Boko Haram: Prospects For A Negotiated Solution

By

Abubakar Alkali

alkalizai@yahoo.com

 

It is heart-warming to catch up with the news this morning that President Muhammadu Buhari has expressed willingness to negotiate with Boko haram in order to bring an end to the current wave of senseless killings going on in North East Nigeria. The authenticity of this news is more so when juxtaposed with the fact that it is coming from no less a person than the President’s senior special assistant on media Mr Femi Adesina. 

About a fortnight ago, I wrote an article titled, Boko Haram: The carrot and stick approach for a lasting solution where I recommended the formulation and implementation of a mixed menu based on the carrot (Dialogue) and stick  (complimentary use of force where dialogue fails). The key aspect of this strategy is to make dialogue and negotiation the basis of a constructive engagement with Boko haram while force is applied only where there is a breach of the results/terms of dialogue. There is one very important consideration regarding the efficacy of dialogue which is that today in Nigeria we have a President whose sincerity and honesty is beyond doubt. The import of these rare qualities (Honesty and sincerity) of President Muhammadu Buhari is that he can be trusted because he stands by his words. President Buhari will certainly stand by any agreement that he entered with anyone including Boko haram. By his antecedents, everyone knows that President Buhari will not say one thing and turn around to do something different. It behoves on all of us lovers of peace in Nigeria to rise up and support Mr President and his government to stop these senseless killings in our dear country and bring an end to the metamorphosis of Boko haram before it becomes a way of life for our unemployed youths and reaches a point of irredemability.

Mr President’s acceptance of a possible dialogue with Boko haram is the right step in the right direction. What is required now is a concerted effort to lay a solid foundation towards genuine dialogue with Boko haram while keeping the military option on standby. The fact remains that our gallant soldiers on the frontline have performed excellently against Boko haram. Our soldiers are heroes who have stood to defend their country and in the process laid their lives in defence of their fatherland. All Nigerians owe it a duty to pay a tribute to our soldiers in the fight against Boko haram because if not for the work that our soldiers have done over the last 6 years against Boko haram even when they were refused the right weapons to fight, the story would have been different. Boko haram would indeed have overwhelmed Nigeria if not for the work of our gallant soldiers on the frontline.

After 6 years of the use of military force alone against Boko haram, it is clear that the problem has refused to go away or even subside. This calls for the need to balance military force with some form of persuasive engagement, dialogue and negotiation. This is because anytime Boko haram is pushed to the cleaners, they find a way to bounce back in even more devastating and deadly passion. Boko haram has demonstrated that they have a way to bounce back whenever they are pushed away. After the onslaught last year on Boko haram by the multinational forces from Nigeria, Chad and Niger, one would have thought that Boko haram has been permanently crippled. However, the killings in the last 4 weeks have shown otherwise. In one instance a few days ago, Boko haram killed over 150 people in 3 separate attacks. They move literally unchallenged in 3 villages where they perpetrated these atrocities. Within the last 4 weeks, several suicide attacks have been carried out allegedly by Boko haram. In fact Boko haram now has the highest number of fatalities compared to any other terror group in the world.

Several attacks perpetrated by Boko haram are through suicide bombings and other forms of guerrilla warfare. This is one critical issue that promotes dialogue with Boko haram because it is realistically impossible to find a solution to suicide bombings because a suicide bomber is not identifiable.

Recall that the war between the U.S on one hand and Alqaeda, ISIS and the Taliban on the other is still very much on despite the enormous resources and military force deployed by the U.S against these insurgent groups. Although the U.S is fighting external terror, these insurgent groups would have long been decimated if indeed military force can defeat ideological terror. For one, the insurgent believes that they are going straight to heaven if they are killed in the process and have got nothing to lose. This is the main motive behind suicide bombing. A conventional army can NEVER defeat a Guerilla force.

Negotiation is not a sign of weakness rather it is a demonstration of strength, humility and sincerity of purpose. Indeed the federal government will negotiate with Boko haram from a position of strength not weakness and will hold all the aces albeit will listen to the grievances of Boko haram with a view to addressing these grievances. One way to start this important but likely lengthy journey towards negotiation with Boko haram is to begin with an offer of a ceasefire. The federal government can use this blessed holy month of Ramadan to offer a carrot to Boko haram towards a moratorium for a 6 months ceasefire during which both sides can enter into a genuine and meaningful negotiation to find ways to end the conflict. During the 6 months moratorium for ceasefire, the preliminary terms will be that Boko haram will not fire a single shot, confine to their hotbed Sambisa forest and will accept to close all their bomb making factories. On its own part, the federal government will stay action on the use of force and will not arrest, harass or intimidate any member of Boko haram within the confines of Sambisa forest only. This offer for both sides is not exhaustive but is certainly a good foundation towards a genuine constructive engagement involving both sides. What is needed for dialogue to succeed is honesty and sincerity both of which our President has in abundance. The results of the 6 months negotiation will determine whether or not an amnesty can be declared for Boko haram. This strategy presents a realistic platform since both sides are part of the resolutions. It is different from the Jonathanian era where the last administration negotiated with itself only. The socalled negotiation was one sided as it involved only the government without the consent of the other parties. In reality there has never been negotiation with Boko haram under Jonathan.

