There is still a real threat to the present democratic experience in Nigeria despite minimal gains. The glocalized version of terrorism in Nigeria, Boko Haram, poses as much a threat to Nigeria’s democracy as the failure of governance itself. The two are related in such a way as to make the institutionalization of the structures and processes of democracy (democratization) work or fail. This failure could lead to anarchy or a civil war, bad for everybody, and would bring untold hardship to especially women and children.
We need to understand the political economy or philosophy of terror in any given global context before fighting it. Boko Haram has been substantially problematized by Nigerian officials and politics as a political reaction against President Goodluck Jonathan by Nigeria’s North. This is a very erroneous and unfortunate analysis of this problem.
Terrorism may be simply defined as a deliberate act of violence or a strategy of war for the psychological effect of creating fear or inflicting pain in order to achieve a social, religious or political objective. Terrorism is therefore evil warfare. War per se is bad, but it tends to have some discernable architecture and rules of engagement. Terrorism, because it employs mainly merciless guerilla tactics, is very bad war. It is at the very opposite extreme of what some people call “just war”. Terrorism, to be sure, despite its ugly nature, can still be concretely analyzed. What is its origin? What is its perceived or real objective? Who are its masterminds? Is it local, national, continental or global? Does it have immediate or remote causes? These questions can be addressed and terrorism properly understood and confronted. The study of terrorism may involve criminologists, “security experts,” and pedestrian media-promoted political analysts, but it is beyond that. It is the purview of profound social scientists from range of disciplines.
Let us look at Boko Haram, for example. On the surface, it means rejection of western education. Superficially, it connotes a Muslim agenda. Simplistically viewed it suggests a reaction against the present national leadership in Nigeria. A rigorous analytical response to these perceptions is that they are both true and false.
They are true because Boko Haram seems to be rejecting something from the Euro-American world, known as the West; they are true because Boko Haram claims to be acting in the name of Islam. They are true because Boko Haram is evidently opposed to the existing political leadership in Nigeria.
On the other hand, they are false because Boko Haram is not really against western education per se but seemingly against corrupt western values. They are false because Boko Haram does not represent mainstream Islam and its activities have hurt Muslims more than Christians, despite its bombing of churches. They are false because Boko Haram is not targeted at destroying President Goodluck Jonathan because he is from Nigeria’s South-South and is also a Christian. President Olusegun Obansajo before him was from Nigeria’s South- West and is also a Christian but there was no terror campaign against him from Nigeria’s North. In fact, Boko Haram started during the reign of President Umaru Yar’ Adua, a northern Muslim. Its earlier version, Maitatsine, took place during the rule of President Shehu Shagari, also a northern Muslim. This was the kind of lie the world was told during the Nigerian civil war that northern Muslims were out to annihilate Igbo Christians, meanwhile the head of the Nigerian government, his army and officers were mainly northern and western Christians.
So what is Boko Haram? Is it being promoted by the Nigerian state through acts of commission or omission? Is it a product of asymmetrical global relations, unequal development, corruption, underdevelopment, unemployment, poverty, racism and prejudice in human history and now globalized? Is it also glocalized into peculiarly national and continental forms? Is it best understood within the context of what Edward Said calls Orientalism, that is the prejudiced way the West views the oriental, especially Arab world? Is it part of the corollary context of what Samuel Huntington sees as the clash of civilizations? Interpretatively, the Judeo-Christian world is trying to co-exist with an Arab –Islamic world in great discomfort within certain global communities, and now rogues seem to be taking over. Above Nigeria’s 400 or so ethnic groups, its six-geo-political zones and three religions of Christianity, Islam and animism, this is where our broad realities stand, measured against Ali Mazrui’s African triple heritage thesis.
The North –Central is ethnically plural, with a triple heritage of Euro—Christian , Arab –Islamic and traditional African values; the North –East and North-West share all the attributes of the North-Central; the South-West is mono-ethnic but has the triple heritage, while the South-South which is ethnically plural and with a sizable Muslim community in northern Edo State, could pass as having the triple heritage to some extent. The South-East is mono-ethnic, and does not have the triple heritage, with only Euro-Christian and African traditional values. It is easily the most insecure geo-political region and the least tolerant of diversity. In addition it also has the least land area, and with the most aggressive Nigerians, and most dispersed nationally and internationally. With a history of secession as well this is the most problematic zone in terms of Nigeria’s unity.
The real name of Boko Haram is “Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’Awati Wal-Jihad”. This means that underlying its philosophy and operations, it has a jihadist intention. However, even the concept of a jihad can be misconstrued, as many a good Muslim will tell you. Jihad as action to spend the force has many interpretations, including even a pacifist and amorous relationship between a husband and wife. It nevertheless also includes aggressive conversion of non-believers or infidels into Islam. And the Koranic interpretation of infidels and non-believers does not include Christians or other believers in their faith. So Boko Haram or any terrorist group bombing people around the world, still retains its status of the criminalization of Islam, and so cannot be construed as authentic spokespersons for Islam, which in any case has an etymological relationship with peace.
