President Muhammadu Buhari, early last week in Abuja,
when he had audience with the new Ambassador of Ecuador to Nigeria, Mr.
Leopoldo Rovayo Verdesoto, voiced his expectation that religious leaders in the
country should do more to support Federal Government’s efforts to strip the
Boko Haram violent sect of all its religious pretensions and fully expose the
group as vicious terrorists having no moral or philosophical direction. “What
we have succeeded in doing is to separate terrorism from religion…Now, people
cannot relate with their relevance anymore and they are only associated with the
destruction of lives and properties…” the President reportedly said.
Last July, Governor Kashim Shettima of Borno State, one
of the North East theatres of Boko Haram’s killings, destruction and
absurdities, expressing similar sentiments, said that Islamic scholars were not
openly speaking on the issue for fear of being killed. Shettima spoke in Abuja
at an event organised by the national secretariat of the Nigeria Union of
Journalists (NUJ). The governor’s words: “Changing the ideology of the Boko
Haram will require intellectual roles by leading Islamic scholars with mass
appeal. It is most disturbing to note that today in northern Nigeria, there is
no single Islamic scholar that preaches against the Boko Haram ideology, and
the reason is because everyone is afraid. Leading scholars like Sheikh Jaafar
Mahmud Adam and Sheikh Albani Zaria, who vehemently preached against the (Boko
Haram) ideology have been killed. In Maiduguri, scholars like Sheikh Ibrahim
Gomari, Malam Bashir Gomari and over 30 different scholars who were opposed to
the Boko Haram ideology have all been killed”. He stressed the huge importance
of identifying Islamic scholars with the intellectual depth and mass
followership to change the Boko Haram narrative so that ‘young souls’ could be
saved from listening to the sect.
While we agree with Mr. President that knowledgeable
Nigerians now view the insurgent group as basically rudderless ideologically,
as well as lacking in morals and respect for human life, it is difficult, as
yet, to accept the argument that religion is no longer one of the major
attractions that drive the group’s recruitments. What with the under-aged
children that still run suicide-bombing missions for Boko Haram, despite the
invigoration of military onslaughts against its members since the President’s
assumption of office. The major setback, it does seem, is that the nation’s
leadership at both federal and state levels acted late in tracing and punishing
the obvious political roots of Boko Haram insurgence; as well as countering the
brainwashing of ignorant youths/minors and indoctrinating them into a campaign
of violence they hardly understand the basis, essence or can coherently defend.
In December last year, a 13-yearold girl who said her
parents handed her over to the Boko Haram sect for use as a suicide bomber was
arrested by the Kano State police command, a practical demonstration of
religious extremism and contempt for the life of one’s own child ostensibly
borne out of ignorance and illiteracy even on the part of some parents. She was
picked up after the December 10, 2014 double suicide bomb attacks by her
co-female suicide bombers near a market in Kano, which claimed the lives of at
least four people, with about seven others injured. The girl in her ‘hijab’
when arrested, was still wearing explosives that had not yet gone off. Indeed,
it appears while Boko Haram was busy catching them young and violently digging
in, the leadership busied itself with politics and underestimated the group’s
capabilities until the chicken came home to roost.
We recall, too, the outburst of Second Republic
politician, Alhaji Isyaku Ibrahim, in 2012 in response to scathing criticisms
against the perceived silence of elders from the North while the violent
Islamist sect was on the rampage. “The government is economical with the truth
when they say they do not know the originators of Boko Haram…I would not blame
northern leaders because Borno leaders who really have the inside information
find it difficult to talk for the fear of being attacked”, the politician told
a national newspaper in an interview.
Many mistakes have already been made in the name of
tackling the menace in the past. As it is, the government should, in addition
to the ongoing military campaign, determine past fault-lines that can quickly
be remedied. If the intervention of Islamic clerics is one of them, those of
them needed should be identified, given adequate security and put to task.
Crying over spilled milk or sounding indeterminate this time is not acceptable.