The Buhari administration is entirely different from the Jonathan administration in terms of finding a solution to Boko haram. Dialogue failed during Jonathan because he (Jonathan) treated Boko haram in a distinct i-don’t-care attitude because his mentality was that Boko haram is political and was created to remove him (Jonathan) from office. Jonathan’s misplaced mentality was that there was an imaginary Northern power block that created Boko haram to remove him from office. Jonathan and his kinsmen wrongly thought that Boko haram was created by the North to force Jonathan out of office and will disappear as soon as a Northerner takes over as President. The Chief of Army staff Gen Minimah even said that he was sure Boko haram will fade within 6 months after 29th May 2015. Alas! Jonathan didn’t understood he was wrong in that thinking until he crashed out of Aso rock because Jonathan’s electoral defeat can be largely attributed to his disastrous handling of Boko haram. The senseless and relentless killings perpetrated by Boko haram in the last 4 weeks has underscored the fact that Boko haram is NOT and has NEVER been political.

The truth was that former President Jonathan chose to politicise the issue of Boko haram so as to justify his inaction against Boko haram and also vent his anger on a particular section of the country. Jonathan thought the North could destroy itself if they so wish as he doesn’t give a damn. This is the reason why the allegation that former President Jonathan is key sponsor of Boko haram is still fresh in the books of the international criminal court (ICC) in Hague, the Netherlands.

There is still a window of opportunity to tackle Boko haram and the longer the wait the more challenging  it will be for negotiation with Boko haram. Clearly this group portends a grave danger to the corporate existence of Nigeria both in the near and long terms. The window is shrinking by the day as Boko haram’s net for youths conscription and radicalisation gets wider. Boko haram will be difficult if not impossible to tackle at some point when it becomes a franchise for our teeming youths in the North and possibly other parts of Nigeria. The average rate of poverty in the North is 80% and rising as the prospects for the spread of the Boko haramnic ideology gets more evident. An unemployed youth has all the fertility of the mind to be radicalised and conscripted into Boko haram because he/she has no job or any means of survival. To prevent the spread of Boko haram amongst our youths, there is the urgent need for the government to implement policies and programmes that will reposition the economy of the Northern region just as the late YarAdua administration implemented programmes that repositioned and eventually empowered the Youths in the Niger Delta. The late YarAdua administration created programmes for the empowerment of the Niger Delta regions such as the controversial Amnesty programme and the ministry of Niger Delta affairs. In the same vein, the Buhari administration can lay a solid foundation to prevent the conscription of our vulnerable youths into Boko Haram by implementing programmes that will reposition the economy of Northern Nigeria. In particular, the federal government can prepare some shock absorbers to Boko haram by investing massively in Agriculture to promote economic activities in Northern Nigeria. The federal government can create a NATIONAL AGRICULTURAL COMMISSION  (of course 75% of Nigeria’s agriculture is in the North) that will promote economic activities in Northern Nigeria and kick start a bandwagon spread of small and medium scale enterprises all across Northern Nigeria. For a long term solution to Boko haram, the current poverty rate in Northern Nigeria must be drastically cut down.

The United Nations multidimensional poverty index released recently indicates poverty spread across Nigeria as follows:

 

STATES POVERTY RATE (STARTING WITH THE LEAST POOR):

(Source: The Global Multidimensional Poverty Index by the United Nations)

Lagos - 8.5%.  Osun ­– 10.9%. Anambra – 11.2%. Ekiti – 12.9%. Edo – 19.2%. Imo – 19.8%.                 Abia – 21.0%. Rivers – 21.1%. FCT (Abuja) – 23.5 %. Kwara – 23.7%. Akwa Ibom – 23.8%. Delta – 25.1%. Ogun – 26.1%. Kogi – 26.4%. Ondo – 27.9%. Enugu – 28.8%. Bayelsa – 29.0%. Oyo – 29.4%. Cross River – 33.1%. Plateau – 51.6%. Nassarawa 52.4%. Ebonyi – 56.0%. Kaduna – 56.5%. Adamawa – 59.0%. Benue – 59.2%. Niger – 61.2%. Borno – 70.1%. Kano – 76.4%. Gombe – 76.9%. Taraba – 77.7%. Katsina – 82.2%. Sokoto – 85.3%. Kebbi – 86.0%. Bauchi – 86.6%. Jigawa – 88.4%. Yobe – 90.2%. Zamfara – 91.91%.

One remarkable discovery here is that Zamfara state which is touted to be the richest state in Nigeria in terms of mineral resources, is the poorest.

 

POVERTY RATES BASED ON GEOPOLITICAL ZONES:

1.       South West - 19.3%

2.       South South – 25.2%

3.       South East – 27.36%

4.       North Central – 45.7%

5.       North East – 76.8%

6.       North West – 80.9%.

 

The figures above indicate that the 3 zones in the Northern part of the country constitute the poorest part of Nigeria. The North East which is the beehive of Boko haram activities is about 77% poor which means for every 10 people, about 8 are poor. This also means that out of every 10 youths in the North East, about 8 of them are prone and susceptible to radicalisation and can join anything to survive including Boko haram. The North West is the poorest part of Nigeria and also the most populated with about 30% of Nigeria’s population. The North West also has the highest number of unemployed youths in Nigeria hence one can say that there appears to be a time bomb in the North West because the youths are looking for what to do and can fall into anybody’s hands. Apart from massive investment in agriculture, the federal government should also invest in skill acquisition programmes that will get the restive youths in North east Nigeria up, running and engaged in one form of economic activity or the other. The goal should be to get every youth in North East Nigeria skilled in one trade or another. This calls for massive investment in SKILL ACQUISITION PROGRAMME in North East Nigeria that will empower the youths

Quite rightly, Mr President has already afforded the needed focus and prioritised tackling Boko haram in line with his campaign promise. It behoves on all of us lovers of peace to continue to pray for the President in his sincere resolve to find a lasting solution to the continued killing and displacement of Nigerians occasioned by the Boko haram insurgency.