Grave Mistake Jonathan Made In War Against Boko Haram -Prof Ango Abdullahi

Professor Ango Abdullahi, Secretary, Northern Elders Forum (NEF), has de­scribed the bickering in the governing All Progressives Congress, APC., par­ticularly the battle of wit at the National Assembly, as unnecessary distraction for the government. He said Nigerians’ expectation from the Muhammadu Bu­hari government was so high that the APC and the APC needed not dissipate energy on inanities. Prof. Abdullahi, former Vice Chan­cellor, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, former special adviser on food secu­rity to President Olusegun Obasanjo and member, Board of Trustees, BoT, Arewa Consultative Forum, ACF, also tasked Buhari on the country’s secu­rity situation, even as he advocated the need for government to revive the abandoned dredging of River Niger and also revisit the exploration of pe­troleum in the North. Excerpts: How do you see the approach of Buhari’s government towards tackling the security situation of the country, especially the Boko Haram insurgency? I must take you back a little bit and say that from the platform of the North­ern Elders Forum, we have submitted a comprehensive document to the former president, Jonathan Goodluck, in May, 2012. We looked at the various issues that were challenging the country at that particular point in time. Boko Ha­ram was the major national issue and we made several recommendations from the security aspect, political aspect, socio-economic aspect, etc. It was very comprehensive and we went personally to present it to the then president. Our team was led by Dan Masanin Kano, Alhaji Yusufu Maitama Sule. Jonathan’s government was not taking the correct approach with regard to tackling the issue of Boko Haram, particularly to bring it to an end. There were indications that Boko Haram in­surgency was being used as a political tool towards, perhaps, a pre-determined goal for winning election for Goodluck Jonathan in 2015. We specifically said that the approach was wrong. But we reminded the government at that time that yes, when the government was fac­ing militancy in the Niger Delta, it was quite violent, the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua in good faith decided, in addition to the stick approach, also employed the current approach, mean­ing that for government to understand the genesis and causes of militancy, there must be some dialogue between government and the militants and which has socio-economic and political dimen­sions. From this dialogue, a position was fixed whereby the militants laid down their arms in return, and some conces­sions were made to them, including is­sues of employment, security and so on. So, we reminded the then president in 2012, that why shouldn’t he look at the possibility of dialogue? I must say here that this was the basis of which a dia­logue was started. We also said at that time that while force was desirable in certain situation, it cannot be used in a way that rather than people coming to help, people will move back away from the effort of the government, meaning that if you are fighting an enemy you don’t tell him no. You must use cred­ible intelligence and this credible intel­ligence can only come about through the cooperation of the people, particularly people from within the areas where this insurgency is taking place. The Joint Task Force (JTF) was there as an occupation force rather than a force that would create confidence in the peo­ple for their proper protection. To JTF, it appears that every person from Borno or outside was an enemy or potential Boko Haram. At the slightest excuse, one could be killed according to report we read from Amnesty International. We told Jonathan’s government that this was the best way to deal with the situation. He started the dialogue but we were aware that he was put under pres­sure by some extremists, who believed that the government of Nigeria should not discuss with Islamists because they were trying to Islamise the country and, therefore, he should not engage them in any form of discussions. So, we un­derstand from where that pressure came and the president succumbed to their pressure and abandoned the dialogue, and in its stead, he came up with a state of emergency. So, we saw enormous violence with impunity being meted out to ordinary people in the name of tackling Boko Ha­ram. Again, sometimes, we read in the newspapers, where some political com­mentators said Boko Haram was created by northerners because they lost power and they wanted to make the country un­governable, etc. Of course, this could not stand to reason because the insurgency did not exclude the Muslims. Mosques were attacked. Muslims had been killed in large numbers. I could not see a mili­tancy that wanted to Islamise Nigeria but engaged in killing Muslims. So, you could also argue that if the North didn’t want Jonathan to win elections, he could not because the North has the voting power to deny him victory in any elec­tion. But these commentators failed to see all these. But they continued to use it as a weapon towards 2015 election. Fi­nally, of course, they lost. Buhari