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The President Muhammadu Buhari administration is negotiating for the release of abducted Chibok girls with Boko Haram insurgents despite military gains to uproot the Islamic sect from the North East. But how much this measure is going to achieve in eliminating the scourge of insurgency is debateable
| By Olu Ojewale | Sep 28, 2015 @ 01:00 GMT |
IF you believe the headlines; the Nigerian troops are winning the war against Boko Haram insurgents. In the past few weeks the troops have liberated hundreds of children and adults from Boko Haram enclaves, decapitated their strongholds, captured foods and thousands of litres of fuel to be supplied to them, while several of the insurgents simply surrendered to the superior powers of the Nigerian military.
The successes recorded by the military in the past few weeks in the fight against the dreaded sect in the North-East of the country, have given hopes of a near end to the bloody situation.
The situation, no doubt, has been causing grave concerns in the camp of the Boko Haram sect, whom President Muhammadu Buhari has ordered the military to wipe out of the face of the earth by November this year. The new vigour of the military to pursue the insurgents to their ultimate destruction, perhaps, also prompted members of the sect to be weary and think about options available to them.
That, perhaps, induced some of them to approach the government. According to Yusuf Anas, a retired air commodore and executive secretary for the Centre for Crisis Communication, CCC, some Boko Haram members actually sent a message to the government saying they were tired of fighting.
In a statement on Wednesday, September 16, Anas disclosed that the terrorists sent a message to the CCC, saying they were re tired of fighting and willing to end the war. The CCC is now acting as a middleman between the federal government and Boko Haram sect.
Anas, a former director of public relations and information, Nigerian Air Force, said that none of the suspected Boko Haram elements that spoke with the CCC asked for any form of monetary inducement or compensation as a pre-condition for laying down their arms.
“In fact, many of them said that they were simply tired of fighting and being fugitives in a war that they were deceived into joining,” Anas said.
The twist in the reality of the situation probably gave the Buhari administration the impetus to start negotiation with the group. It was the president himself who spilled the bean about the ongoing negotiation with the terrorist in Paris, France, while meeting with Nigerians in Diaspora during his three-day official visit to the country.
Buhari who was responding to questions from members of the Nigerian community in France under the aegis of the Nigerians in Diaspora Organisation, NIDO, in Paris, capital of France, said on Tuesday, September 15, that the decision to negotiate was taken in view of the need to secure the release of the more than 200 schoolgirls kidnapped at the Government Secondary School in Chibok, Borno State, on April 14, 2014.
He said his administration was worried by the continued stay of the girls in the hands of their captors and would work tirelessly to get them released.
Besides, the president said the federal government could not afford to treat the case with levity bearing in mind the level of international concerned it had created.
According to Buhari one of the conditions given by the terrorists was to release one of its members who was developing Improvised Explosives Devices, IED. He, however, said that his government rejected the demand.
That notwithstanding, Buhari has also promised to grant amnesty to Boko Haram fighters on the condition that they released all the abducted Chibok schoolgirls.
The president said this during an interview with Agence France Presse, AFP, on Wednesday, September 16.
Buhari told the AFP that the federal government was talking to Boko Haram’s prisoners and could offer them amnesty if the fundamentalist group could hand over more than 200 schoolgirls abducted from their hostel at the Chibok Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State on April 14, 2014.
He said: “If the Boko Haram leadership eventually agrees to turn over the Chibok girls to us, the complete number, then we may decide to give them (the prisoners) amnesty.”
He assured that the government would not release any prisoners unless it was convinced it could “get the girls in reasonably healthy condition.”
Nevertheless, he expressed confidence that the six-year conventional attacks by the terrorists would be rooted out by November but cautioned that deadly suicide attacks, some of them waged by children, were likely to continue.
But he cautioned that negotiating with Boko Haram militants was fraught with difficulties, saying: “We are trying to establish if they are bona fide, how useful they are in Boko Haram, have they reached a position of leadership where their absence is of relevance to the operation of Boko Haram?”
That is understandable considering the fact that the immediate past administration was conned into announcing a unilateral ceasefire in October last year before realising that it had been taken for a ride.
Hence, he said: “Let them bring all the girls and then, we will be prepared to negotiate, I will allow them to come back to Nigeria or to be absolved in the community. We have to be very careful, the concern we have for the Chibok girls, one only imagine if they got a daughter there between 14 and 18 and for more than one and a half year, a lot of the parents who have died would rather see the graves of their daughters rather than the condition they imagine they are in.”
It was Femi Adesina, special adviser to the president on media and publicity, who first dropped the hint on a possible negotiation with the terror group, when he disclosed in July this year the willingness of government to engage the sect if they were ready.
Adesina, who lamented that the insurgents had attacked many villages and killed scores of peoples, said the federal government was not ruling out negotiations with the sect if it would put an end to the activities of the group.
But shortly after that, President Idriss Deby of Chad said on Tuesday, August 11, who announced that the Boko Haram sect was no longer led by Abubakar Shekau, cautioned Nigeria on the measure.
Deby, who stated this while speaking with journalists in N’Djamena on the occasion of Chad’s 55th independence anniversary, said the terrorist group was now led by a new member who was open to talks. He, however, warned Nigerian government not to enter negotiation with the group and its new leader.
