Pardoning Okah, Killing Yusuf: Nigerian Government, Boko Haram And Delta Militants

12 August 2009

By Isa Muhammad Inuwa

It is surprising how people in Nigeria forget history so soon. Hence it is pertinent we go back a little bit, on memory lane. Just on Monday July 13, 2009, the beleaguered militant group of the Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND) blew up oil installations at the vital internal oil terminus of the Atlas Cove in Lagos, the threatening signal of which moved an instant presidential order to quickly release Henry Okah, leader of MEND, who was long detained and awaiting judgment by a Federal High Court in Jos, Plateau state.

That was not just enough; the release was also followed by an amnesty conferred by the presidency, to all the embattled and hostile groups fighting the government and oil consortiums in the Niger Delta region. Capping it all, the presidency also earmarked several Billions of Naira, ( a rightful belonging of all Nigerians), for the members of all the warring groups, as a kind of consolation, to stop them from continuing attacks and all militant postures that would lead to a hitch in oil lifting activities in the region. While the MEND members acknowledged the release of their leader, yet heir comments reported in the news didn’t indicate any sing of remorse shown by them, rather, the gesture was followed by some sarcastic comments, stating that the term “amnesty” said to have been granted them was inappropriate and unacceptable, since they were no criminals at all as they never commit any crime to the nation.

According to reports on how the multi billion Naira meant for the militant groups in the Niger Delta area would be shared, each one of them would be given a starter sum of about 30,000 to 35,000 Naira, followed by monthly stipend of 20,000 Naira each, to a period of about six months. However, all these were not enough to stop the dissidents from continuous threat, showering abuses and all boastful tendencies that despise the authorities. Likewise attacks on oil installations inj the delta zone went unabated, as reports freed us with such recurring incidents, much after the so-called amnesty and agreement reached between representatives of the fanatical groups and related stakeholders on one hand and the government amnesty committee set up to parley with the militants.

As we all know it, these people are bold enough that they come all out to express their intentions and mission. Shortly after their bombing of the Atlas Cove oil terminus in Lagos, the MEND spokesman Jomo Gbomo, confirmed to pressmen that his group, the MEND launched the attack, despite weeks of reports that freedom would be granted Okah, upon whose release “the MEND hinged its cessation of hostilities.” Also, just as the Boko Haram dissidents in the North have their grudges and reservations with the country’s leadership policies, but which , unfortunately, they were not allowed chance to express their mission and demand of the authorities, as they were quickly condemned and crushed in a period less than one week, Gbomo, the MEND’s mouthpiece once issued his statement, graphically capturing their grievances that the problems of our dear country Nigeria “have nothing to do with militant freedom fighters, but with the corrupt political leadership and certain arrogant tribes still living on past glory.”

It is equally an open secret that all the militia groups in the Niger Delta are known for practical and open hostilities to Nigerian authorities as well as all categories of uniformed personnel, both those assigned to patrol their area and those elsewhere. On this note, media reports further buttressed that shortly prior to the blowing of Atlas Cove pipes; the group had had an aggressive encounter of gun combat “with Naval men guarding the facilities on Tarkwa Bay, before they used dynamite to hit 10 pipes.” But up till now we were not told what kind of punishment these people deserve. Additionally, reports sounded another warning of intention by one militant leader in the Delta, Hurricane Moses, for his launching a fresh move for formation of “a boardroom or creek battle of epic proportions, which will either emancipate the Niger Delta from over 50 of tyranny or subject her to perpetual slavery”, starting the move with “a plague of attacks.”

While the Niger Delta freedom so-called freedom movement that long started with such ring-leaders as Isaac Boro and Ken Saro Wiwa, who faced persecutions from the authorities, the later leadership of the militants in the persons of Mujahid Dokubo Asare, Henry Okah, Government Tampolo, Hurricane Moses, were only being used as fronts and thugs of both some international cartels and some greedy political leaders cum traditional rulers, in perpetrating their dirty business of oil bunkering. During the Obasanjo regime, some of these militant chiefs were often flown into Abuja in helicopters to perfect the deal, as a result of which they are stinking rich, while the plight of the common man in their area remains ever deplorable.

While the fact remains that a militant, whether of the South or of the Northern cream, is the same militant, the Boko Haram adherents did not benefit from even closer to the half of recognition, petting, listening ear and liberty to talk on the table, talk less of earning any amnesty or money from the authorities. Rather, for them is an all our campaign to a finish and summary execution by the so-called law enforcers, the police, who ironically, equally acted in the proverbial manner of “taking the law into their hands”, by killing the Boko Haram leader, after he was neatly arrested my military officers and handed over to the police officers in Maiduguri, Borno state. The police acted with obsessed hostility and blind sentiment, recalling their ordeals and encounter with Muhammad Yusuf’s boys, they there and them shot him dead, before calling on the pressmen and people in town to go and see his body lying dead.

