Beyond operation ‘Gama Aiki’

BY ABDULRAFIU LAWAL

After being away from my second home for four years to study abroad, I visited Maiduguri in July 2014 for a week and decided to see a friend of mine at Bulumkutu Abuja. As soon as it was time for the late afternoon prayers known as  Asr, I asked him to accompany me to the mosque in the neighbourhood for congregational prayers. He declined.

Jokingly, he said he would not be responsible for anything that happened to me at the mosque as Boko Haram had agents in every mosque in Maiduguri, knowingly full well that many people in the neighborhood knew I had been out of the country for a while. He conveyed a very important message to me in a sarcastic manner, that the people had their hearts in their mouth as Boko Haram was a government within a government.

The people seem to have seen phases of the insurgency from when the governor publicly broke down in tears seeing hundreds of his people killed by suicide bombs and threat of removal from then President Goodluck Jonathan. When I met Governor Kashim Shettima later, my fears were confirmed. He looked frail, with gray hair on his head and moustache like a troubled village head indicating stress and laughter seems to have taken flight from his face for a while. This is a story for another day.

When I look at the situation in Borno two years ago and make a comparison with the condition of the people today, the situation has improved tremendously. The mere fact Eid-el-Fitr  was celebrated without restriction of movement and major roads are now open for the first time in five years  means the place is gradually living up to its former reputation as ‘’Home of Peace”.  A semblance of cultural activities taking place  at the  Shehu of Borno’s  palace also underscore the sacrifice made by our gallant soldiers led by the Chief of Army Staff (COAS),General Yusuf Tukur Buratai and Governor Kashim Shettima for taking away Borno from opposition politics. I do not know what the situation would have been like if the state was still under an opposition party even under President Muhammadu Buhari.

The appointment of the trio of Babagana Monguno as National Security Adviser who hails from Monguno in Northern Borno, Buratai from Biu local government area in Southern Borno as COAS and Air Marshal Sadique Abubakar as Chief of Air Staff respectively underscores the vision of the Buhari administration in tackling the Boko Haram scourge. The duo of Monguno and Buratai, apart from being sons of the soil, their knowledge of the terrain has been a great blessing and also being personally affected by the insurgency has given the operation the needed bite and commitment. Air Marshal Sadique is also conversant with the terrain, having served in the state during the military era that his records as a young officer then remain unbeaten in Borno today.

The Boko Haram insurgency and the attendant loss of lives and property that will take states affected four decades to recover fully was due to complacency and negligence. Anyone who was at the Ibn Taimiyya Mosque and listened to Late Mohammed Yusuf’s last sermon in July 2009 few days after members of the Operation Flush attacked his members for not putting on their crash helmet will not be surprised to see many towns reduced to rubbles today. Apart from TELL magazine and Daily Trust newspaper that did a marvelous job of interpreting what the threat from Yusuf meant for peace and national security, every other medium treated it as a normal story. The government of the day and security apparatus saw the matter differently. The rest is history.

‘’Gama Aiki’’  the code name for the ongoing military operation in the North East to  crush Boko Haram which in Hausa literally means getting the job done is the first step in fighting insurgency. This is because Boko Haram tapped into structural and economic defects in Borno society especially in the ten local governments of Northern Borno. The political class in this Senatorial zone institutionalized the culture of laziness and dependency among youths especially those within the age of 20-30years. This accounts for why places like Monguno,Damasak,Marte,Baga and Abadam became their stronghold until our soldiers crushed or chased them away.

