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PEOPLE AND POLITICS BY MOHAMMED HARUNA Boko Haram: “War” With No End? The title of this piece is not original. I’ve adapted it from that of a 2007 collection of essays by ten left-wing writers of various nationalities whose commonality is an abhorrence of the gratuitous use of violence by the State to solve problems in society or between nations. Among them is Naomi Klein, journalist, writer, film maker and author of The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, her 2007 book in which she showed how the neo-conservative forces that have taken over America and much of the West have used, in the words of the book’s blurb, “public disorientation following massive collective shocks – wars, terrorist attacks, natural disasters – to push through highly unpopular economic shock therapy.” In her own contribution entitled “Building a Booming Economy Based on War with No End; The Lessons of Israel”, in the collection in question, Klein tried to answer the puzzle about how the Israeli economy has boomed in the midst of the chaos and carnage in its region. The New York Times columnist, Thomas Friedman, had offered the explanation that it was because the Israeli education system and its broader society “nurtures and rewards individual imagination.” Israel, Friedman said, “had discovered oil” not literally but metaphorically in the minds of the country’s “young innovators and venture capitalists.” Right answer if you only looked at the surface only, countered Klein, but wrong if you looked deeper. Israel, she argued, was booming because “perhaps more than any other country, (it) has learnt to build an economy based on never ending war.” Yes, Friedman was in a way right that Israel had struck oil, she said, but that oil was not the imagination of its clever young “techies.” Rather the oil was “the war on terror, the state of constant fear that creates a bottomless demand for the devices that watch, listen, contain and target suspects. And fear, unlike oil, is the ultimate renewable resource.” Klein supported her theory with statistics that showed how the Israeli economy has come to depend on the West’s never ending war on terror. The country’s technology sector, much of it linked to security, she said, grew by 16% in 2006 alone and made up 60% of all its exports. In the same year, she said, the country exported US $3.4 billion in defence products, “well over a billion more than it received in US military aid.” This, she said, made Israel the fourth-largest arms dealer in the world, overtaking Britain. Israel’s high level tech-dependency – it is believed to be the most tech-dependent in the world, indeed twice as dependent as the US, the next highest tech-dependent country - she said, had left its economy so unprotected that it came as no surprise when the dot-com bubble burst of 2000 led to its collapse such that by 2002, the Tel Aviv business newspaper, Globes, was declaring the year as “the worst for the Israeli economy since 1953.” Yet, somehow, by 2003, the country was already making a “stunning” recovery and by 2004, as if by some miracle, it was, Klein said, already performing better than almost any Western economy. What saved the country, she said, was 9/11, followed by bombings in Bali, Madrid, London, etc. “What,” she said, “saved Israel’s economy was the realization by its business and political leaders that 9/11 had opened up a new potential market niche for the country, as the world’s leading supplier of ‘counter-terrorism’ tools and services.” Predictably the novelty of Boko Haram’s suicide bombing in Nigeria and its targeted attacks on state security outfits, churches and even on the United Nations building in Abuja, the Federal capital, following the Federal Government’s 2009 attempt to wipe out the Islamic sect from its redoubt in Maiduguri, Borno State capital, has provided the Israelis the opportunity to expand their well-known and already widespread presence in the country’s security sector. Only the other day the authorities announced they would be spending over 10 billion Naira to fight Boko Haram. You can be sure that a huge chunk of that princely sum will go to Israeli firms providing security goods and services. Of course the Israelis would not be the only beneficiaries. Others would include the British, our former colonial masters, and the Americans whose invitation as military and security advisers embedded in our military establishments, the reader may recall, eventually led to the sack of General Victor Malu as army chief several years ago for protesting their presence in our military barracks. The Boko Haram terrorism is obviously bad for the country’s economy and, needless to say, very bad for ordinary Nigerians who now live in fear of falling victims in the crossfire between the sect and the authorities. However, it is bad for