Pardon me to digress before I come to the subject matter that informed the article of today. This is because the digression cannot be divorced or is indeed related to the main subject matter that prompted the above title .
In an exclusive interview by the Daily Trust Newspaper with Governor Kashim Shettima on April 10, 2014 and published by the Sunday Trust of May 2, 2014 and May 11, 2014 respectively, Governor Shettima was asked many questions which he replied accordingly. One of the questions was , “You were reported to have said you have been an unhappy governor, why?” Governor Kashim responded, “How can I be happy when citizens I am under constitutional oath, and with moral and religious duty, to protect are being killed? How can I be happy when, as we speak, over 200 daughters of Borno are being held somewhere? How can I be happy when hundreds of Borno sons and daughters are six feet under the ground out of cruelty? How can I be happy when, as a governor, I am forced to close down schools? How can I be happy when hundreds have lost their homes and sources of livelihood? How can I be happy when we have spent over N10 billion that should have been used for developmental needs to resist man’s inhumanity, and yet we are still spending? How can I be happy when people were forced to close their shops, avoid markets, abandon schools and stay away from their relations?
“How can I be happy when the economy of Borno is being grounded to a halt by our own people? I just don’t want to go on, please. Only Allah knows exactly how I feel. Not even I can explain the extent of what goes through my mind every day. There was one night, about one and half year ago, I was thinking that t should resign. I was so frustrated that the insurgents were waxing very strong, I was feeling helpless and I didn’t want Borno to collapse and surrender to insurgents under a regime that has me at the helm of affairs. But then, I thought that somebody has to be at the helm of affairs in Borno. If I am not there, someone has to be there. By the way, I asked myself, what was it that was to make me leave? Was it fear of death, a fear of challenge or just trauma?
“I am a fanatic of motivational quotes. There was one by Meg Cabot that inspires me, which states that “Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something is more important than fear. The brave may not live forever but the cautious do not live at all.
“That night, I then said to myself, wasn’t it better for a leader to die for a good cause than to abandon his own kinsmen and women to live for nothing at all and forever be remembered for abandoning his people? Since that day, I made up my mind to confront whatever challenge is before Borno state and work towards the recovery and progress of the state. I have conquered the fear of challenge, but I live with the reality of the trauma our citizens face and that gives me immense headache. I have resolved without any doubt that Insha Allah, we will together as a people rise again, Borno will be great again, I tell you. In my idea of Borno, there is no APC, no PDP, no Muslim, no Christian, no Kanuri, No Babur, no Margi and Shuwa. There is one united people of Borno, though faced with common threats, but driven by the indomitable spirit of resilience and the God-given determination to overcome tribulations. I am an eternal optimist. I so much believe that we shall rise again. I was sworn in at a time when there were serial killings of innocent citizens; when insurgents recruited young men to set schools ablaze; when the Borno we knew when we were growing up had become a shadow of itself, just because some few persons chose to violently impose their misguided view on us.”
Earlier before the exclusive press interview, the governor in December 2012, read the 2013 budget speech in Maiduguri before the State House of Assembly. Just at the concluding part of the speech, the governor, to the awe of everybody, busted into tears. The unanticipated disposition of the governor evoked a dead silence on the floor of the House. No one knew the cause of his pain and what it was that brought forth tears from the very depth of his being. In December, 2013, the Governor was in the State House of Assembly again reading the budget speech for the year 2014. At this time around, Shettima who was in lively mood gave insight into what prompted his emotional reaction while reading the previous year budget before the House.
Hear him: “Mr. speaker, Honourable members, my visit to this hallowed chamber today is at variance with my visit at about this time, in 2012, when I presented the 2013 budget which you expeditiously approved. When I was here in 2012, Mr. Speaker, I must confess, that I was a very distressed Governor who only held on to the stubborn strength of hope. Perhaps, that was the reason for my emotional disposition. I was full of aspirations and wishes, yet my spirit was very slow. Though I persistently believed it was coming to pass, I wondered when Borno State would begin to witness real and sustained peace; I wondered how and when insurgents would move out of our communities and let us be; while I was here in 2012, I wondered when Maiduguri, the capital, the worst affected and the heart of our dear state, would overcome the security challenges that was very well within and around us; I was a critically traumatized governor when I came here in 2012. I was very unhappy even though, I was full of hope and anticipation for the future of Borno
State.