This very act by a section of Nigerian police went to revive afresh, earlier accusations by humanitarian organizations, about the police’s lawless and heartless killing of hundreds of innocent Nigerian citizens in the last fracas in Jos, Plateau state. Hence, no sooner than the news of Yusuf’s bias murder was out, individuals and organizations began oozing out comments in condemnation of the police’s act as “inhuman”, “barbaric”, “irrational”, “sentimental” and the likes. One writer from Boston, Massachusetts, Benjamin Obiajulu Aduba, noted: “The murder of innocent Nigerian citizen at the hands of Nigerian Police Maiduguri is another shame on an already shameful nation> I used “innocent” because our constitution presumes innocence of its citizens, until proven otherwise in a court of law, with competent jurisdiction.” Benjamin continued, “the innocence or otherwise of Muhammad Yusuf was not established at the time of his death.”

The BBC sources which served as the egg-head in unearthing the police scandalous act, was about the first to blow the whistle against what many termed as “extra-judicial” murder of Yusuf. The BBC protested in the following tone: “The bullet-riddled body of Muhammad Yusuf, 39, was seen hours after police announced he had been captured.” Unfortunately for the very police sources that heralded yusuf’s arrest, few minutes later, the Borno Police spokesman, Isa Azare also announced that “he has been killed. You can come and see his body at the state police command.” Also in the line of protest the dastardly act, was the Afenifere renewal Group, saying, “we seriously protest the murder of Yusuf without trial. This has shown the hollowness of the rule of law mantra of the Yar Adua administration …” the group went further to state that, “To summarily execute him in police custody as news reports suggest, was a violent violation of his fundamental right and a blight on the human right temperature of the Yar Adua administration.”

Amidst this sporadic criticism and condemnation of the rash act of anarchy embarked by the Borno state police command, on their side, the police made frantic efforts to defend their case. While the state police commissioner Christopher Dega has said that Malam Yusuf lost his life “in action”, that is to say during exchange of fire between him and the police, the Public relations Officer of the Nigerian Police, Mr. Emmanuel Ojukwu also confirmed having received such report from the state police command. As fact would have its day however, a photograph of Yusuf arrested by the army personnel alive was posted on internet, which was also printed on front pages of national dailies. This singular fact which seems to become impossible to hide or nip in the bud has really put the Nigerian police on the defense and it has a big case to answer.

As pressure continues to mount, not even the comments by the minister of Police Affairs, Alhaji Ibrahim Yakubu Lame, that they are going to investigate the incident the police rash action, was enough to pacify and satisfy the inquisitive minds of the cynics in the matter. As a result, the Presidency itself is forced to start talking in defense, particularly that the President, while leaving Nigeria on a state visit to Brazil, was reported to have given an outright order to the security personnel to take every step possible and end the crisis in Borno, prior to the arrest and subsequent killing of Muhammad Yusuf, leader of the controversial Boko Haram group. Nigerians wait to see to the realization and fulfillment of the presidential fiat and promise todeal with the matter judiciously, nonetheless, after the worse has been done. Some commentators are of the view that at least late Muhammad Yusuf had to be spared in order to scoop some vital information from him and more insight about this strange mission of their. Buba Galadima, a staunch opposition to Nigeria’s ruling party had better described the lawless attitude of Nigerian authorities in this bloody act, when he reasoned in an interview, that even the U.S. who was an avowed enemy of Saddam Hussein, didn’t execute him immediately after his arrest, until after he was arraigned him before a court of law and his criminality was established.

Now that the leader of the Boko Haram movement, Malam Muhammad Yusuf was murdered, we are only left to continue guessing and speculating the myth being preached by the group, known as “Boko Haram”, in that their claim might only be metaphorical, if deeply investigated. As a journalist myself, while interviewing an adherent among the batch arrested from the Wudil encounter in Kano state, I asked him the reason behind tagging Western education as an unlawful venture, while I could guess that himself had once acquired the type of education. He quickly admitted having undergone the system, but later repulsed it on the basis of some deficiencies and fallacies in it. I also asked him what were they really agitating for in Nigeria? He replied that their main problem was that the country was not being governed by the divine laws revealed by God. I further asked whether they were not satisfied by the Shari’a system instituted in Kano and Zamfara states. He answered they were not because this type of Shari’a was not the pure independent one since it got its basis in the constitution, which supposed not to be.

