The Amnesty Debate

Fri, Mar 15, 2013

By publisher

14 MIN READ

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Mixed reactions trail the decision of President Goodluck Jonathan not to grant amnesty to faceless members of Boko Haram sect

|  By Olu Ojewale  |  Mar. 25, 2013 @ 01:00 GMT

FOR now, it is very difficult to remove the issue of security from the front burner of political discourse in the country. It was no surprise, therefore, that the issue of security topped the agenda of the first Council of States, an advisory national body, meeting in Abuja, on Tuesday, March 12. Briefing the press after the meeting, Murtala Nyako, governor of Adamawa State, said the council resolved to further strengthen current efforts by the federal government to tackle insecurity occasioned by the activities of Islamist insurgents, by involving other stakeholders outside the government circles.

Nyako said that the proliferation of violence in many states of the federation has become alarming both to foreigners and Nigerians, thereby necessitating concerted efforts to tackle it. “Security was top of the agenda. We’ve started making efforts but more needs to be done. Up till now, there are still lots of problems regarding insecurity. Foreigners and people of the country are in a state of fear. The manner in which violence is on the rise is worrisome. For no just cause, people are shot randomly and killed,” he said.

The governor said that the disturbing situation has been of concern to everybody, thus making it imperative for everybody, including “the federal government, state governments, security operatives, Islamic scholars, the clergymen and traditional rulers” to work together to stem the tide of terrorism.

The meeting, chaired by President Goodluck Jonathan, had in attendance three former heads of state, namely General Yakubu Gowon, former President Shehu Shagari, Ernest Shonekan, former head of interim national government, and state governors. The meeting urged other stakeholders to partner with the governments in order to arrest the menace of insecurity.

Nyako did not disclose the methodology adopted by the council to tackle the security issue, but assured that the council did not discuss the issue of amnesty for the Boko Haram sect, an Islamic group that has been terrorising the northern part of the country for about three years now. He said doing so could have raised the political temperature. “We didn’t discuss the issue of amnesty to Boko Haram adherents. It could be controversial to raise such issues. What needs to be done is for the matter to be extensively deliberated before a universal decision is brought into the public domain,” he stated.

Indeed, the polity was heated recently when President Jonathan, at a town hall meeting in Damaturu, Yobe State, told the elders of the state on March 7, that there would be no amnesty for members of the sect, unless they unveiled and showed up physically for negotiation. Jonathan made the declaration while responding to calls made by some stakeholders in the state, led by Adamu Chiroma, a former minister of finance, for amnesty to be granted to the Boko Haram group.

Jonathan said though the federal government was desirous of ending the spate of violence in the area, it was impossible to declare an amnesty for ghosts. Said he: “You cannot declare amnesty for a ghost; the Boko Haram remains a ghost. The issue of amnesty for the Niger Delta is different; if you call them, then you will see them, they are people you know. But no one has come openly to say he is Boko Haram. You cannot discuss the issue of amnesty with Boko Haram now, you must first know who we are discussing with.”

The president repeated the same message in Maiduguri when he addressed stakeholders in the state at another town hall meeting on Friday, March 8. He told the elders and leaders in the state that unless they condemned the activities of the terror group, it would be difficult for the state to know peace. “If elders in Borno State cannot talk to members of Boko Haram, their destructive activities would not reduce and nobody would bring such activities down,” Jonathan warned.

Besides, the president asked stakeholders in the state to realise that no investor or worker would be interested in coming to the state because of the state of insecurity. “Who will come and invest in Borno State? You award road contracts, who will come and work? Nobody! So, let us not play to the gallery,” he said.

Another issue that drew the ire of Jonathan in Maiduguri, was the call on the president to withdraw the Joint Task Force, JTF, stationed in the state to allow for development efforts.   He said he was ready to withdraw the military from the state if the elders could assure him that there would be no terrorist attacks on the people.  “I am ready to sign an agreement with the elders of Borno State that if anybody is killed, they would be held responsible. I assure you that I would ask members of the JTF to pack their luggage and leave the state forthwith. After all, we are not happy that we are spending extra money which would have been used in developing infrastructure to provide extra-ordinary security,” he said.

