By Jude Atupulazi
I will begin this piece by delving into a little bit of history, recent history, if you like. And it is about how Boko Haram started in this country, how it took root and how it turned into a monster. Let’s go!
In 2002, a group with an anti-western education disposition championed by one Mohammed Yusuf, began its activities in parts of Northern Nigeria. It was initially perceived as a joke until they started causing nuisance to the Nigerian authorities and getting involved in skirmishes with same authorities. But there was nothing violent in their activities compared to what we see today.
Nevertheless, their nuisance value wasn’t liked by the authorities which began to chase them about until their leader, Mohammed, was allegedly killed by Nigerian security forces while in detention in 2009. That was after he was detained following a confrontation with the police in what was part of a crackdown on the group by the Nigerian Government.
The group would soon officially be known as Boko Haram after Mohammed’s death and Abubakar Shekau took over in 2009. It was then it became more violent and radical. They started carrying out attacks on civilians, schools and churches, and also began kidnapping people, leading to the kidnap of the Chibok schoolgirls in 2014. Shekau’s leadership led to increased brutality and a rise in terrorist activities in Nigeria and neighbouring countries.
But one thing of note is that at the beginning of those attacks, it was believed that the north treated such with levity, believing that the group was only targeting Christians and Southerners, especially the Igbo of Eastern Nigeria, as has been the usual narrative in the country. Thus, instead of clamping down hard on the group, it was allowed to gain ground and by the time it turned its guns on fellow northerners, it was too late to stop them.
Today, the north has become a cauldron of chaos and sudden death and there seems nothing those who lit the fire can do about it. Worse still, some people in government there are profiting from the chaos, laughing all the way to the bank, while the ordinary folks weep and gnash their teeth.
It is those people who profit from the chaos that engineer the dialogue with the criminals and influence their recruitment in the Army from where they contrive to throw spanner in the works in the fight against insurgency. It is purely something those cabals do for their own benefit, even though they represent only but a tiny percentage.
Now, down in the east, we have a situation where some young men, disenchanted with the treatment of the Igbo in Nigeria, decided to show their anger. They became part of one of the groups agitating for Biafra and found expression to their anger through the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB.
Though not the original founders of the group, they soon found themselves at the helm of leadership and overnight, their hitherto non-violent agitation became very violent, so violent that they began doing to the east what Boko Haram is doing to the north. But those in the east seemed smarter. They would do their thing and blame it on anyone of the police, army, DSS or Fulani. Their home audience swallowed such hook, line and sinker without asking questions.
It got so hopeless that no matter the amount of evidence one brought up to counter their lies or propaganda, the public would not believe them. To persist meant to be branded a saboteur, much like the situation during the Nigerian Civil War when many competent Biafran officers were branded saboteurs and at times, nearly killed by fellow angry soldiers.
To buttress my stand, I will share this story with you. A friend of mine was once kidnapped by one of the notorious foot soldiers of the agitators somewhere in Anambra South and taken to the camp of his abductors.
There, he witnessed firsthand, the beheading of human beings by his abductors in that camp. Yet, those people, any time they committed such an atrocious act, would say the killers of those people were Fulani, army, police or DSS, and the people would shout, ”Yeaaah!!!”
Eventually my friend was released by his captives after he had been asked to pay money for a drum of bullets and some AK-47 rifles. But he was seriously warned to say that he was kidnapped by the Fulani or else they would come to burn his house. He had no choice than to oblige them.
Now, many of these criminals masquerading as agitators have been rounded up and peace is at long last returning to the Southeast Zone. And there was no denying the atrocities committed by these separatist elements. We all witnessed their atrocious acts. They stormed prisons and released hardened criminals, some of whom were on death row, armed them and let them loose on the local population.
They stormed police stations and burned them down by throwing local bombs. They killed police officers and soldiers. They stormed and burnt local government headquarters. They declared sit at home and enforced it by killing defaulters. Their sit at home directives caused some students to miss English and Maths during the West African Examinations Council exams.