is now in charge as president. Obviously, from his post-campaign speeches, he had said that he would deal with Boko Haram and put an end to it. The question to ask is whether his approach is the basis of his confidence or whether it is a tactics or both. It appears to me that it is both, because he has directed that the military command structure against insurgency be relocated to Maiduguri. That is a tac­tical approach. And there is also a socio-political approach, particularly bringing our neighbouring countries – Cameron, Chad and Niger Republic – to really ad­dress the problem seriously by Joint Task Force to keep the common boundaries safe and ensure that the insurgents are followed wherever they are. I think his approach is correct using both military and political. These should be so. In addition, there must be con­tact and dialogue with various insurgent groups, because we don’t believe that Boko Haram insurgency is one uniform group with different chapters. Buhari’s approach is likely to make a difference and obviously international communi­ties that saw Jonathan playing politics with the issue of Boko Haram withdraw their support. Certainly, we are seeing a change of mind now. Recently, there was a pledge by Canada, USA, UK, France, European countries to assist Buhari in the fight. There have been comments regard­ing dredging of River Niger, which Jonathan administration abandoned in 2010; what is the stand of North­ern Elders Forum on this? Perhaps, it will be premature for me as person to, on behalf of the North­ern Elders Forum, discuss objectively what Buhari should or should not do with regard to dredging of River Niger. There is no question in any one’s mind that these rivers are international water­ways, and they do not belong to Nigeria alone. They belong to all countries that are entering into the ocean and make an extension of the ocean. Therefore, tech­nically, realistically or economically, it will make a lot of economic sense for the River Niger to be dredged as far as pos­sible within Nigerian territory or even beyond with stream tributaries of River Benue to Cameroon up to Niger. It certainly would make freight of goods much easier and cheaper. Of course, to have a River Niger dredged is much of economic significance to the North in particular, so that ocean link could go to Makurdi to Bussa and Yawari. It was based on politics that Jon­athan terminated that project in favour of South-south. The idea, as usual, was to make the northern Nigeria dependent in terms of access to the sea and shipping. Obviously, if you have a ship coming to Bussa or Lokojo, you can have ships to any part of the world from there. So, for us, we expect that any aspect that will improve the economy of Nigeria should be of great concern and I have no doubt that in a few weeks or month, when Mr. President has put his team in place, who­ever is assigned to take charge of the transport ministry will take this matter seriously. Now, as the project is abandoned po­litically, the project should be re-started economically. Because of the politics, the Jonathan administration felt that this part of the country should be put at the disadvantage. But the new government should look at it because of its economic significance to Nigeria. This dredging should proceed fast and quick, so that a lot of things will open for Nigeria. What is your position on the issue of oil exploration in the North? I have always said it in the last 50 years that the North has petroleum po­tentials, and in subsequent years, it is clear that oil is in part of the North- Benue trough and Chad Basin. There is oil in Niger Republic in commercial quantity from the side of Katsina. Two things have contributed or negated our effort in fully exploiting the potential of oil in the North; there is carelessness on the part o f the northern leaders’ thinking that this is one country, therefore, explo­ration is cheaper and easier for on-shore and off-shore in the deep ocean and two, the oil companies also indicated that it is cheaper for them to exploit oil from on-shore-off-shore and they were allowed to do so purely for commercial reason. But if government too had insisted that they do another way – inland, perhaps this would have worked. However, we hope that given our experience in the last 40 to 50 years, where the North was only blackmailed, intimidated and threatened that we didn’t even know the country’s oil bases and we must always succumb to this blackmail in terms of political re­lationship, the governors and the Federal Government should have responsibility to ensure that the resources of this coun­try are harnessed; not only oil but other minerals as well. In the North, we have tonnes of pre­cious stones and minerals, ranging from gold and diamonds in large quantities, so we expect any government that likes the development of this country to really open all the potentials that exist in the different parts and make sure that these potentials are exploited and resources are harnessed for the betterment of Ni­geria. It is not a contentious matter that there is oil in Northern Nigeria, especial­ly in our boarder areas.