The leadership of the Peoples’ Democratic Party, PDP, has expressed support for President Jonathan on his decision to keep the JTF in the streets of Borno indefinitely. The party also endorsed the President’s challenge to the Borno elders to sign an undertaking to take responsibility for further violent attacks by the Boko Haram sect as a pre-condition for the withdrawal of soldiers in the state. Olisa Metu, national publicity secretary of the party, said in a statement on March 9, that the President’s position “clearly shows his forthrightness and great concern for the safety of Nigerians including those living in Borno and other troubled spots in the country.”

The party similarly commended the efforts of the Jonathan administration, saying it would eventually “succeed in checking the security challenges as witnessed by the successes already recorded by the security agencies.” It therefore appealed to those behind the violent attacks in the country to have a rethink. “Life is sacrosanct and nobody has the right to shed innocent blood under any guise,” the party added.

Ever since, only the issue bordering on amnesty for members of Boko Haram has continued to generate interest among Nigerians. Prior to the president’s visit to Yobe and Borno states, Muhammadu Sa’ad Abubakar III, and president-general, the Jama’tu Nasril Islam, the umbrella body for Muslims in the north, had also made a similar call on the government to grant amnesty to all armed groups on March 5.

Also speaking in support of amnesty for the group, Junaid Mohammed, a second republic lawmaker, accused Jonathan of not being factual by saying the sect is faceless. In a newspaper interview, Mohammed said the president’s ploy was aimed at denying the group amnesty. Mohammed, the convener of Concerned Northern Politicians, Academics, Professionals and Businessmen, said, “President Jonathan is being economical with the truth. In other words, he is lying. What he said about the sect (of being faceless) only showed his frame of mind. He is applying double standards. His people took up arms in the Niger Delta because they felt they should partake in the oil revenue being generated from their land. They did the same thing as Boko Haram and were later granted amnesty.” He accused government of negotiating with the sect in bad faith, while government officials and legislators were making millions of dollars through JTF operations.

In the same vein, Abubakar Tsav, a former Lagos State commissioner of Police, accused Jonathan of double standards over the issue of amnesty to Boko Haram militants. Tsav said the president was not being sincere to say Boko Haram is a ghost organisation and that he would not dialogue with it. “The president once said and I quote, ‘I know them; some of them are in my government.’ During the visit, the same president said and I quote ‘they are faceless; you don’t negotiate with faceless people… No amnesty for Boko Haram.”

The former police commissioner then asked: “Which of these two conflicting claims from our president’s lips, should we believe? Should we put ourselves in a state of confusion by believing the two; because all the claims come from our own leader who we must all take serious?” He said it was sad that the President’s visit to Yobe and Borno states was not to give relief to the suffering masses, but rather “he was on a mission to threaten them; to tell them that there is no hope in sight during his rule.” he alleged.

Tsav has obviously taken what President Jonathan said about Boko Haram members in his cabinet out of context. He never said there were known faces of Boko Haram members in the federal executive council but that some members of his cabinet were sympathetic to the Islamic fundamentalist sect and probably working for its interest.

But Mohammed Mustafa, a radio commentator and an indigene of Borno State, said it was not true that government does not know members of the sect. “How can the government say it does not know these people when they killed their leader in 2009? Are they telling us that hundreds of them being arrested and detained are ghosts? We also have two senators being tried for being members of the group. So, I don’t understand why the President should still be saying the group is faceless. If government does not want to negotiate with the sect, it should come out and not give us unfounded excuse,” Mustafa said.

Festus Keyamo, a human rights lawyer, said in as much as he would support the president that people behind should be known before amnesty could be considered, he had no objection to granting the group amnesty. “I support amnesty for members of Boko Haram because what is sauce for the goose is also sauce for the gander,” Keyamo said, adding: “since it appears that the sect may not be crushed, it will be wise to negotiate with it.”

But Frank Odita, another retired Lagos State commissioner of police and security expert, said the president was right to have denied amnesty to the Boko Haram sect and that the situation in the Niger Delta should not be compared to that of the Islamist militants. Odita argued: “The literal interpretation of Boko Haram is that western education is not acceptable to them; that is what they said. Nobody is contesting that with them because we don’t know who they are. Are they educated or not? We don’t know. And because they are faceless, nobody knows who they are, why they are doing what they are doing. So, it is necessary that if anybody is thinking of amnesty, he should encourage those who are going to enjoy the amnesty to please come out and dialogue with the government and government needs to find out why they are doing what they are doing and then, the reasons for their actions. Then, amnesty would be granted to them. And that is my opinion.” (see cover box for full interview).