Schools were shut down on sit at home days in the east while those in other parts of the country were in session. They stagnated businesses in the east with constant sit at home directives and the killing of defaulters, so much so that many began to relocate to neighbouring Asaba, Delta State, to continue their business.
Because of their activities, the criminals in their ranks launched kidnap attacks across the zone. Social and economic life took a plunge as many communities were annexed, with many of the indigenes fleeing to the townships for dear life.
But thanks to Gov Chukwuma Soludo and other Southeast Governors who launched a brutal war against these hoodlums and today, they have been greatly decimated, while people are now returning to their communities hitherto taken over by the fake liberators.
The leaders of the agitators (Simon Ekpa and Nnamdi Kanu) have also been jailed. The earlier jailing of Ekpa in Finland brought considerable peace to Igbo Land, just as the recent jailing of Kanu is expected to increase it.
But then, rather than feel relieved that the government has removed our burden, security wise, some of us are playing the sentimental card and shouting marginalization. Yet they did not shout that after Ekpa was jailed in Finland by the Finnish Government. And I have always asked what the difference is between Ekpa and Kanu.
Is there anything Ekpa did that was not done by Kanu? Both gave inciting voice notes, both declared sit at home, both brainwashed our youths and both ordered the killing of security agencies, all in their home land.
Yes, they were protesting the injustice against the Igbo in the country and we know we have been victims of great and systemic injustice. But the way they went about it was very, very wrong. You do not commit crime because you want to fight crime. If you are caught you will go in for it.
You do not burn your house because you want to show your enemy that you are angry with him. You will only be playing into his hands and he will only go for thanksgiving for your stupid action of burning your house. It is much like one cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face. It is just an exercise in stupidity. But that was what our agitators did.
But then again, some of us have been arguing with those who posit that criminals in the north are not getting the same harsh treatment but are rather being handled with kid gloves. That is not entirely untrue or true though. We are all witnesses to how the Nigeria Army uses jets to bomb Boko Haram hideouts. On one occasion, civilians were hurt.
The only problem is that some elements within the military also sabotage efforts to weed the Boko Haram insurgents out. Yet, that does not mean that there is no war going on between the federal forces and Boko Haram forces. But because some cabals are protecting the insurgents, the north has become a nightmare to residents, many of whom have fled to other parts of the country.
To these people who have fled their comfort zones, they will be very happy if those who caused their flight are arrested and killed or jailed. They will not mind if their fellow criminals elsewhere are pampered or not; all they will want is justice and the return of peace.
But here, we are asking why our own brothers who made life difficult for us are being arrested and jailed when their counterparts elsewhere are being pampered and handled with kid gloves and this is what I always find intriguing, if not laughable.
Those who hold this view have always not been able to answer what they will do if those who kill their people or kidnap them are arrested and on the point of being jailed, somebody walks up to them and pleads that they should be let go simply because in the north or any other place such people are let go. What will they do in that situation?
I thought that what should concern us here, and rightly so, is for all those who despoiled our land to be punished accordingly as a deterrent against a repeat of such in future. I had thought that our preoccupation should be enthroning peace in our land, rather than pointing at what happens in other places that don’t concern us.
Parts of the north which pampers their criminals are lying nearly desolate today and the people are bearing the brunt. Would we also want our land here to go through what the north is going through and let our criminals keep tormenting us just because the north tolerates rubbish?
Just in the past two weeks schools and churches were raided in Niger, Kebbi and Kwara, with many of the students kidnapped. This has made many state governments in the north to start shutting down schools to protect students and teachers. Is that what we want here? Is it not better that our criminals are punished so that we will be safe than that we allow them to go free because others elsewhere go free, while we live in fear?
One thing we should know is anyone who kills someone because of some perceived injustice will be tried for murder; no two ways about it. Sentiments won’t save such a person because the laws of the land forbid it. Yes, Kanu is our brother, but he is a delinquent brother who should face the consequences of his actions against his own people and the nation.
That is the hard fact which no amount of weeping and shouting can change. We want peace back in the east and if punishing some people who inflicted pain on us will bring back the peace, so be it. It doesn’t call for sentiments or emotions. It is just a reality check.
Let’s think straight.