In Nigeria, the problem has been substantially consigned to pedestrian analyses that fit into Nigeria’s highly emotionalized, sentimentalized and , ad nauseum, bastardized, trivialized and vulgar discourses on the nation-state of Nigeria. Led mainly by NAZI-arrogant and impertinent neo- Biafranists , christianists (not Christians) , a weak plural but very noisy Niger-Delta : “Jonathan and oil are ours” rally, confused but contented Yoruba and an insecure and weeping North, the Nigerian mood does not currently favour intelligent analyses. One of the main problems of tackling Boko Haram by Nigeria’s Federal Government is the concern about Machiavellian exploitation by government to nurture ethno- religious and regional politics, and the pursuit of ethnic cleansing in Nigeria’s North. Hundreds of innocent persons are killed regularly in the actions aimed at Boko Haram, according to local residents in Nigeria’s North-East region. It is suspected that General Muhammad Shuwa a hero of Nigeria’s civil war was murdered in this area by soldiers when an Igbo man was Chief of Army Staff, and reorganized and re-staffed the Nigerian Army to favour Igbo power.
#BRING BACK OUR GIRLS is a symptom of the failure of analysis and governance. The kidnapped Chibok 200+ or so girls are a trajectory of Nigeria’s descent into ruination. It has always been there but it has worsened in recent times, Rebasing the Gross Domestic product (GDP) is pure statistics which tell you only the stories in part. Rebasing does not seem to bother about poverty, unemployment, poor infrastructure and social services. As dry economics it does not talk about prebendal politics, horrible social values and awarding –winning corruption.
It is the bombs of Boko Haram that call our attention to state failure. And state failure has a simple definition: when a government within a state fails to provide infrastructure and social services, and security (protective and social security) to its citizens. And because we have been misled for a long time by pseudo –intellectuals, myopic analyses and opportunistic politicians, our conclusions are simplistic, pedestrian and unscientific: Hausa-Fulani Muslims from Nigeria’s North want to dominate and Islamize the Middle –Belters and Southerners in Nigeria.
Meanwhile our stupor blinds us to the fact that Nigeria has 36 states and Abuja in a federation where strong and powerful governors, elected (?) locally, absolutely control power and resources. Each of the 36 states of Nigeria has fairly equal representation in the country’s National Assembly. In the executive arm, the supporting national bureaucracy is expected to abide by a federal character principle which is in the Constitution of the country. Ditto the appointment of Ministers, Ambassadors and all political office-holders. The President of Nigeria is elected democratically within arrangements of negotiation by politicians and political parties representing local and national interests.
The last time I checked I did not see 36 Hausa –Fulani Muslim governors in all the states. I have heard that the “northerners” in other words persons from 19 out of 36 states of Nigeria dominate certain strategic offices. This is a funny analysis. I come from the most populous ethnic group in the North- Central of Nigeria, the third in the North of the country and the fifth in Nigeria, yet my people due to their own fault are almost “missing” in the federal government. In addition, some offices wipe out the seeming advantage gained by some regions.
Nigeria has one of the strongest Presidents in the world, by action, not by design. He is omnipresent, omnipotent but the incumbent is definitely not omniscient. With my experience in government, I know that one Presidential Aide can be more powerful than all the Ministers in a government. If you doubt me, ask Andy Ubah, who worked for President Obasanjo. Currently, there is a Permanent Secretary in Abuja, who has unusual politico-bureaucratic influence, because of his closeness to the President. The office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation of Nigeria, for example presently occupied by an Igbo man, overshadows whatever seeming advantage a whole region may have.
What am I saying? Let us stop the mischief of shallow, emotional, sentimental and prejudicial analysis and squarely face our national challenges. Nigeria is not the only plural or multicultural community in the world. The whole world is enriched by diversity. If as a human being you cannot deal with diversity you lose your humanity. Xenophobia breeds hatred and not humanism. The main problem is that of an irresponsible, unresponsive and thieving ruling class that chooses to negatively manipulate national differences for political power. Power which is being used to destroy Africa’s leading country.
In terms of power play, you cannot dismantle one oppressive hegemony for another. You can only dismantle hegemony for egalitarianism. Nobody is discussing egalitarianism in Nigeria’s national discourses.
War mongering, secessionism and similar centrifugal tendencies will not help any group in the great country of Nigeria. The principal protagonists of Biafra, the Igbos for example, are crowded into very small land in the South-East. They exhale and live in most local governments in Nigeria and the global diaspora. Biafra makes sense only if there is South-South oil, which will join Biafra only to commit group hara kiri and in any case whatever will be left of the oil economy in the near future, not much, also needs protection from Nigerian and international predators, as oil theft has become one of the main features of Nigeria’s black economy, even as bunkering, the main mode of oil theft has been declared legitimate by government. I personally do not enjoy the proceeds from the so -called northern owners of oil blocks, which are the special allocations of oil blocks donated to some influential Nigerians.
The logic of capitalism is based on greed and self-interest. So we can understand why these oil blocks cannot help the northern poor. Fortunately for me I desire alternatives to the primitive form of capitalism, and I at least understand why those oil blocs may not develop the North.
I want the present democratic experience in Nigeria to succeed, but with a caution that crude and impune rigging of the 2015 elections will invite chaos, anarchy and possibly a civil war, which seems to have already started in the mass media, especially the social media.
I conclude with God’s word in Jeremiah 18:7.
“The instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, to pull down, and to destroy it, if that nation against whom I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I thought to bring upon it. And the instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it, if it does evil in My sight so that it does not obey My voice, then I will relent concerning the good with which I said I would benefit it.”
*Yima Sen, a former Presidential Aide in Nigeria, also a former United Nations development specialist, teaches Mass Communication, International Relations and Political Science at Baze University, Abuja, Nigeria. He presented this paper during a working tour of the United States of America in July-August, 2014.
