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Terrorism, Politics, Religion and Peace: Nigeria and Beyond By Mohammed Haruna Being
a paper on Terrorism, Politics, Religion and Peace: Nigeria and Beyond
presented by Mohammed Haruna, Managing Director, Citizen
Communications Ltd., at a seminar organised by the Civil Rights
Congress, in Kaduna on September 10 and 11, 2002. The
topic I have been invited to speak on i.e. Terrorism, Politics, Religion
and Peace: Nigeria and Beyond is rather nebulous. One can write volumes
on the four terms included in the topic, each on its own merit, or as
they relate to each other within the contexts of Nigeria and the globe.
I assume that the organisers of this seminar expect me to speak on how
the four subjects relate to each other within the Nigerian and global
context.
Of
the four terms included in the topic the first, i.e. terrorism, is by
definition a bad thing, while the last, i.e. peace, is by definition, a
good thing. The two terms in between, i.e. politics and religion, can be
causes for bad or for good. Politics and religions, in other words are
essentially neutral.
Now
whereas the idea of peace is fairly objective, the idea of terrorism is
not. Peace is freedom from war, from strife or disagreement among people
or groups of people. With terrorism, it is the exact opposite. On the
surface it is somewhat the opposite of peace. Terrorism is violence or
the threat of violence for political purposes. Such violence includes
bombing, assassinations, murder, and kidnapping. In this sense everyone
should detest terrorism, just like everyone wants peace. The
problem with terrorism, however, is that, like beauty, it is in the eye
of a beholder. In other words, one man’s terrorist may be another
man’s hero. In the local context, for example, Gani Adams, the leader
of the more violent faction of Odua Peoples Congress (OPC) that
claims to defend the interests of the Yoruba nation, is probably a hero
to most Yoruba. To the victims of the organisation’s violent ways,
however, Adams is a terrorist. Actually officially he is a terrorist
since the Federal Government has outlawed his organisation and once
declared him wanted for murder. The fact, however, that for years he was
never arrested, and then when he was eventually arrested and charged to
court, he was quickly acquitted in Lagos, the political heartland of the
Yoruba nation, suggested that he had sympathy among his people who gave
him refuge from the law for a very long time. Similarly,
in the global context, whereas to the West Osama bin Laden is a
terrorist, to millions of Muslims and Arabs, he is a hero who has stood
up to Western hegemony. The same thing can be said of Iraq’s Saddam
Hussein, whose overthrow has become a cardinal objective of America and
Britain, if not the entire West. To the West Iraq is a terrorist state
for, among other things, hiding its alleged nuclear programme, but
Israel which certainly has nuclear weapons and has refused to sign the
nuclear non-proliferation treaty, talkless allow international
inspection of its nuclear weapons programme, is not. Likewise apartheid
South Africa which terrorized all its neighbours, in the name of
containing communism and which had a nuclear weapons programme with
Israel, was not. Similarly,
Christian East Timorees who successfully fought for their independence
from Muslim Malaysia were considered by the global media and the
international community as freedom fighters and its leader awarded the
Nobel Peace Prize, but the neighbouring Muslim Mindanaoans who started
out fighting for autonomy from the Christian Philippine have been
portrayed as terrorists. Terrorism
is in the eye of the beholder for the simple reason that, unlike a
common criminal or a mercenary who terrorizes for money, a terrorist
does so for political and sometimes religious ends. Naturally those who
share a “terrorist’s” political or religious affiliations or
objectives will see him as a hero, while those opposed to those
objectives will see him as a villain. There
is the additional complication that because the terrorism is for
political and religious ends, even where there is an agreement on who is
a terrorist, differences will arise on how to deal with his threat. A
clear example is Iraq’s Saddam Hussein. There is unanimity among
Western countries and conservative Arab countries that Hussein possess a
threat to the Middle East and the West because of his alleged possession
of weapons of mass destruction, among other things. However, because his
removal poses a possible threat of the destabilization of the region
because most ordinary Arabs see an attack on him as highly selective
because of America’s unqualified support for Israel in what they see
as its aggression against Palestine, there is division within the West
on how and when to remove him. In
Nigeria, except for the OPC in the South-West and the Egbesu Boys
in the Delta region, few organisations have tried to use violence in a
systematic way for political or religious ends. The Bakassi Boys
in the East is also a violent group. However, it differs from OPC and
Egbesu Boys in that it is more of a vigilante group than an
ethnic militia which has set political objectives. As we approach the
next general elections, however, there has been a tendency to use the Bakassi
Boys for political ends. There is also an increasing use of
university cult members by politicians to achieve their political
objectives. OPC
seems to have its remote origin in the annulment by military President,
General Ibrahim Babangida, of the presidential election of 1992 which
late Chief M.K.O. Abiola, a Yoruba, seemed set to win. Babangida
eventually stepped aside in August 1993 and was succeeded by Chief
Ernest Shonekan, the head of Babangida’s cabinet, in interim capacity.
Three months later, General Sani Abacha, Babangida’s side-kick and
Minister of Defence, kicked out Shonekan with a little prompting from
Abiola who thought Abacha would deannul the 1992 elections and declare
him president. When Abacha failed to do so and instead detained Abiola,
the chief’s kith and kin decided to wage a violent resistence against
Abacha’s rule. This was the immediate root of OPC as a “terrorist”
organisation. As
for the Egbesu Boys, their roots go further back before General
Babangida. For decades they had waged a violent campaign against not
only the federal authorities but also oil conglomerates like Shell and
Elf. Their grouse has been what they considered the exploitation of
their oil rich land for the benefit of the rest of the country, an
exploitation compounded by what they saw as willful environmental
degradation. As
I have said, there are few organisations in the country that have tried
to use violence to achieve their political or religious ends in a
systematic way. This, however, is not to say there isn’t a lot of
unstructured violence for political ends. On the contrary, since the
emergence of the Fourth Republic, violence for political and religious
ends have been on the increase, especially in the Middle Belt states of
Plateau, Taraba and Benue, and also in the North-Western state of
Kaduna. Such violence, however, are intermittent and the warring sides
do not appear to have well-structured ethnic militias like the OPC or
the Egbesu Boys. Turning
to the global context, it seems that America as the world’s only
military super power, decides who is a terrorist and who is not. It also
seems to decide which ones have global reach and which ones do not. Herein,
I thinks, lies the source of the problem of finding solutions to
terrorism. Naturally, America’s unilateral definition of terrorism
tends to be arbitrary. Also its reliance on its military might to solve
the problem of terrorism deprives it of the moral authority necessary
for rooting out terrorism. So
both within the Nigerian and global context, there is a need to rely
more on dialogue than on force in order to solve the problem of
terrorism. There is a need to find out the political and religious
reasons why people resort to terrorism instead of treating such people
like common criminals. This is a tough option because it may encourage
the belief that political violence pays, but it is more likely to break
the vicious circle of violence than the option of countering political
violence with state sponsored violence, whether it is at the national or
global level. Mr.
Chairman, I hope this short paper will prove useful to our search for
peace and an end to terrorism at home and abroad. Thank
you. Mohammed
Haruna September 11, 2002
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