Boko Haram: Now, Politics Creeps In

By Garba Shehu    Newsdiaryonline Wed Nov 30,2011

Ndume

The arrest of Senator Ali Ndume in connection with Boko Haram has presented a peculiar situation for the country, inasmuch as the ruling Peoples Democratic Party PDP has been presenting the Boko Haram terrorist activity as the creation of the opposition All Nigeria Peoples Party, ANPP that rules Borno state. The Guardian newspaper recently branded Boko Haram as an obstinate enemy of the State. So the arrest of a senior PDP member by the Joint Military Task-Force, JTF supposedly controlled by the party in power is in effect, not the result intended! On the other hand, this paradox has in a curious way benefited the ANPP to a degree; the Northern leaders/politicians in a good measure and a bonus point to opposition politicians in the country at large. All of those now have the excuse of hanging the Boko Haram tag of infamy on the PDP. The Buhari camp, feeling off the hook, is already gloating.

Meanwhile, the Boko Haram stoutly denies that any of its members is linked with any politician. Ndume’s friends say this once rising politician is a precise, level-headed man in his early fifties, well-educated and a moderate. His mother is actually a Southern Borno Christian. But they say he is violently opportunistic and ambitious, and may arguably see a shortcut to the State House in Maiduguri, for the party, and subsequently himself by using the Boko Haram to chase away the ANPP, using threats to intimidate the Tribunal and the Attorney-General of the Federation.

As it is, PDP members deny hotly that Senator Ndume has anything to do with Boko Haram. The PDP members assert impliedly that the young Borno Senator just woke up to find himself in Boko Haram uniform without being absolutely sure of how he got there. Perhaps, in that sense, Ndume was allegedly trying to extract favour with the tribunal and the Attorney-General by using Boko Haram “volunteers”.

Most watchers of politics concede that Ndume had done an admirable job as House Minority Leader that saw his elevation to the Senate as a promotion well-deserved.

Senator Ndume’s supposed tormentor, Ali Modu Sheriff on the other hand is a man who has no limits when it comes to executing his own wishes. He is a typical Machiavellian politician to whom the end justifies the means. The story was told about how he lost the Borno Central Senate seat in the last election. Perceived as a ruthless politician, Ali Modu Sheriff never lost an election in his state in the past. Having served the constitutionally permissible two terms of office as Governor, he aspired to go back to the Senate and surprisingly, he lost this time around.

When a party of sympathizers had gone to console him over his loss, he explained to them that this situation was caused by the propaganda by INEC that this election was fool-proof and would not be rigged. “After the first election, I saw not less ten ways by which the election could be rigged”. Unfortunately, his election was the first on queue. “If I knew this in time” he said, “I would not have lost my election.”

Another dimension, widespread among Muslim Northerners, is that a major conspiracy is afloat to black paint and discredit them as the country’s most enduring power base. To build a sustainable power base of their own, the Ijaw ruling group, it is said, must quash the Hausa-Fulani Muslim power base to build a sustainable one of their own. The South-South policy, in the abstract its is said, is to foment trouble in the North, discredit their leaders and infiltrate into the region’s political, administrative and leadership structures, if possible. This may be a crude slander but to say it is not being said is to live in a dream.

There are many who keep reminding us that this is not the first time that errant groups have risen to challenge political authority and corporate entity that is Nigeria. In political truth, the Yoruba political elite patronized the Oodua People’s Congress (OPC) and extremist groups of that genre even as they killed strangers in their midst as well as policemen and soldiers but there was never popular hatred towards the Yorubas or any conspiracy to undermine the South-Western sub-region as a result of the OPC excesses of ethnic jingoism. The Igbo ethnic sovereignty movement (MASSOB) is also hand-in-gloves with Ohanaeze and the pipeline bombing schemes of the Niger Delta militants were openly supported by a large section of their elite who said it is “our oil and our money, you can’t steal what you own.”

Unlike these other groups, the Boko Haram enjoys no such support, at least as far as we can see, from the political leadership in the North. In fact, it may be foolhardy for any northern leader to identify with Boko Haram because of the international dimension of terrorism and the risks of being linked to Al-Qaeda.

Alhaji Umaru Mutallab, the former chairman of the First Bank, had to report his own son to the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria, when he discovered to his consternation, that his son had fallen into the hands of terror groups. He knew the implications of silence to his financial interests and international investments. In the north, therefore, no leader wants to touch Boko Haram with a barge pole. If, indeed, there is someone, somewhere, sympathetic to them, such sympathy is cryptic. May be you cannot rule out political chancers somewhere who could use Boko Haram to achieve certain agenda.

One politician I met spoke like this: “the massive amounts of money spent on security, some of it directly from source, and therefore unbudgeted, must be justified with a high profile arrest that only a man of Senator Ndume’s standing can justify.” Flowing from this, is a feeling of pressure, region-wide, from tabloid-like media coverage and anti-Northern sentiment in the media.

All these point to a trend of narrow nationalism, currently a fad in the country. In times of economic crises as we are now have, each group sees others as rivals as they jealously guard their patch. The trend is worrying. Northerners speaking ill of Southerners and Christians speaking ill of Muslims is a vicious circle that must be tackled decisively. Muslims must carry the burden of guilt by association as far as their traducers are concerned. In their minds, there are no innocent Muslims, despite the fact that several fellow Muslims have fallen victims to Boko Haram bullets.

In the current situation, we don’t need history lesson to know that dangerously narrow-minded nationalism is a deleterious tendency. In the words of the science genius, Albert Einstein, “nationalism is an infantile disease, the measles of mankind.” The best answer to Boko Haram and ethno-religious violence in the North and the Country as a whole is jobs and economic development. In Niger Delta today, the tag of an ex-militant is a badge honour that fetches unemployed youths stipends and overseas scholarships to read medicine, aeronautical engineering and piloting and the other professions. I bet this will work miracles in the North as well, if government will treat all restless and jobless citizens as equal citizens.

This government has two options in dealing with these explosions of violence and the political colourations they are assuming. One is to see them as a challenge to double up efforts to generate growth and jobs for our young people. Alternatively, we can lie down and accept that this country is designed for a back seat in the comity of nations with no fire power to create jobs and development and so, business as usual!