Arising from a production clanger on the edition of Saturday, 28th February 2015, readers of THISDAY backpage were treated to an unusual North/South dichotomy. The Lagos/Southern edition was regular and correct in its production but the Northern edition was in error. In place of Dele Momodu, I was wrongly featured as the Saturday backpage columnist.
In a rather bizarre manner, a column I wrote a year to the date was reproduced in usurpation of Momodu’s space. The usurpation was made rather poignant by the fact that both of us are the most unpretentiously partisan and divided in the uses to which we subject that space consecutively on Friday and Saturday. I bat for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and he soldiers for the All Progressives Party (APC). So you can see how this delicate balance was upturned through no fault of mine. If he were to cede his column, I am certain I will be the last person to which this other protagonist would want to grant the privilege. Do I need to say ditto for yours truly?
I was contradictorily pleased and worried at this turn of events. Pleased that APC had been thereby deprived of the services of Momodu (in the Northern half of the country) but worried that I would rather let the sleeping dogs of one year ago lie in peace. My hope that discerning readers would notice the error (for what it was) evaporated at the sight of text messages I began to receive — in commendation and critical appraisal — as if it was a fresh offering.
The column was a two-in-one write up and the main plot was titled ‘The improbable banker and the unlikely president’. It was a reflection on the circumstances of the controversial departure of the reigning Emir of Kano, His Royal Majesty Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, from the position of the central bank governor over a year ago. Regardless of contemporary politics, the emir and I go back a long way and I had employed the familiarity of this shared background to critically situate him.
On account of the categorical position I have taken on the 2015 presidential succession politics (of which the drama of the hostile departure of Sanusi from the central bank measures as a sub plot) I have long reconciled myself to the reality of probable estrangement from the Northern political establishment including especially my friends.
Amongst others, I have written off my relationship with the emir as a casualty of this trend and I have not really made any attempt to contact him after he left the central bank. It turned out that fluke column reproduction has its uses. In the mistaken notion that the offensive column was a new critique I received a response from the emir. He took his time to clarify issues and let it be known that he still considers our friendship intact. More importantly, he stressed the point that there was no ulterior motive on his part to spite the president… ‘Also I never went public. Somebody in the villa leaked the letter after five months…I am surprised you did not as much as asked for the publication of Price Waterhouse forensic report-given that that is the issue’
Few occurrences have damaged President Goodluck Jonathan as the claim by Sanusi that $49.8 billion was missing or unaccounted for in the remittances of the NNPC to the central bank. It generated national and international uproar and became evidence-in-chief in the allegation that Jonathan was running a rogue government. Taking a cue from Nigerians themselves and the stereotype of Africans as moral reprobates, the international community was primed to believe the worst of Nigeria and they did so with reckless abandon.
Otherwise enlightened observers did not pause to reflect on the capacity of the Nigerian economy to withstand the shock of being denuded of $49 billion within a time frame of 18 months. Soon enough, what was alleged as missing was revised down to $20 billion and then $11 billion by a panel comprising the inadvertent whistle blower and other top Nigerian technocrats. Despite the public knowledge of this verification, all references by vested interest economic experts and authoritative publications worldwide kept quoting the figure of $20 billion as unaccounted outstanding balance.
And now further verification has reduced the unaccounted outstanding to about $1.8 billion. But what happens to the reputation that has been destroyed by the allegation of corruption depravity to the tune of $20 billion? The government itself suffers the blame of culpable lethargy and non-disclosure and dissemination of factual information but this blame does not extenuate the fact of biased fixation on $20 billion when credible and available public information, including the witness of the original proponent himself, had it since over a year ago that further verification had reduced the unaccounted outstanding figure to $11 billion.
As it was with the reportage of the ‘missing billions of dollars’, so it became with the reporting of the Boko Haram insurgency plague. Without diminishing the burden of ultimate responsibility on the Presidency of Jonathan, it is apt to recall that it was the wilful repudiation of the federal government by the Borno State government that resulted in the tragic abduction of the Chibok girls in the first place. The Chibok school was kept open by the state government in defiance of prior federal government instruction and proactive security initiative that all schools be closed in the insurgency ravaged axis of the North-east.
