Boko Haram, OBJ: Breaking the myth

obj

on December 09, 2014 

IF you ask me, all the points Chief Olusegun Obasanjo raised on the Boko Haram insurgency, as published in the Vanguard newspaper of Thursday November 27, were all valid. But the paradox is; he spent a good eight years in the saddle of the Nigerian government, why did he fail to put any of these measures he highlighted into place? After all, the seeds for Boko Haram were sown during his regime, with many state governors illegally foistering the sharia laws on hapless citizens.

The fact is, in saner climes, people that have mismanaged opportunities are allowed to melt into oblivion but not in Nigeria where things run in circles. As long as we keep running in circles, going back to our own vomits and playing politics with the nation’s jugular, we shall remain the same.

What ever theory on crime or deviancy that is propounded in the present Boko Haram situation, the bottom line is; it got to this level because our politicians allowed it to fester for their personal and selfish interests. That Obasanjo’s address was nothing short of self denial of his contribution to the over all rot we presently face as a nation. Nigerians are so forgetful. I wish we can play back the years 1999-2007.

The Boko Haram insurgents are human beings like you and me. They have been blown out of proportion because of the consequences of omission and commission on the part of those directing the affairs of the affected states and the nation.

I have written before on this column that; there is no way we can win the battle against the insurgents without the conscious and deliberate efforts of the indigenes of the north eastern states to defend their land. The land is their history, it is their ancestry, heritage, culture and to a great essence, their being. Without your heritage, you are a ‘born throway’ – apology to Uncle Sam- and no sane man sits down and watch his land and that, his forefathers have laboured for, to go in ruins. Better die fighting than live a life of cowardice. Forget about the Federal government and the politics of the politicians, if the people of the North east decide today that Boko Haram activities must stop in their land, it will stop.

Watching Wolf Blitzer programme on CNN of 13th November evening, this fact was reinforced in my mind. Wolf interviewed a retired US army general, Dan Bolger, who played active roles in the Iraq war that toppled Saddam Hussein. He just released a book on the American mission in Iraq and Afghanistan which he titled “Why We Lost The War”, the summary of his book centred around counter insurgency and he submits that counter insurgency must come from the people. The Americans succeeded in occupying Iraq and Afghanistan but they could not finish the business, they won the battle but could not win the war, they could not win the war because they did not successfully carry the indigenes along.

He submits that: ‘the Iraqis’ had to get the job done’. It is the Iraqis’ that understands the terrain, the language, the people and also the insurgents.

Today’s wars have changing patterns and modes as compared to those of the 20th century, brute force and ammunitions alone do not make it happen. The greatest asset is making the people, I mean, the victims to agree that you are fighting for their cause. It is even worse when religion is brought into it.

What I am proposing here is not theory, it is real and working. In the mirror online of 14th November, 2014, was a caption “Army/Vigilante flush out Boko Haram from Mubi”. In the Vanguard newspaper of Wednesday 19th November, 2014, the feature article under the caption ” Recapture of Mubi, Chibok…” read thus: “… A recent collaboration between the military and the local vigilante groups seems to be the magic wand needed to flush out the insurgents. It worked in Mubi and Chibok, hence the clamour for this mode of operation in the war against terrorism in the country.”

In fact, the introduction to the article states thus: “They realise that they had become endangered species in their own fatherland and if nothing was done urgently to flush out the insurgents, their huge investments would be destroyed, political ambitions thwarted and their relevance called to question. That was the quagmire some concerned elite and business tycoons from Boko Haram ravaged and other parts…..found themselves in”. It went further; ” it was against this backdrop that these prominent indigenes mobilised the local war lords who are not sympathetic to the cause Boko Haram is fighting, to take up arms and defend their homeland from being over run by the overzealous insurgents”.

That was how Mubi and Chibok got rescued from the hands of the Boko Haram insurgents. It is clear that our army cannot win the war without the support of the indigenes, such synergy must be encouraged for the remaining part of the war against the insurgents.

The army cannot fight without information and it is the people who are born and bred in that terrain are in the position to offer accurate or factual data about the situation on ground.

According to Gen. Dan Bolger, it takes a long term effort to build an army. He says: “building a military takes decades” and you have to train the locals to withstand those insurgents. To train a sergeant for example will take nothing less than ten years. Also, to him, it takes more than equipments to win the insurgency battle; leadership and mindsets are other vital factors.

What is going on for the insurgents is their mindset, they are not good or well trained soldiers, they have only been indoctrinated with very extreme religious ideologies, of hate and negative jihads, we must find a way to neutralise this.

Also, the sponsors of the insurgents must be traced, identified and brought to book. Our politicians must back off and stop commenting on Boko Haram activities when they do not have the solutions to solving it, or, if they have, let them pass it on to the military authorities under confidential cover.

The boko harams are not invincible, they are humans like me and you.

Mr. Sunny Ikhioya, a commentator on national issues, wrote from Lagos.
- http://www.vanguardngr.com/2014/12/boko-haram-obj-breaking-myth/#sthash.uzMynb63.dpuf