Mohammed Fawehinmi, also a human rights lawyer, said granting amnesty to the Boko Haram sect would amount to insulting those who lost loved ones in the group’s reckless killings. Fawehinmi said that Jonathan was right by declaring that there would be no amnesty for ghosts. “Faceless or not, terrorism should not be tolerated,” he said. Holding a similar position is Yerima Shettima, president, Arewa Youth Consultative Forum, AYCF, who argued that granting amnesty at any time to the sect would mean that Nigeria should forget about a law against terrorism. “Let the truth be spoken without sentiments. If Nigeria grants amnesty to the sect, the nation will have more serious problems at the end. History will not forgive us. (Because) We are talking about an entire country held to ransom by a few individuals,” Shettima said. He added that it would be wrong to equate the situation in the Niger Delta with the Boko Haram terrorism.

However, Anthony Sani, national publicity secretary of the ACF, has advised the government to encourage a faction of the sect willing to dialogue with it to choose a country that has good diplomatic relations with Nigeria to play a mediatory role in the conflict. He argued that it would be unrealistic to expect leaders of the sect to show their faces for dialogue without any assurance of their safety.

On his part, Ola Makinde, a bishop and primate of the Methodist Church, Nigeria, is disappointed that the Sultan could be so insensitive as to call for an amnesty for such a devilish group. Mankinde, who spoke at the Holy Communion service of the 51st annual synod of the Methodist Church, Ekotedo, Ibadan, Oyo State, said it was wrong of the Islamic religion leader to have likened Boko Haram to the Niger Delta militants. “How can you grant amnesty to a faceless group or a set of criminals? Traditional and spiritual leaders should be custodians of morality in the land. What is Boko Haram for? Are they fighting for groundnut or cow resource control?” he queried.

He said while the case of the Niger Delta distinctly called attention to the degradation of their land caused by oil spillage, it was unjust to ask for amnesty for people who have taken delight in spilling innocent blood, mostly Christians. “We must be very careful that we don’t have religious war in this country. You can imagine it is being revealed that 83 per cent of the oil blocs in the country are owned by the northerners. They want political and economic powers combined,” Makinde said.

But cleaning up the Boko Haram mess has been very difficult for the nation since the leader of the sect was killed in 2009. After the killing of Mohammed Yusuf, the leader of the sect, in the realm of extra judicial act by state security operatives in Borno State, the Islamist group, has unleashed terrorist attacks on the northern part of the country. More than 3000 people have been killed in the insurgency, and properties worth billions of Naira destroyed in the process.

Counting the losses, Governor Ibrahim Geidam of Yobe, told the President since the sect started the insurgence in the state in 2009, public schools, vehicles  and property worth about N2.5 billion, and private buildings estimated at N629 million  had been either burnt or destroyed by the sect. Geidam also disclosed that the state had spent N4,8 billion on security and spent an average of N200 million every month on logistics and payment of allowances to security operatives in the state.

The federal government and other affected states must have also spent hundreds of millions of Naira on the problem, yet there seems to be no solution in sight. Worried by the threat of collapse of the economy of affected states, the Northern State’s Governors’ Forum set up last year, a committee on Reconciliation, Healing and Security headed by Zakari Ibrahim, an ambassador. In its report, the committee urged Jonathan to declare a general and unconditional amnesty for the Islamist sect. The report was handed over to Governor Babangida Aliyu of Niger State who chairs the forum.

Analysts say if there was sincerity among those concerned, government would have seized on the offer of a dialogue made by one Abu Momammed Abdulazeez, a sheik, said to be Boko Haram commander. He had sent a statement to journalists in Maiduguri, saying that the group had declared a cease fire and was ready for a truce. He said his peace overture had the consent of their leader, Abubakar Shekau. But since making that statement in January, the insurgence has not abated. The implication, according to some analysts, is that the group is either torn apart or that the declaration was not authorised by the leader or that other factions ignored the call.

Also last October, Shekau denied statements claiming that there were behind-the-scene talks between the group and the government when the government was said to have believed that it was talking with the group. So, observers say in the light of previous encounter and inconsistency position of the group, Jonathan could not be faulted in asking the sect to unmask before any form of commitment could come from the government. But the general school of thought is that the nation will continue to be the loser in terms of resources, development of infrastructure and waste of human lives.