Blood on Their Hands
By
As the violent dust raised by the tragic saga of Boko Haram settles down,
very horrible pictures are emerging from the rubble: state sanctioned
genocide. Bloodthirsty policemen with only one thing on their minds:
murder. Callous, incompetent state governors desperate to divert attention
away from their corruption, ineptitude and other political troubles.
With each passing day, and with each additional revelation, Mohammed Yusuf,
leader of the Boko Haram movement and hundreds of his followers that were
killed by the police and the army, are looking less like villains and more
like victims. Poor guys, there is just no one left alive to tell their own
side of the story. But those who thought that killing everybody that could
have provided alternative window into the remote and immediate cause of
the tragedy would cover up their crimes for ever, did not reckon with
modern technology, or with the determination of the Nigerian army to be
thoroughly professional in the matter.
The picture of Mohammed Yusuf as he was captured and handed over to the
police; and the transcript of his interrogation both of which were
released by the army and both of which were captured by dozens of
ireporters using their mobile phones, have given the lie to the official
explanation that we were fed with. When the crisis broke out late last
month in Bauchi, the official explanation was that a band of religious
extremists with medieval tendencies had gone berserk and had launched a
murderous-cum-suicidal attack against the state and its citizens. As my
friend Modibbo Kawu would say, that was the profile of Boko Haram that was
created in our minds.
The Bauchi state government was the first to create this “savage” profile;
naturally this suited the dominant media which have never been friendly or
even fair to Islam or Muslims. So the media gleefully orchestrated it, and
we uncritically swallowed it, hook, line and sinker; instantly, all over
the
country, a venomous perception of Boko Haram built up among Muslims and
Christians, at home and abroad. Everybody was screaming: kill them, crush
them, massacre them; they are not fit to live.
But now, with the benefit of new revelations, it does look as if it is
those who murdered a subdued, unarmed, manacled Mohammed Yusuf that do not
deserve to live. According to eye witnesses the security forces also
murdered perfectly innocent people in cold blood; with some of them even
exploiting the opportunity to exert vengeance on some perceived personal
enemies of theirs. And what are those new revelations?
First, there was the statement of Mohammed Yusuf as contained in the
transcript released by the army. It was clear from what he said that Yusuf
and Boko Haram were/are no more dangerous to the country than Henry Okah
and his group, MEND.
Therefore why did the security forces choose to treat Boko Haram and Yusuf
with such brutality and savagery in contrast to the way they are treating
other militant groups such as MEND, MASSOB, OPC etc? Muslims all over the
country are justifiably angry and becoming increasingly frustrated as one
grim truth sinks in: In their own country they are second class citizens;
when it comes to justice two laws apply when you dare to disagree with the
state, one for the Southern Nigerian and another for the Northern Nigerian
Muslim. And this is made even more painful by the sad realization that
they are treated with such callous indifference with the active connivance
of their own leaders.
This is the view of the average Muslim
on the street, majority of who totally disagree with Boko Haram’s
distorted understanding of Islam.
The second revelation is the way the police hurriedly and extra-judicially
executed Yusuf. What Nigerians are reading from this is that Yusuf was
hastily killed by the police to prevent him from making revelations that
could incriminate top government officials, including possibly top
security operatives. That may not be necessarily correct but why did the
police and the Borno State Governor attempt to lie that Yususf was killed
in gunfight with his captors? People tell lies for one reason only, that
is when they have something to hide; in this case the public would like to
know why the police summarily executed such a crucial link to the deeper
secretes of such a dangerous movement and then attempted to deceive the
public.
Granted that the Boko Haram movement presented a rather delicate security
situation for both the police and the governors of the states where the
problem was most serious; it is also true that the police needed to be
decisive in order to stop the situation from spilling into other volatile
areas and covering more dangerous socio-political grounds; but even in war
situations, there are rules of engagement that must be observed.
If Yusuf was leading a band of dangerous armed robbers, no one will
question the way he was killed, but by their action the police authorities
have denied the nation the chance to look beyond the surface, to uncover
the dept of the reach of Boko Haram, their method of recruitment and find
out who their financiers are, if any. As it is we are all left to
speculate as to the how, where and what Boko Haram is all about.
Even the killing of a former commissioner in Borno state (who was accused
of assisting the group) did not endear the
police to the public; according to one report the former commissioner was
killed while pleading to have audience with the state governor, his former
boss, but the governor reportedly refused to see him and the man was
executed shortly afterwards. Nobody can say what his role was beyond what
the police alleged. Then there was also the equally pathetic and dubious
killing of the father in-law of Mohammed Yusuf, who was killed after
reporting himself to the police.
Indeed the more facts that emerge from this bloody tragedy, and the more
critically one examines the Boko Haram saga, the clearer it becomes that
the whole matter has been one terrible intelligence and security mess.
This then gives rise to the question whether in fact the National Security
Adviser to the President is the right person to be entrusted with
investigating the matter; if the NSA had been on top of his job, the
situation might not have degenerated to the level it did.
God knows, there had been sufficient warning signals: Bauchi has been
simmering since the state governor retuned to his former party the PDP
from the ANPP under which platform he won the governorship election; when
the president went to Bauchi to give him the PDP flag, hundreds of youths
had to be rounded up and detained for the duration of the ceremony;
shortly afterwards two students were shot dead when they clashed with
security forces over payment of some examination fees. In Borno, only a
few weeks before the crisis, there was a violent clash between the police
and a funeral procession of some religious group (possibly Boko Haram) in
which some members of the religious group were killed (they had sworn,
allegedly, to take revenge).
Yet it was apparent that our security chiefs either neglected all those
warning flashes or didn’t recognize them; either way this requires the
president, who was probably misinformed—and ill-advised to travel out at
the peak of the crisis—to take a very critical look at his security team
with a view to overhauling it.
The President and the governors of the two states would also need to
address the genuine resentment that is gaining currency among Muslims that
we are expendable, just because we have no oil in the backyard. If the
government decides to allow this resentment and feeling of alienation to
grow, it would be shocked at the dimension that that the next rebellion
could assume.
Garba Deen is the former Editor of Weekly Trust and the Editor-in-Chief of
The Companion.
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