The dancing obscenity of Shekau and his gang
of psychopaths and child abductors, taunting the world, mocking the BRING BACK
OUR GIRLS campaign on internet, finally met its match in Nigeria to inaugurate
the week of September 11 – most appropriately. Shekau’s danse macabre was
surpassed by the unfurling of a political campaign banner that defiled an entry
point into Nigeria’s capital of Abuja. That banner read: BRING BACK
JONATHAN 2015.
President Jonathan has since disowned all
knowledge or complicity in the outrage but, the damage has been done, the rot
in a nation’s collective soul bared to the world. The very possibility of such
a desecration took the Nigerian nation several notches down in human regard. It
confirmed the very worst of what external observers have concluded and
despaired of – a culture of civic callousness, a coarsening of
sensibilities and, a general human disregard.
It affirmed the acceptance, even domination of
lurid practices where children are often victims of unconscionable abuses
including ritual sacrifices, sexual enslavement, and worse. Spurred by
electoral desperation, a bunch of self-seeking morons and sycophants chose to
plumb the abyss of self-degradation and drag the nation down to their
level. It took us to a hitherto unprecedented low in ethical degeneration.
The bets were placed on whose turn would it be
to take the next potshots at innocent youths in captivity whose society and
governance have failed them and blighted their existence? Would the Chibok
girls now provide standup comic material for the latest staple of Nigerian
escapist diet? Would we now move to a new export commodity in the
entertainment industry named perhaps “Taunt the Victims”?
As if to confirm all the such surmises, an
ex-governor, Sheriff, notorious throughout the nation – including within
security circles as affirmed in their formal dossiers – as prime suspect in the
sponsorship league of the scourge named Boko Haram, was presented to the
world as a presidential traveling companion. And the speculation became: was
the culture of impunity finally receiving endorsement as a governance
yardstick?
Again, Goodluck Jonathan swung into a
plausible explanation: it was Mr. Sheriff who, as friend of the host President
Idris Deby, had traveled ahead to Chad to receive Jonathan as part of President
Deby’s welcome entourage. What, however does this say of any president?
How come it that a suspected affiliate of a deadly criminal gang, publicly
under such ominous cloud, had the confidence to smuggle himself into the
welcoming committee of another nation, and even appear in audience, to all
appearance a co-host with the president of that nation?
Where does the confidence arise in him that
Jonathan would not snub him openly or, after the initial shock, pull his
counterpart, his official host aside and say to him, “Listen, it’s him, or
me.”? So impunity now transcends boundaries, no matter how heinous the alleged
offence?
The Nigerian president however appeared
totally at ease. What the nation witnessed in the photo-op was an affirmation
of a governance principle, the revelation of a decided frame of mind – with
precedents galore. Goodluck Jonathan has brought back into limelight more
political reprobates – thus attested in criminal courts of law and/or police
investigations – than any other Head of State since the nation’s independence.
It has become a reflex.
Those who stuck up the obscene banner in Abuja
had accurately read Jonathan right as a Bring-back president. They have deduced
perhaps that he sees “bringing back” as a virtue, even an ideology, as the
corner stone of governance, irrespective of what is being brought back. No one
quarrels about bringing back whatever the nation once had and now sorely needs
– for instance, electricity and other elusive items like security, the rule of
law etc. etc. The list is interminable. The nature of what is being brought
back is thus what raises the disquieting questions. It is time to ask the
question: if Ebola were to be eradicated tomorrow, would this government
attempt to bring it back?
Well, while awaiting the Chibok girls, and in
that very connection, there is at least an individual whom the nation needs to
bring back, and urgently. His name is Stephen Davis, the erstwhile negotiator
in the oft aborted efforts to actually bring back the girls. Nigeria
needs him back – no, not back to the physical nation space itself, but to a
Nigerian induced forum, convoked anywhere that will guarantee his safety and
can bring others to join him. I know Stephen Davis, I worked in the background
with him during efforts to resolve the insurrection in the Delta region under
President Umaru Yar’Adua. I have not been involved in his recent labours
for a number of reasons.
The most basic is that my threshold for
confronting evil across a table is not as high as his - thanks, perhaps,
to his priestly calling. From the very outset, in several lectures and other
public statements, I have advocated one response and one response only to the
earliest, still putative depredations of Boko Haram and have decried any
proceeding that smacked of appeasement. There was a time to act – several times
when firm, decisive action, was indicated. There are certain steps which, when
taken, place an aggressor beyond the pale of humanity, when we must learn to
accept that not all who walk on two legs belong to the community of humans – I
view Boko Haram in that light.It is no comfort to watch events demonstrate
again and again that one is proved to be right.
Thus, it would be inaccurate to say that I
have been detached from the Boko Haram affliction – very much the contrary. As
I revealed in earlier statements, I have interacted with the late National
Security Adviser, General Azazi, on occasion – among others. I am
therefore compelled to warn that anything that Stephen Davis claims to have
uncovered cannot be dismissed out of hand.
It cannot be wished away by foul-mouthed abuse
and cheap attempts to impugn his integrity – that is an absolute waste of time
and effort. Of the complicity of ex-Governor Sheriff in the parturition of Boko
Haram, I have no doubt whatsoever, and I believe that the evidence is
overwhelming. Femi Falana can safely assume that he has my full backing – and
that of a number of civic organizations – if he is compelled to go ahead and
invoke the legal recourses available to him to force Sheriff’s prosecution. The
evidence in possession of Security Agencies – plus a number of diplomats in
Nigeria – is overwhelming, and all that is left is to let the man face criminal
persecution. It is certain he will also take many others down with him.
Regarding General Ihejirika, I have my own
theories regarding how he may have come under Stephen Davis’ searchlight in the
first place, ending up on his list of the inculpated. All I shall propose at
this stage is that an international panel be set up to examine all allegations,
irrespective of status or office of any accused. The unleashing of a viperous
cult like Boko Haram on peaceful citizens qualifies as a crime against
humanity, and deserves that very dimension in its resolution. If a people must
survive, the reign of impunity must end. Truth – in all available detail – is
in the interest, not only of Nigeria, the sub-region and the continent, but of
the international community whose aid we so belatedly moved to seek.
From very early beginnings, we warned against
the mouthing of empty pride to stem a tide that was assuredly moving to
inundate the nation but were dismissed as alarmists. We warned that the nation
had moved into a state of war, and that its people must be mobilized
accordingly – the warnings were disregarded, even as slaughter surmounted
slaughter, entire communities wiped out, and the battle began to strike into
the very heart of governance, but all we obtained in return was moaning,
whining and hand-wringing up and down the rungs of leadership and governance.
But enough of recriminations – at least for now. Later, there must be full
accounting.
Finally, Stephen Davis also mentions a Boko
Haram financier within the Nigerian Central Bank. Independently we are able to
give backing to that claim, even to the extent of naming the individual. In the
process of our enquiries, we solicited the help of a foreign embassy whose
government, we learnt, was actually on the same trail, thanks to its
independent investigation into some money laundering that involved the Central
Bank. That name, we confidently learnt, has also been passed on to President
Jonathan. When he is ready to abandon his accommodating policy towards the
implicated, even the criminalized, an attitude that owes so much to re-election
desperation, when he moves from a passive “letting the law to take its course”
to galvanizing the law to take its course, we shall gladly supply that name.
In the meantime however, as we twiddle our
thumbs, wondering when and how this nightmare will end, and time rapidly runs
out, I have only one admonition for the man to whom so much has been given, but
who is now caught in the depressing spiral of diminishing returns: “Bring Back
Our Honour.”
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