“There is someone apparently called Muhamat Daoud who is said to have replaced Abubakar Shekau and he wants to negotiate with the Nigerian government. For my part, I would advise not to negotiate,” Deby said.
The Chadian president said progress had been made in the fight against the insurgents though suicide bombers still posed a threat. He said: “Boko Haram is decapitated. There are little groups (of Boko Haram) scattered throughout east Nigeria, on border with Cameroon. It is within our power to definitely overcome Boko Haram. The war will be short with the setting up of the regional force. It will be over by the end of the year.”
Ironically, President Deby was reported to have facilitated the botched ceasefire agreement of last year between the federal government and Boko Haram. But in March this year, Deby said in an interview that he warned former President Jonathan against holding talks with the militant group, saying the whole episode was orchestrated by Boko Haram to buy time and regroup.
However, he claimed that Jonathan downplayed the Boko Haram threat by dismissing his advice and held talks with the group. Deby: “I told President Goodluck not to open negotiations with terrorists … but it was a political choice,” Deby told Le Point, a French magazine, in an interview republished by the AFP news agency.
“It has become something too serious for Nigerians to ignore. The blood of the dead that we have been counting every day for the past few years demands attention.”
He alleged that the former president and his military chiefs had underestimated Boko Haram for too long. “The whole world is asking why the Nigerian army, which is a big army… is not in a position to stand up to untrained kids armed with Kalashnikovs,” Deby said.
The Chadian president alleged that Boko Haram had long been trained by the ISIS in Libya, and that the group’s recent public declaration of allegiance was a mere formality that did not surprise him.
“I’m not surprised that Abubakar Shekau, Boko Haram leader, who has difficulties at the moment… is trying to make people believe that he only just made contact with them (ISIS).”
Indeed, the botched October 17, 2014 ceasefire humiliated the Jonathan administration after it claimed to have reached a deal with the insurgents, who had been killing, maiming and displacing Nigerians in the North East.
Despite the announcement, Boko Haram continued its attacks, sacking villages and killing innocent people.
Initially, the Nigerian government claimed splinter groups of the sect were responsible for the continued fighting, but later blamed the failure on sabotage.
But given Buhari’s background in military training, he is expected to handle the situation differently.
However, some Nigerians are not comfortable that the president would want to broker peace with the Islamic fundamentalist group.
Chioma Chinyere, a businesswoman, simply dismissed the negotiation as a ruse and called the adoption of the Chibok schoolgirls a scam. She said: “How can Buhari release Chibok girls when France, US, Israel, China and Russia scanned the entire Sambisa forest and the neighbouring countries with their drones without any trace of missing girls? Political campaign is over, let the President Buhari sit up and quench the fire he and brothers lit because Chibok girls is a scam.”
Making a similar submission, Olaniran Olaleye, a student of the Ogun State Polytechnic, Abeokuta, said the adoption of Chibok schoolgirls was a ploy to discredit and remove Jonathan from office. He, therefore, wondered how could the troops have easily identified those to talk to and set in motion machineries to negotiate their release.
On his part, Ebongabasi Ekpe-Juda, a security consultant, said there was nothing wrong in negotiating with Boko Haram as long as the government could ascertain that there were genuine leaders of the sect and as long as they are ready to release the abducted schoolgirls. “I support the negotiation, but the government should be careful of those it is dealing with,” Ekpe-Juda said.
He is also in support that members of the sect should be given amnesty if they were really ready to forsake armed conflict against the country. “The late President Umaru Yar’Adua has set precedence when he granted amnesty to militants in the Niger Delta, even though the case is not the same, inasmuch as they are ready to renounce terrorism, they should be given a chance as it was done in the Niger Delta,” he said.
Similarly, Abubakar Tsav, a retired commissioner of police, said the lives of the schoolgirls were more precious to the country than any other thing. Tsav, however, cautioned that the president should be circumspect in the group he was dealing with so that he does not fall into the same kind of scam experienced by the Jonathan administration. “He must be careful because there are many 419ners who can pretend to what they are not,” he said.
The retired police commissioner said though the military had recorded a lot of gains in recent onslaught against the group, he said as long as the girls were still missing the victory would not be complete. “As parent I cannot imagine myself being complacence when the children I sent to school have not returned after more than one year; I can do anything to get them back. So, that is why I am in support of the president on his action. Besides, if they get the girls back, the military can have more information on Boko Haram and its leadership,” Tsav said. He also expressed confidence that this would help Nigerian security forces to deal with pockets of militants involved in guerrilla warfare against the country.
More than 15,000 people are believed to have been killed since the Boko Haram insurgents started about six years ago. More than 500,000 people in the North East have also been displaced by through the insurgency.
Since Buhari assumed office on May 29, this year, he has succeeded in enlisting the cooperation of Nigeria’s neighbours, namely Chad, Niger, Benin and Cameroon to form a joint force to deal with the menace. That appears to be paying off as members of the sect no longer have a save haven to hide.
This has resulted in so many successes recorded by the Nigerian military. But only time will tell whether the negotiation and the proposed amnesty would resolve the Boko Haram issue once and for all.
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President Jonathan had already secured the cooperation of neighboring states earlier this year and was able to retake all territories before handover. What buhari needed was cleanups operations but he allowed his terrorist brothers to retake territory so that him and apc will have a reason to play down six weeks most wonderful operations ever. Now not less than 1000people have died since he took over. Shameful