“Mr. Speaker, Honourable members, unlike 2010, when I solely relied on hope, today, I have inside me what is far beyond hope, I have a guarantee, a firm assurance created for all of us, by a brave, patriotic, confident, committed and tough youth population who have defied fears and threats and rose up in defense of our land. I am not yet a happy Governor because of pockets of challenges we are still battling with, but unlike when I was here in 2012, when Borno’s future seemed more uncertain, today; we have collectively as people, by one form of contribution or the other, reclaimed our land and we are on the very sure way of making the entire Borno, peaceful and great again”
The committed and tough youth population referred to by the governor was the sudden emergent Volunteers Youth Group that later metamorphosed into Borno Youth Vanguard and ultimately Civilian Joint Task Force.
The emergence of the Volunteers Youth Group was a marvel and indeed a welcome development. It was a child of necessity and a positive reaction to an ugly situation. The group demystified the held belief that Boko Haram sect was unassailable as members of the group dared the loin its den with bows, arrows, cudgels, cutlasses and others to the sophisticated weaponry of the terrorists. With the formation of the Volunteers Youth Group, members of the Boko Haram fled the urban centres into the rural areas and ever since remained in the rural setting with occasional or sporadic attacks on the city dwellers be they military or civilian. The hunter became the hunted.
Cashing on the popular acceptance of the vigilante group, Borno State Government quickly moved into streamlining the activities of the group now designated Civilian Joint Task Force made up of graduates and non-graduates, categories of members of the civil populace, professionals and others. With the support of the state government, the members of the CJTF were given military training though there was initial opposition to the formation of the CJTF from some quarters for some reasons, but the useful disposition of its members to the society including the military changed the wrong perception to positive outlook acceptance by many including the Federal Government as ally in the fight against Boko Haram.
For the past six years or thereabout, members of the CJTF, numbering about 20, 000 (male and female) remain the responsibility of the state government. While each member receives N20, 000 monthly, the state government provides them with vehicles and other logistics.
Today, members of the CJTF, under the supervision of the military, alongside the soldiers, fight in the trenches and war fronts against the terrorists. According to Army Chief of Staff, General Tukur Buratai, some members of the CJTF, among others, helped as scouts in the war fronts for the military, though not armed as the soldiers. Realising the importance of CJTF, some of its members have been recruited and absorbed into the Nigerian Army. This, according to informed sources, is a continue process. The blessings of the CJTF to the on-going terror war are not innumerable but immeasurable.
However, the CJTF is not without opposition from certain quarters who perceived rightly or wrongly that the body is militia group encouraged and formed by the state government to intimidate opposition. Through there may be bad eggs in the paramilitary group found wanting for one thing or the other, but there has been no direct evidence so far to buttress the allegation that it is an instrument of oppression of government against the opposition.
Back to the subject matter of the day. With the recent vicious upsurge of the insurgency in various directions in the Northeast and Borno State in particular, with high civilian and military casualties, destruction to infrastructure and residence, Governor Shettima was constrained or compelled to convey for the first time in seven and half years of his tenure a stakeholders meeting or gathering to finding lasting solutions to the on-going inferno from spreading to various parts of Borno. The stakeholders meeting of over 200 in number is made up of two former governors of the state, traditional rulers, elders, national and state assembly members, local government chairmen, representatives of various unions of women, labour and journalists and religious leaders including the state chairmen of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) and the Jama’atu Nasril (JNI), the Army, the DSS, Police and Civil Defence officials.
Immediately after the meeting, the stakeholders led by Governor Kashim headed for Abuja to deliver a letter on their deliberations to President Muhammadu Buhari. The content of the letter was not disclosed. It is however said to have contained twelve observations and ten requests.
However before the shout of Jack Robinson, some aspects of the letter leaked to the press and members of press, privileged to the leakage , differed in their comments positively and negatively. For example, three stories successfully appeared in the Daily independent of January 1, 2019, in Vanguard of January 10, 2019 and Daily Times of January 11, 2019. All the three “stories” said the Borno State elders asked President Buhari for permission to set up their own militia in order to tackle the state’s protracted insecurity problem. The papers questioned the rationale or wisdom of responsible elders to demand such.
