Sen. Ibrahim Ida has called on the federal government and Nigerians to listen to the grievances of the Boko Haram sect. Speaking with journalists, the lawyer also stated that fighting them with arms will not solve the problem. Ruth Choji was there for Leadership weekend. Excerpts:
Nigeria is under siege with the bombings and other vices, what could be responsible for these acts despite the natural resources and wealth that abounds?
There are basically two scenarios, there is the national scenario that is caused by social economic factor of the nation, and there is also the external factors occasioned by the happenings in the world around us.
At the international scene, what is happening is a systematic situation that at first, we tend to ignore or were lukewarm towards. We felt it will all wash away. If you recall, we had a civil war and people came into contact with arms, thereafter we had a situation of oil-boom which created another society that is quite distinct from what the society used to be, we started becoming a pro-active society, people started migrating and everything changed, big cities were evolved, people migrated, the rural areas were neglected. So, naturally people ran away, the need for rural areas to be developed virtually faded away.
Over time, technological development made the world to be a global village, it also brought with it access to materials that were before censored. Before, cinemas and movies were censored, but technology has made it easier for every child to access and load anything they want into their laptops or even phones, it could be anything- political, violence or pornographic, Nigeria could not be immune to all the things that are happening. Granted, we could have taken measures to slow down this influx, I think where we are now is a culmination of so many factors. There was a failure to address the main issues and now people feel that the best way to address their situation is by agitation through violent means instead of persuasion.
The law enforcement agencies are overwhelmed in proportion to the magnitude of the problems they will have to address; Rather than handling it in the three stage manner, rather than contentment, we unleashed force of arms to go and address the issues, when we had the maitasine in the early 80s, we felt that killing maitasine was enough, we forgot that when you farm, there are some seedlings that remain and when you don’t handle it, it grows to become wild, uncontrolled horse. Virtually all these boko haram issues could be traced to things like this.
Going by the way violence emanates from the north, don’t you think it has indicted the Northern leaders and Muslims from that place.
The north is the most backward in every way. I don’t think it is an indictment on the leaders. When they were in power, they didn’t concentrate on the north alone, it was the whole of Nigeria, if they had singled out the north alone, then they wouldn’t have been national leaders, we the northerners have not helped ourselves, a lot of money has gone into some northern states, yet look at our educational system .It will cost us less to build good roads in the north than in the south. In terms of hospitals, they were built in such a way that they cover our population.
It was in the First Republic that we had people that were committed, such leaders were interested in what becomes of the society than what becomes of themselves. So I think the problem lies with both the leaders and followers, we don’t call people to account and if we want to do it, we don’t do it the right way, we feel that violence is the only way, but it is wrong. Talking about the religion aspect, Islam is a religion of peace. Islam is a religion of faith and belief, Talking about boko haram, it is a sect that was set up by educated youths, some of them are more educated than you and I.
They had thought that going to school would bring them out of the poverty line, but what they realised was that, there are people who were their classmates, who by share luck of birth have risen, they started reading the literature and saw that Islam has outlined a way by which society should be run, an egalitarian society where the rich take care of the poor, they are not saying that they should bring out the sharia law that will cut people’s hands or anything, they wanted a system that will be people’s friendly, if you go into Islamic history you would see that a muslim scholar had two lamps, one is use for his official duties, another for his personal use, he will never allow the money for public funds be used to buy his personal oil. This is the type of leadership this people are crying for when someone believes in his faith, it will take a broad mind to know the right things else,someone can come from somewhere and build in him tendencies that are inimical to his beliefs.
Would you say that government is handling them they way they should?
Fighting them with guns is descending to their level, I believe that the door for dialogue be explored, it is like taking harmer to fight a mosquito, it is so small, if you hit it, you kill it.
How do you dialogue with faceless people?
They are not faceless, they have been speaking to the press, I think it was Daily Trust that had a lengthy interview with their spokes person, and the BBC Hausa Services has on several occasion spoken to them, we can hear their voices and read what they say, it means they exist.
