FG, insurgents and Badeh’s botched ceasefire

Monday must have been a bad day for Air Chief Marshall Alex Badeh, the Chief of Defence Staff. The so-called ceasefire agreement with Boko Haram that he claimed to have negotiated last Friday turned out a stillbirth.

The ceasefire didn’t last a day before the terrorists struck again in Borno State, attacking civilian locations and reportedly beheading six people. The more than 200 Chibok girls that were expected to be released on Monday, after six months in captivity, according to Badeh’s script, were nowhere to be found. Faced with an embarrassing situation and an ambush from insurgents, the troops from the 7 Division, Nigerian Army, in Damboa Local Government Area of Borno State, 85km drive of Maiduguri, had to jettison the ceasefire order of the previous 48 hours to respond to the terrorists’ onslaught.

25 bodies lay lifeless as a result of the fresh hostilities. Damboa was back as a battleground. This is where Boko Haram had hoisted its flag on July 17 this year, proclaiming an Islamic Caliphate, after a deadly battle that left several dead on both sides, including a Lieutenant-Colonel commanding the military base there.

Borno had no opportunity to sniff the ceasefire from Abuja’s wonder pot, let alone savour it.

But it was a curious ceasefire agreement ab-initio, the whole idea of it and the manner in which it was communicated. Badeh’s announcement of the ceasefire in Abuja was deliberately sketchy and, in a way, dodgy.  It came at the end of the three-day Coordinating Conference on Cameroon-Nigeria Trans-Border Military Operations at the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) Headquarters in Abuja.

“I wish to inform this audience that a ceasefire agreement has been concluded between the Federal Government of Nigeria and the Ahlul Sunna Li Daawa Wal Jihad,” Badeh had announced on Friday afternoon, adding that he had “accordingly directed the Service Chiefs to ensure immediate compliance with this development on the field.” If there was any confusion about the suddenness of it, he was quick to add that the development was “without any prejudice to the outcome of our three-day interactions and the conclusions of this forum.”

But that is precisely the point. How tidy could it be for a ceasefire agreement of that nature to be announced at an interactive forum that was yet to make its resolutions known? How could an important development like a ceasefire with one of the world’s deadliest terror organizations be treated as a footnote to another event? If indeed discussions and negotiations towards the ceasefire had started several months ago, as Doyin Okupe, a presidential spokesman, claimed and that agreement papers were indeed signed, part of which was to have the Chibok girls swapped for some detained Boko Haram members, why did the announcement come from the CDS and not the Presidency?

Badeh didn’t mince words in saying the agreement was with the Federal Government and not the Army per se; and Major General Chris Olubolade, the Army spokesman, who later confirmed the ceasefire agreement to journalists, could merely echo Badeh’s statement only to cleverly add that further clarifications would be made by the Presidency. But no such clarifications ever came, let alone a justification from the Commander-in-Chief whose approval must have been sought before such a decision was taken.

I should not be unmindful of the difficulty in negotiating with a terror organization whose demands may be unclear or unrealistic if they were ever deciphered. But announcing a ceasefire agreement in such a shoddy and accidental manner is quite a disservice to military intelligence. If this was meant to be a scripted success story for a president who is already basking in the glory of successfully containing the Ebola onslaught, on the eve of his declaration to seek re-election, then it is poor execution of an implausible narrative.

Why would the Nigerian government approve a ceasefire at a time that it claimed it was close to rooting out every trace of insurgency in Borno State and the whole of North East and that not only are Boko Haram members dropping their weapons to embrace ‘amnesty,’ but that they are also volunteering useful information to curtail any terrorist masquerading as Shekau.

What then went wrong?

Is it about the Army not getting the expected supplies of ammunition because the United States and South Africa did not cooperate with us or we suddenly realized that negotiation rather than force would bring back the Chibok girls alive?

Both excuses could be valid. But in considering negotiation at all, didn’t the FG factor the possibility of a set-up, a betrayal or splinter groups scuttling the peace deal for the same illogical reasons they have bandied all along to cause destruction in the country? What would have been the benefit of a ceasefire to Boko Haram outside of having their members released? Would it be a sudden ideological and religious re-orientation or multi-billion naira contract rewards for their leaders as the FG did to Niger Delta militants?

Let’s face it, this whole ceasefire kite flies like a hoax. If it isn’t, the fact that it collapsed almost immediately suggests that the FG must have been talking to the wrong negotiators or had been fooled. How then can we tell that the consequences of this faux pas will not be very dire?

This whole episode is not good for the image of the Nigerian Army that is already dented. It is particularly bad for Badeh who once proclaimed in January when he mounted the saddle that he would wipe out Boko Haram before April. He did turn around to deny it, claiming that he meant to say terror in Nigeria would become a thing of history before 2015. Same Badeh would later say on camera that the military knew the exact location of the abducted Chibok girls but was reluctant to strike so as not to harm them. To our chagrin, not a single girl has been rescued ever since.

Now that we are back to Ground Zero in the fight against terror, three things in acute shortage deserve urgent attention: intelligence to decode and infiltrate the enemy; adequate ammunition for our soldiers and expertise in communicating sensitive information to the public.