… As Derby’s intervention becomes game-changer
By Chris Otaigbe
The Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF) has assured recently repentant Boko Haram/Islamic States West Africa Province (ISWAP) terrorists of humane treatments.
Commander, Maj.-Gen. Ibrahim Yusuf, gave this assurance in a statement through Chief of Military Public Information, Col. Timothy Antigha, on Tuesday, during an interaction with the surrendered fighters in Mora, extreme North Region, Cameroun.
According to Antigha, Boko Haram /ISWAP idea was misplaced and orchestrated by few misguided individuals who desired to inflict suffering on millions of people in the Lake Chad Basin, for their own selfish and personal interests.
He said that countries affected by Boko Haram insurgency had developed their respective Disarmament, Demobilization, Reintegration and Resettlement (DD/RR) programmes to address the peculiar challenges introduced by the Boko Haram insurgency.
The Commander urged them to encourage their former colleagues and friends who are still in the bush to come out and surrender.
In his reaction, the spokesperson of the group (name withheld) commended MNJTF authorities for accommodating and catering for them and their families.
The spokesperson noted that contrary to a widely held opinion that fighters who surrendered are being killed, members of his group are safe.
According to the representative, their commanders told them that they will be killed if they surrender.
”But here we are being treated like human beings,” the spokesperson said.
The representative expressed regret over the atrocities that they were misled to commit and prayed for forgiveness.
The statement noted that the Force Commander also used the opportunity to operationalise the EU funded direct supply of Petroleum, Oil and Lubricants to Sector 1 of the MNJTF.
”It will be recalled that fortnight ago, the MNJTF launched the programme in Sector 4 Diffa (Niger Republic).
“All sectors of the MNJTF are benefiting from the EU intervention,” it added.
Just a handful of Nigerians would smile at this gesture, especially knowing that before the terrorists were subdued by the multinational forces, had murdered so many Nigerians and other nationals across the West African sub-region.
On July 3, 2015, when the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) was mounting a campaign signboard displayed to show its readiness to defeat Boko Haram on its assumption of office at Ogijo, Ogun state, the same insurgents carried out a fresh wave of massacres in northeastern Nigeria, killing nearly 200 people in 48 hours of violence President Muhammadu Buhari blasted as “inhuman and barbaric.”
However, this new twist of rehabilitating and re-integrating conquered Terrorists throws up a reconciliatory feel of a fractious war that has displaced millions and murdered tens of thousands, leaving blood, tears and destruction in its wake.
Regrettably, the stalemate between the terrorists and military forces makes negotiation an option not to be dismissed. In the Lake Chad Basin, the standoff is demoralizing, as countries under the mandate of the Multinational Joint Task Force are locked in a protracted struggle against two factions of the terror group.
Military might and resources of Nigeria, Niger, Benin, Cameroon and Chad have been stretched thin to their limit in seemingly endless battles. Yet to deliver peace to communities, is the region’s predominant counter-terrorism approach which focuses on the use of force.
Similarly, in the Horn of Africa, Al-Shabaab has held military efforts by the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) to a gnawing stalemate.
In Nigeria, the discourse on government’s policy for the rehabilitation and reintegration of the ‘repentant’ Insurgents has become so contentious, the ethnoreligious distrust between Northern and Southern blocks of the country has deepened dangerously.
For Nigerians, granting mass murderers and rapists, similar amnesty given to militants from the Niger Delta to stop them from bombing state’s petroleum assets, rubs them the wrong way.
However, as recently argued in the case of al-Shabaab, could this be the time to revisit the unpopular question of dialogue with Boko Haram? Can dialogue complement the use of force?
Many feel that governments should not negotiate with terrorists at all, while the terrorists, themselves offer little hope when it comes to accepting an invitation to the negotiating table, especially as there is more than one faction.
Currently, Boko Haram comprises two main factions; one led by Abubakar Shekau and the other, Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), led by Abu Abdullah Ibn Umar al-Barnawi.
These factions have caused a crisis that has become more complicated than in previous years when attempts at dialogue were made. Since, none of the two warring parties, MNJTF or Boko Haram/ISWAP, can lay claim to clear victory, the stalemate, then calls for dialogue that would explore a comprehensive set of policy options where all windows would be left open.
Negotiating with either Boko Haram or ISWAP could be complex and complicated especially when defining the direction and dimension of compromise for either side. For example, while Boko Haram’s factions aim to establish an Islamic caliphate, Section 10 of Nigeria’s constitution prohibits the adoption of a state religion.
So, what, exactly, would be the talking points or areas of compromise for opposing sides?
Unlike Somalia where the country’s constitution defines Islam as the state religion, dialogue over issues of sharia in the case of Nigeria offers limited scope for negotiation with Insurgents.
Even though the call to forgive is entrenched in the scriptures of the Muslim and Christian faith, the unrelenting crime of Boko Haram/ ISWAP against the Nigerians state and Nigerians among other affected West African states, makes attempts by governments an uphill task.
Efforts by past Nigerian administrations, to initiate talks, failed not because it was entirely impossible to negotiate but because of the dearth of political will, and a lack of consensus about objectives and outcomes on the part of government actors.