However, the Premium Times last Friday and the Daily Trust on Saturday probably based on leaks as well did some clarification on the same. According to the Daily Trust report, the Borno elder’s second demand to the President was that he “should consider and approve, as a matter of special case, the specialised use of AA rifle for the Borno State Police Command for capacity enhancement as against the current dependence on AK 47 rifles.”
Continuing the Daily Trust, “Outside Borno, no one in Nigeria will support arming the Nigeria Police with anti-aircraft guns. In the late 1970s when the Police first got F-16 rifles to replace the batons that they previously carried, we immediately began to have cases of “accidental discharge” which snuffed out many innocent lives. Matters got once known as kill and Go, with their semi-automatic rifles. Now most police men sport AK 47s and we are deeply uncomfortably with the situation as it were.
“The Borno elders request was however preceded by an earlier observation. They had said, “Borno State Police Command, which has the duty to preserve constitutional authorities in liberated and rebuilt communities, is faced with challenges of low man-power and dependence on AK-47 rifles to counter Boko Haram fighters who attack communities with AA (Anti-Aircraft) rifles.”
There is nowhere else in Nigeria where the police face criminals firing AA guns, so, it’s clearly a special case. Three years ago or so, the Army complained that it was being showed down in its pursuit of Boko Haram because it has no garrison liberated communities. It openly wished that the police will take over garrison duties so that soldier will exploit their successes against insurgents and pursue them. As far as I can see, this request is in tandem with that observation but of course the police cannot hold any town when the army itself is having trouble holding them against determined assault by insurgents who think nothing about firing an AA gun into town. So, at the minimum, the police must have the same weapons if they are to garrison liberated towns.
“Arming policemen with AA guns was however not the most controversial issue. It turned out that their fourth request was, “Mr. President should kindly consider working with the speedy amendment of the Terrorism Act or coming under a doctrine of necessity to approve the specialised and regulated use of non-prohibitive arms for selected volunteers of the Civilian JTF, for the specific reason of fighting Boko Haram in specific locations. Such use of arms should be for a specific period of time under strict monitoring by the Military.
“I don’t think the caveats can be more stringent than these. As we have seen from Army videos, CJTF members are embedded with frontline troops. It is unfair that they carry knives and sticks to the frontlines which explain why more than 1,000 of them have died since 2013. Hot on the heels of this demand was the request that “Mr. President should kindly consider directing that the over 800 members of the Civilian JTF enlisted into the Nigerian Army be immediately re-deployed to Borno State, be equipped and given specialized training where necessary, for the purpose of controlling their local knowledge of the terrain in Borno state in the fight against Boko Haram.”
Army spokesman Brig. Gen. Sani K. Usman replied to the latter by saying “the Nigerian Army does not deploy based on the three extraneous variables of religion, ethnicity, or geography.”
In the absence of no official public release of the contents of the letter of the Borno stakeholders to the public, the media would continue to speculate as well comment. However, we must bear in mind that facts are sacred and comment superfluous. Some quarters who are beneficiaries of on-going war terror in the Northeast would do all possible to discredit any positive move or effort to curtail the insurgency. In doing this, the unpatriotic ones would do any anything including using the media to achieving their self interest. They will create destruct and sow seeds of bitterness among the stakeholders so that the falcon will not hear the falconer. That attempts are now being made to create conflict and misunderstanding between the genuine Borno stakeholders’ demands on one side and the army and the Federal Government on the other should therefore not be a surprise. For example, it is inconceivable that the Borno stakeholders would demand from the President a militia group fully equipped and under the authority of the state government to fight Boko Haram as alleged by a selection of the press.
We all are stakeholders in this Northeast project and the earlier we kept our ears to the ground and eyes wide-opened, the better. The Borno stakeholders have spoken and passed their collective resolve to defeating the insurgency that is becoming cancerous to the Federal Government. The next action for the central authority is to take a deep look at the observations and requests so presented and act or do the needful before mischief is allowed to create (Katakata or confusion) and render the presentation of the Borno elders “paper verbiage.”
Victor Izekor, a journalist and public-affairs analyst, writes at victorizekor@gmail.com