And then in tandem with an irresponsible Nigerian opposition, national and international reporting of the crisis became synonymous with a systematic denigration of the Nigerian military. As recent as a week ago, the CNN was reporting that all credit for military reversals suffered by the insurgents in recent times go to gallant and formidable Chadian soldiers who had to cross the border into Nigerian territory to save and protect Nigeria.
One of the most instructive peculiarities of the war against Boko Haram is the behaviour of the American government. In years to come and when the dust of duplicitous national and international behaviour has subsided, America would have to explain the rationale behind the policy that suggests quite plainly that in the fight against terror in Nigeria, America was opposed to the acquisition of necessary ammunition and weaponry that would enable Nigeria to successfully prosecute the war.
As we shall see in the excerpts below, this was a policy practically written under the guidance of an American consultant to vested groups in Nigeria. Whatever the objectives of such vested group, what is clear from the ‘expert opinion’ of Professor Jean Herskovits is that Boko Haram will hardly find a better dissembler advocate.
She begins “The United States must not be drawn into a Nigerian ‘war on terror’ — rhetorical or real — that would make us appear biased toward a Christian president. Many Nigerians already believe that the United States unconditionally supports Mr. Jonathan’s government, despite its failings. They believe this because Washington praised the April 2011 elections that international observers found credible, but that many Nigerians, especially in the north, did not. Likewise, Washington’s financial support for Nigeria’s security forces, despite their documented human rights abuses, further inflames Muslim Nigerians in the north.
“It was clear in 2009, as it is now, that the root cause of violence and anger in both the north and south of Nigeria is endemic poverty and hopelessness. Influential Nigerians from Maiduguri, where Boko Haram is centred, pleaded with Mr. Jonathan’s government in June and July not to respond to Boko Haram with force alone. Likewise, the American ambassador, has emphasised, both privately and publicly, that the government must address socio-economic deprivation, which is most severe in the north. No one seems to be listening… And last week, the security services arrested a Christian southerner wearing northern Muslim garb as he set fire to a church in the Niger Delta. In Nigeria, religious terrorism is not always what it seems.
“The United States should not allow itself to be drawn into this quicksand by focusing on Boko Haram alone. Washington is already seen by many northern Muslims — including a large number of long time admirers of America — as biased toward a Christian president from the south. The United States must work to avoid a self-fulfilling prophecy that makes us into their enemy. Placing Boko Haram on the foreign terrorist list would cement such views and make more Nigerians fear and distrust America.”
It was such clearly jaundiced advocacy by cynical American consultants (who are apt to cry more than the bereaved) that provoked the rejoinder by Professor Bolaji Akinyemi.
He contended that “Continuing references to human rights violations by the Nigerian military will carry more credibility if they come from the Vatican which gave up fighting wars centuries ago, than from the United States whose favourite weapon, the drone, makes no distinction between civilians and combatants. The Nigerian military has been fighting with one hand tied behind its back as the Northern establishment was until recently opposed to a military solution to the Boko Haram insurgents. Long after the objectives of the Boko Haram had been spelt out by them, there was still plenty of self-denial in appraising the Boko Haram.
“The socio-economic programme which the Boko Haram COMMITTEE proposed to the president and which is now being implemented seems to have fallen under the radar of commentators. The programme has three components: a Victims Support programme, an infrastructural rehabilitation programme and a Marshall Plan to rehabilitate industries nationwide and a national massive employment programme. Any international involvement should target strengthening the socio-economic programme.
“The Nigerian military will eventually degrade and destroy the BH. Any military which has had to fight against a guerrilla movement knows it is a messy and unpleasant task. The insurgents always enjoy the advantage of the initiative. That is the lesson of Vietnam, Northern Island, Afghanistan, Iraq, Colombia to name a few examples. What the United States needs to do is to cut Nigeria some slack and stop irritating comments whether by scholars or diplomats.”
I invite readers to judge the credibility of these two accounts and representation especially as it borders on a fair and honest assessment of the insurgency crisis and the efforts of the Jonathan government in addressing the problem.
THISDAY
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