Nigeria and Nigerians not only because the economy suffers and innocent Nigerians also suffer or even die as a result. It is bad also because it poses the distinct danger that, like those outsiders who profit from chaos and mayhem, our own politicians and military and security forces, along with their contractors, may develop the attitude of preferring the dividends of war to those of peace. There are signs that this may already be the case. Even the most casual observer of our roads and highways would have noticed, for example, that for the first time since the Federal Government’s Low Profile Policy of 1976 which made Peugeot the general official car, senior military officers lately cruise around in Toyota Land Cruiser Jeeps and top of the line BMWs as official cars. Behind and beyond this gratuitous show of extravagance, there are rumours of unhealthy turf wars among the security forces, especially between the military and the police, on who should handle the procurement of what security products and services. There are also rumours that our Minister of Finance and chief coordinator of the economy, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, is becoming so concerned about the way money is being appropriated – misappropriated is probably more like it - in the name of fighting Boko Haram in particular and security in general that she’s seriously contemplating resigning her super-ministerial job. Credible or not, these rumours underscore the danger that Boko Haram may be seized upon – that is if it has not already been seized upon - as an opportunity by Klein’s “disaster capitalists” abroad and their henchmen in mufti or khaki here at home to militarise Nigeria’s economy and society for good. The early signs of this are here already in the almost meaningless military and police checkpoints that have made travelling around the country and commuting within our towns and cities absolutely miserable. The lesson of violence with no end as we have witnessed in the Middle East, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Pakistan, in Somalia and wherever disaster capitalism has sought to get take control of, is that it is foolish and futile to rely more on the instruments of violence than on dialogue for the resolution of disagreements in society no matter how deep. On celebrating Magaji Dambatta at 80 (Your column last week) is what I wish I had written as a tribute to Malam Magaji for what I learnt by associating with him and as a token of gratitude for his liberality with his time, ideas and resources and for that indescribably genuine, self-effacing humility that is uniquely his. And for his being great. But there are two mistakes and I think I should tell you before others do: Dambatta is spelt with an 'm' and not an 'n,' as I discovered to my chagrin while writing with him; and for Morningsiders like us, a person's or a town's name is as they spell it. And the autobiography is 'The Pull of Fate' not Faith. Adamu Adamu, Abuja.
Thanks for your usual "Wednesday- Wednesday" tonic. Just wish to inform you that the Cameroon plebiscite took place in 1962 when yours sincerely was in Form 2. And to the best of my little knowledge, the Makaman Bida was at various times Minister of Education and later, Finance, but never of Health. Shehu Kaikai, Kaduna. January 15, 1966 was a Saturday and NCNC was the National Council [not Congress] of Nigeria and Cameroons, and later of Nigerian Citizens. Felix Adenaike, Ibadan.
Makaman Bida was finance minister and Ahman Pategi that of health. I also think the (Cameroonian) plebiscite took place in the two parts of the Cameroons at the same time in1961, not separately. Northern Cameroun became Sardauna Province, the North's thirteenth. M. T. Usman, Kaduna. Last week’s piece celebrating Magaji Danbatta at 80 mad interesting reading but I thought I should make a slight correction. The late Alhaji Aliyu, Makaman Bida (Bahago) was Minister of Finance and has always deputised for the late Premier. He was at no time Minister of Health. He was at one time Minister of Education before the late Wazirin Katsina, Alhaji Isa Kaita. Similarly, if childhood memory does serve me well, Alhaji Ibrahim Biu was Minister of information up till Jan 15, 1966. However I do remember Alhaji Ahmadu Fatika who, until 2 years ago was alive, as Sarkin Fadan Zazzau and one time Minister of Health after a cabinet reshuffle which saw late Alhaji Ahman Pategi moved to Agriculture from Health. May their souls rest in peace. Amin. Usman Jimada, Abuja. I have read your article on the subject matter above so also Magaji’s autobiography. It was not MUSTAPHA (Magaji’s brother) that contested against him as you said. But Mustapha supported his friend ALTO DAMBATTA, a PRP candidate that defeated Magaji DAMBATTA who contested in NPN. Murtala Uba, Kano.
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