Perhaps if the police in Maiduguri and other related security agencies were patient enough to let Yusuf alive and ask him such probing question, they would have come up with something tangible that could guide them towards addressing the root cause of the fracas and mayhem from recurring in the future. Unfortunately, the burning enmity and dire sentiment to eliminate a long time foe and attacker, did not allow them to do so. Same as the ghost of Malam Muhammad Yusuf and the indelible blunder in his quick murder would continue to hunt Nigerian police and Nigerian authorities alike, the prowling ghost of late Buji Fai, former Borno state Commissioner of religious affairs, who was murdered and similar circumstance of “killing after arrest” would doubly haunt them. The late Commissioner, who was accused for allegedly empowering late Yusuf’s group of Boko Haram, was reported to have been arrested in his farm and whisked into town, in handcuffs, by the police. One of the eyewitnesses interviewed in the Radio attested that he saw the man captured alive and that he had even taken some pictures of the man under arrest. No sooner that his arrest however, he was shot dead by the police and later displayed in front of the police headquarters in Maiduguri.

This particular action of summary murder of Muhammad Yusuf and Buji Fai, serve as a good pointer to the fact that of the said 700 lives lost in the Maiduguri incident and another 400 in Bauchi, some if not most of the people might have died due carefree attitude and ruthless shot out at innocent citizens by the seemingly anti-humans and trigger-happy Nigerian police officers. This fact was buttressed further by the blind arrest of bearded men, whom the police count as sect members of the Boko Haram. In Kano where I am practicing as a journalist, a pick-up load of people, most of them apparently members of the Muslim aid group of the Izalatul Bid’ah, with their uniforms still intact, were arrested along Wudil town and brought to police headquarters in Kano, as suspected members of the sect. Only the intervention and protest shown by some news reporters, who had earlier interviewed the first batch of suspects, helped in the subsequent release of the Izala aid group members.

What I would like us Nigerians, (both the leaders and the led) to do is to be sincere with ourselves and stop chasing the shadow, by first correcting our lapses and selfish tendencies. As one sociological theory indicates that it is the society that breeds deviant people or people with militant habits. If you wish you can call them renegades, anarchists, lawless and all names, but be sure that all those names are also applicable each and almost all single Nigerian of today. This is to say every Nigerian in his own field or domain is selfish, lawless, anti-human and a cheat! For instance, while a public office holder uses his position to illegally teal from government coffers, an average Nigerian businessman would follow all illegal ways at his disposal to cheat buyers or consumers by either maximizing prices or adulterating the consumer product he sells.

Hence if we hate and abhor the Boko Haram members for what we perceive as their lawlessness, being out of place and deadly, I don’t see why all these same judgments would not apply to the former categories of people. Imagine the appearance of imported rice that has expired in Nigerian markets and up till now the rice is being sold to innocent unsuspecting buyers. I myself was unlucky to have bought a bag of such waste rice. On the surface and before cooking, it looks alright but when cooked, it looses all qualities and value of good rice. Nobody would convince me that members of the State Security Service are not aware or have not yet discovered any of the shops or stores where the rice is kept or sold. But we are yet to hear or read in the news, when and where Nigerian security men arrested people behind importing this “Haram” or (killer) rice. By the way, the recent incident of Boko Haram is an indicator that a lot if not all of the life and activities of Nigerians are all going illegally, that is to say in “Haram” way. Nobody is supporting the militancy shown by members of Boko Haram, nor is anyone agreeing with them for prohibiting Western education. But had it been that our elites, the Nigerian leaders have guaranteed better life and good and functional education accessible and affordable by all, this kind of mind set could not have manifested at this computer age, worse still, in Nigeria, thereby making the country a laughing stock in the comity of world nations. Our leaders most feel and be more ashamed of this unfortunate signal, which was largely caused by their greed and suppressing the rights of Nigerian common man. This indicates a palpable failure on their side, to cater for their people, to enlighten and educate them to the average of every persona in this modern era. In a country where electricity is lacking, intense darkness, frustration and unemployment are enough to produce people with the mind set of Boko Haram and even worse!

The biggest irony is appears that even the so-assumed educated and enlightened group in our leadership happened to demonstrate lack of reason and total condemnation in form of a rash action, falsely thinking if they wipe out the group (not really addressing root of the problem in the society), the Boko Haram would be no more. Now it remains for the Federal Government to, like it’s promised, investigate into the incidents of extra-judicial killings of late Yusuf and Buji Fai and effect punishments accordingly. Only this would prove the sincerity of purpose in the “due process” or rule of law posture of the Government. In case of the Niger Delta militants, no one would ask the Government to equally eliminate them extra-judicially, but at least, the rights of late Buji Fai and late Muhammad Yusuf as rightful Nigerians, ought to be re-visited, even in postmortem.

ISA MUHAMMAD INUWA, writes from Kano. He can be reached through this E-mail: ismi2000ng@yahoo.com. P.O. Box 4534, Kano – Nigeria.

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