Out of the ten local government areas in Northern Borno that has produced three governors namely Mohammed Goni, Asheik Jarma and Maina Maa’ji Lawan, only Baga town in Kukawa local government has a vibrant economy where young people can earn a living on daily basis, thanks to the fishing business. All other towns have no single industry where youths can earn a living. Their only industry is the secretariat of the local government where the chairman doles out peanuts to idle young men once a month after paying salaries. Of these towns, the case Mallam Fatori which is the headquarters of Abadam local government area that has produced three speakers for the state house of assembly namely Bulama Fugu,Goni Ali Modu and AbdulRahman Lawan  is the worst. They are cut off from civilization due to desert encroachment and their only source of affordable healthcare is Bosso in Niger republic. In addition, the desert has so much eaten into the Abadam that only a four wheel drive vehicle can take one there and it will cost five times what it will cost one to build a block of classroom in Maiduguri.  This is why Nigerian soldiers currently serving in Northern Borno deserve our support and prayers because it is the most difficult terrain to fight an unknown enemy especially in the rainy season. Professor Bulakarima,Bulama Fugu,Goni Ali Modu, other sons and daughters of Abadam can prove me wrong if I am exaggerating. This is why I laugh whenever I hear Niger Delta youths complaining that they have environmental problems. This is because if the people of Abadam alone decide to use the Niger Delta approach to draw government attention to their plight, then the situation will be very messy.

If the federal government and the state government are really committed to ending the insurgency, it must begin to think beyond just rebuilding houses for the people to return home. This is because resettling people without putting in place economic structures for young people to realize their potential is rubbishing the gains of Operation ‘’Gama Aiki’ . Nigeria can never win the war against Boko Haram if these ten local government areas do not have small scale industries like block making,welding, carpentry, shoe making, packaged water and so- on where young people can earn a daily pay. This remains the only way to block Boko Haram from indoctrinating young men and recruiting them for suicide missions.

The absorption of some members of the Civilian Joint Task Force into the Nigerian army last week is indeed commendable, but still like a drop in the ocean. I was happy when I read in the newspapers a few days ago that the National Assembly has passed the law for the establishment of the North East Development Commission ( NEDC) with headquarters in Maiduguri. While this development is commendable, it is too early  to celebrate until the commission takes off and begin to implement laudable programs. This is because the disagreement over where the headquarters of the commission will be located that almost killed the bill is an indication that the political class is looking at it as another version of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NNDC) where contract bazaar and elephant projects will be executed for private pockets. The federal and state government must realize that should they fail to make the commission work, build small scale industries in the area, then the aftermath will be catastrophic.

The state and federal government must come up with a deliberate program that will address the needs of children orphaned by Boko Haram living in camps across the state and ensure they grow up to be responsible citizens. Efforts should gear towards minimizing the effects of the loss of their parents by catering for the educational, social and economic needs. It is traumatizing enough that some children will grow up not knowing either of their parents due to the activities of some lunatics acting in the name of religion.

When the Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) eventually return home, there is need for psychologists and psychiatrists who will help people dealing with trauma. Some of these IDPs will not comprehend the effect of the horrifying scenes they witnessed before fleeing their homes until they return to begin life afresh in their various communities once again.

Other states should learn a lesson from what is happening in the North East. After all, a Hausa proverb says ‘’once your neighbour’s beard is on fire, quickly apply water to yours’’. This means other states should not gnash their teeth and think such can never happen in their domain. The insurgency is a just a microcosm of the larger Nigerian problem and reaction to the absence of good governance and corruption. In the South West, we have “Area Boys and Omo Onile”,the North West has Yan Daba” and the South East has ‘’Ndi Agboro”. The National Bureau of Statistics captures it more succinctly when it said recently that seventy percent of Nigerian youth are unemployed. These are potential time bomb waiting to explode. The resultant effect of youth employment in these areas may be worse than Boko Haram. The state and federal government must look for ways of creating job opportunities for youths as the private sector in Nigeria is still not vibrant enough to be the largest employer of labour.

The sacrifice of our gallant soldiers who laid their lives for peace to return to the North East must not be in vain. State and federal government must come together to put structures in place for youth employment and carryout environmental impact assessment of farmlands in these areas so that the people can make use of their farms in the near future. Nigeria cannot afford another form of insurgency in whatever form as the consequences are better imagined than said.

Lawal, a Public Commentator writes from Boston, United States and can be reached at [email protected]