But the last time government extended the olive branch to them; they said their condition is non-negotiable, how would you advise government to go about the situation?
I am a lawyer, when you go to the negotiation table, there is the term of ‘what you like to have,’ ‘what you need to have and what you must have’ stages, the first stage is what you will like to have, if it doesn’t work, then you go to the second stage which is things you need to have, if that is not forth coming, you go to the things you must have. You don’t go being the thing you must have because if you go there, then you have nothing, the mere fact that they have given conditions is enough to say that they are ready to take, they said that governor so and so must apologise and these people are paying for pages of newspapers to apologise.
Would you say it was an act of cowardice on the part of the governors?
No, these people are individuals, when they were governors, they were protected by state machineries in state enclaves, now they are individuals like you and me, self protection is the first order of the day, I don’t see them as cowards, in fact I see them as being courageous. If you are on the wrong path and you decide to turn round, it is better. I am also calling on the system, I am not saying you should stoop low but nevertheless, reach out. A father will beat his son with his right hand and hug him with the other; these are Nigerians , these people are not fighting for themselves, they are fighting for the whole society, all they are saying is that they want a society that will take care of the weak.
But if government should subscribe to the demands of this sect, how about other groups that were subdued; don’t you think they might react for their needs to be met?
How did the government subdue the militants, they were fighting them for a very long time, the amnesty did wonders, when government came up with the idea, everybody said no. Government is a collection of people represented by the political parties.These people are mindful of the loss of lives, they are humans too. My belief is that our scientists and sociologists can evolve a system that will go over the agitation of the people, let us not make the mistake of thinking that ending Boko Haram will end Nigerias problems, let us do it in a way that would check any potential uprising.
I don’t believe that the answer is in the barrel of the gun. I also want to appeal to those on the other side that, there are so many collateral damages, it is not proper for people who go out to look for their daily bread to be killed or maimed for life over what they know nothing about. In Islam, we say that, ‘God cannot send an illness until medication arrives? The truth is that, nobody is gaining, before you could just enter your car and drive anywhere you want to go but now, it is different, now the whole society is under siege, you will see queue everywhere, we should also help government ourselves, we should not just sit down and be critics alone.
If the internal issues are taken care of, how do we solve the problems of external mercenaries that contribute to these dastardly acts?
That is why I said the world is now a global village, considering the porous nature of our borders, it is not surprising that may be, Nigerians too serve as mercenaries in other countries too.
This is where our leadership needs to tighten control, people should be involved, let us address our internal problems, let us put in enough structures, which I am happy that this government is working towards. We need to be mindful of the agitation of our people instead of fighting them. I am sure we will create a society that will be a vanguard to tackling our problems. I want to commend our security agencies; I also want to draw their attention to the fact that the answer to the problem lies more in political and social issues, not arms or force.
With these indices on ground and reports that Al-Qaeda is planning to turn Nigeria into their base, would you say we are heading towards a failed nation?
First of all, agitation by NLC are normal economic issues, there are more strikes in the United States and UK than we have here in Nigeria, there are more insurgence in America than we have in Nigeria. It is just that there is this perception that their government is more caring and have the infrastructure to take care of their problems. This government is trying to do something about it. America is a realistic society, they are well-informed, and what do you mean by a failed nation?
We may talk and agitate, but basically nobody wants Nigeria to disintegrate, we are blessed with more natural resources than we can manage, we have abundant resources everywhere. So to be a failed state is a political term. Before a country is certisfied a failed state, there is a certain criteria you have to go through, if you read the Niger Delta Nigeria forum, and see how intelligent Nigerians are, you will be proud to be a Nigerian. I don’t think Nigeria will ever be a failed nation.
We have our problems and I think we are beginning to see a way we can solve them. Everybody thought the roof will cave in before elections, but we are still living together, what we have to do is address issues like the Boko Haram and the Niger Delta issues; let us not apply politics to solve socio-economic problems, we have enough brains in this country that can fashion out the way and manner we can solve our problems.