Babakura Fugu’s assassination buried the first major attempt at dialogue with Boko Haram in September 2011, when a meeting was facilitated between former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo and Fugu, the brother-in-law of the late Boko Haram leader Mohammed Yusuf.
The second peace process which was to be led by the Supreme Council for Sharia in Nigeria President, Sheikh Ahmed Datti, who had been accepted, by Boko Haram, as an intermediary, was similarly botched.
Afraid of the destruction of his anonymity in such sensitive secret State matters, Sheikh Datti withdrew from the talks, claiming the government was indiscreet and prematurely released information to the media.
Nigeria’s current bold policy of settling ‘repentant’ Terrorists can thus be described as a third attempt to call the Insurgents to repentance with a promise to be reintegrated back to the Nigerian society.
Against recent revelations in viral videos by aggrieved Soldiers on the field of battle about how their missions and operations are sabotaged at the point of success, many Nigerians are beginning to, allegedly, believe managers of the Boko Haram war have turned the operations into some billion-dollar business enterprise to milk governments of participating countries.
Recalling how the Nigerian Army, under military regimes, single-handedly, took on wars to restore peace and order in neighbouring countries, most Nigerians are gradually accepting the sabotage conspiracy theory.
Thus the increased cry for President Mohammadu Buhari to sack his security chiefs who have apparently run out of ideas on how to route BH ragtag armed hoodlums and bring the war to an end.
Derby the game-changer
Following a viral video of the Chadian President, Idris Derby, personally, accompanied by his son, leading his army to victory against Boko Haram has changed the outlook of the whole insurgency game. He has now given not a few people particularly Nigerians, who are now convinced that their country’s participation in the war is laced and laden with impure and mercantilist intentions and agenda.
For instance, when Derby visited the MNJTF, in March, his Troops had suffered massive casualties and loss of 92 Chadian soldiers along with scores of Nigerian soldiers, who had been killed earlier.
The next month, April, the Chadian President had gone to reload and personally supervising the Operations via a Military Chopper got the Chadian troops to deal another major blow on Boko Haram insurgents.
This followed the killing of 100 of the Insurgents in Magumeri, a local government in the northern part of Borno, the major hotbed of Boko Haram crisis in Nigeria.
Inside sources close to the Nigerian side of the war said Nigerian soldiers in the sect’s captivity were freed, adding that the Chadian soldiers are hitting the Boko Haram insurgents hard.
According to them, as the insurgents were fleeing, President Idriss Déby, who had been moving around in a chopper to monitor Boko Haram destruction, was directing operations after the terror group killed over 90 soldiers in Boma nearly two weeks earlier.
Derby had dubbed the massacre of his soldiers, the worst attack ever on the country’s military and vowed to ensure the crush of Boko Haram around the Lake Chad region, which has over 20 villages in the area.
Later that weekend, on Saturday, Chadian soldiers destroyed the sect’s bases, killed several insurgents and recovered hundreds of weapons.
The Derby-intervention has illustratively put a lie to the theory that the Boko Haram war is an intractable and therefore an endless conflict between the State and Terrorists. His bold assault of the Insurgents has revealed that, indeed, Boko Haram/ISWAP can be defeated easily and routed from the Land.
His instructions to his Troops on how to treat captured Boko Haram Fighters is very instructive, revealing and telling.
He urged Chadian troops NOT TO ALLOW Nigerian soldiers FREE CAPTURED weapons or Boko Haram terrorists.
Deby in a viral video warned that if they allow Nigerian troops to release the captured Boko Haram members, they will return to Chad and hurt them.
According to him, 90 per cent of Boko Haram terrorist have been destroyed and the other 10 per cent escaped to Niger and Nigeria.
“This place will be our zone until Nigeria sends its soldiers. Stay with them for about a month. Do not let them free captured weapons or any Boko Haram terrorists, they will return to Chad and this will just hurt us. So, let them just understand. We are not leaving the situation like this. In the next few days, I will speak with the President of Niger. You guys destroyed at least 90 per cent of Boko Haram. That I confirm and can tell the world that 90 per cent of Boko Haram is destroyed,” said Derby.
The remaining 10%, he said, are running everywhere. “Some have drowned and some ran to Niger, some to Nigeria but they will never come to Chad again. Chad is no place for Boko Haram,” he concluded.
Clearly, the Derby interface with the war, as the Commander-In-Chief of the Chadian Army is a pointer to the resolve of the Chadian President not to allow his people and country to be destroyed in the manner, Nigeria is being subjected to in a war that could be ended in an instant considering the military might of the multinational Force as against the limited ammunitions of a ragtag army.
His distrust of Nigeria Army’s management of captured Terrorist is a compelling point that connects scattered but suspicious dots on the continued existence of Boko Haram, the continued retention of the current Security Chiefs in spite of their glaring incompetence, the nation’s imbecilic policy of rehabilitating mass murderers, while their victims wallow, next door, in IDP Camps, the entire security architecture, infrastructure created to run the war and the general funding structure sustaining the battle.