As an outstanding Professor of Agronomy, how will you assess the government’s plans to uplift agricul­ture as an alternative to oil revenue? Let me start by saying that agriculture is not an alternative. Agriculture is the main sustainable means of the Nigerian economy; oil is just a complementary or supplementary to agriculture. Even now, 45 per cent of the GDP of this country is contributed by agriculture, and all other sectors industry, commerce, etc. share the remaining 55 per cent. Agriculture also is the major employer of labour, accounting for about 60 to 65 per cent of the country’s foreign earn­ings. It also provides food security for the country. Agriculture should be re­viewed to play a major role as a foreign exchange earner. Before the discovery of oil boom in 1970s, agriculture contributed up 80 per cent of the foreign exchange earning of this country while oil and commence took the remaining. Agriculture was relegated at the plan­ning stage of government at the federal, state and local government levels, think­ing that oil has come to replace agricul­ture. Oil can only remain as complemen­tary and as component of the nation’s resources to solidify our economy. The earlier we uphold agriculture, the better for Nigeria. The new government is right in its thinking of addressing agricultural revival. We hope it is going to do so. All the advantages are there, all the elements that will make this possible are there and it is up to the government to plan and ex­ecute or implement it. We should be able to review agricul­ture in such a way that will not only se­cure our food security in the country but also serve as foreign exchange earner. It will also form part of our industrial de­velopment in which without agricultural raw materials our industrialisation pro­gramme will suffer a setback. That is what our forefathers did. Our textile in­dustries were established, just as cotton mills and groundnut were established. So, we have all the resource it takes for us to have well diversified industrial de­velopment in this country. Most countries around the world, particularly United States of America’s power industries was largely based on agricultural materials. Well, the biggest challenge, facing agriculture in Nigeria today is low productivity. If I may ex­plain this briefly, to give one illustration, while you can get 12 tonnes of maize per hectare of land in US today, our farmers in Nigeria are getting one tonne per hect­are because of the low technology. Buhari government appears to be facing crises of coordination. How do you see the prospect of the govern­ment vis-a-vis the power tussle in the National Assembly and high expecta­tions by Nigerians? You are absolutely correct that Nige­rian have voted for change and have high expectations of this new government. There is no doubt about it. Therefore, everything must be put in place by this government with the leaders that are in charge of the government to ensure that the aspirations and expectations of Ni­gerians are realised as soon as possible because, anything short of that is a clear and demonstrated effort of failure. Nigerians are very understanding. If you have a problem, they know, if you are doing your best, they know, if you are hiding things from them, they also know. So, I think it is correct that there are high expectations from people. That is the more reason this government should not be allowed to be distracted by petty quarrels either within the ex­ecutive or within the legislative arms of government as we are already seeing now. The sooner they put a stop to these squabbles, the better for them. I will strongly advise that they must do everything possible to avoid dirty politics. I don’t see why with the kind of voting pattern we have seen in the country, we should be seeing these kinds of things at the National Assembly. It is totally uncalled for and it begins to show sign that we are not out of the woods. It only shows that we are moving out from one forest and jumping into another. What is your take on the call by the Ohanaeze Ndigbo, whose leaders re­cently visited President Buhari and sought for an inclusion of Igbo in his government? I take Ohanaeze Ndigbo as a socio-cultural or political organisation that speaks for the Igbo, that seeks to pro­tect the interest of the Igbo in the Nige­rian federation. So, it is very clear what they are in that context. Northern Elders Forum is not different from Ohanaeze. Northern Elders Forums wants to speak for Nigeria where possible and speaks and ensures that northern Nigeria is not in any circumstance marginalised in terms of its interest, whether this interest is political, social or economic. So, I think if Ohanaeze is worried about being marginalised, as such they must have thought that the North would retaliate because there were deliberate actions under the Jonathan administra­tion aimed at marginalising the North in appointments and opportunities in projects and virtually in everything you can think of. Now, Ohanaeze are wor­ried that, perhaps, they will be paid back in their coins, but we (Northern Elders Forum) have always said that we are looking for leadership of someone from Northern extraction, not because we wanted to marginalise or cheat any per­son in Nigeria. As you know, the north­ern leadership of the country, from and before independence of Nigeria, has al­ways been fair to everyone. They deny themselves and give to others. This atti­tude was started from Abubakar Tafawa Balewa. A lot of concessions were given to Niger Delta because of oil up till re­cently. Niger Delta is getting not less than 13 per cent from derivation funds. There is Ministry of Niger Delta but there is no ministry for the arid zones. There was OMPADEC and NDDC, etc. In fact, one state in Niger Delta is get­ting ten times of what a state is getting in the North. You see, it is good that Buhari said he would be fair to all Nigerians. That is what northern leadership is all about – equity and justice. But what we are not going to accept is to see that the North is unfairly treated.