Countenance would be far from us.

Let me state that insurgency in Nigeria is surmountable. Unless we feign ignorance of the drivers, then we can resign to faith. As the chief of defence, I am sure you have access to all Intel on the Nigerian situation. It is rooted squarely in a web of internal and external conspiracy. I have dealt with all this in the Book on Insurgency, Terrorism, and Counter-terrorism in Africa, published by Lexington Books 2023. The local drivers are poverty, power struggle, religion, and corruption. The current Vice President, Alhaji Kashim Shettima harbours the knowledge. And should help your administration, of which he is a part.

The knowledge would also help the defence complex to tackle the problem. For the benefit of your Chief of Defence Staff, I will briefly capture the aspect that bears on military professionalism as well as the external dimension.  The complaint about the paltry budget is not the complete picture.  A balance sheet of financial expenditure from the budget and special intervention funds between 2013 and 2023 is desirable to move forward.

On weaponry, the question is how much have we tapped from the technological output of Proforce? Above all, evidence provided by Lt. Colonel Eeben Barlow of Special Tasks, Training, Equipment and Protection (STTEP) International Limited, that our troops were poorly equipped and lacked tactical battle ground hardware. Both the British and the U.S. servicemen were dishing to our troops European battle order different from the African terrain.

What Barlow did when his group, the Executive Outcomes, intervened in the northeast was to sort the compromised Intel situation, isolate and train a special unit, and change battle doctrine. It yielded a report that the powers brokers in the north started to allege annihilation of their people (See his 2016 essay entitled, ‘The Rise and Fall — and Rise Again of Boko Haram’, Harvard International Review 37(4): 16-20.)

I have argued in Chapter four of the aforementioned book that both internal and external factors constitute the sustaining logic of the insurgencies in Nigeria. The external environment has long ago discovered Nigeria to be an imperial candidate in the continent of Africa, the U.S. is bent on deconstructing all potential imperial candidates, hence the sundry covert operations to undermine Nigeria’s capacity in the region. It is to be noted that the West, especially the U.S., has long securitised its relations with Africa.

The relationship does not tolerate a regional hegemon and is enamoured of the huge resources in the continent, central to the survival of the world in the twenty-first century. Destabilisation is the game. Both the U.S., Britain, and France are implicated in this connection. These combine with Arab interest to produce a behemoth that is the insurgencies raging in our country.

The Arab states of Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Qatar are involved in the Boko Haram homily whose interest revolves around the expansion of the ‘geography of global Islam’.  Former President Soglo did point to Saudi Arabia and Qatar as sponsors of Boko Haram. In grave terms, he said “Boko Haram is funded by our friends from Saudi Arabia and our friends from Qatar. Are we friends or not? Let’s tell ourselves the truth.

We have to stand together. “I’m optimistic we are going to win if we stand together.” I conclude with the conclusion I had drawn in the aforementioned book. It is that both political will and strategic engagement with the external forces would be invaluable to the resolution of the conflict.  First, the Nigerian leadership must walk the part of the truth, not denial and merchandisation of the crisis.
Odion-Akhaine is a Professor of Political
Science, Lagos State University.