7th August, 2013
By Ademola Adegbamigbe
As a reporter with Tempo in the early 1990s, during the military era (may Nigeria never experience such again), I travelled to one of the capital cities of the North for an assignment. An army general was to throw a lavish wedding for his daughter and we learnt that he wanted to paint the city red with millions of naira.
I was to penetrate the highly fortified compound, where only journalists from government media were accredited to cover the event. Tempo, being a thorn in the flesh of the military, was avoided by people in authority like a foghorn. Worse still, a journalist carrying Tempo identity card, trying to enter an army general’s compound, was like a fowl playing pranks near the lair of a hyena. It was, for want of a better word, a risk. In order not to return to Lagos empty handed, I decided to play a fast one. I went back to the town and bought a Senegalese wear, a cap and a pair of palm sandals. I donned all, looking like a man who had just graduated from a madrassah.
Then my opportunity came. The convoy of an emir, heralded by long blasts of trumpet, arrived. Since there was no parking space inside the compound, the emir had to disembark and walk in. As I joined his entourage, dancing with his dongaris, the military guards cleared the way for us as we entered. Put differently, soldiers cleared the way for me, an unwanted guest.
What I saw that day, among the squadrons of food trays and flowing wine, was, for the first time in my life, shocking. One of the important guests wanted to empty his bladder. No sooner had he left his seat than his plate of food disappeared. It was taken by some street boys who found their way into the compound, the type of kids who have no fixed addresses, who feed on left-overs at parties and restaurants. They are kids who, because they have been indoctrinated, have no future ambition, have no people who care for them, and are readily available as cannon fodder for what Karl Meier calls pious mayhem.
This came to my mind when I saw the photographs of 42 Boko Haram suspects who were paraded at the headquarters of the 81 Division by military authorities in Lagos last week, as published by The Nation. They were arrested between 12 and 23 July. They skittered into different parts of Lagos and Ogun states after they fled from their different holes in the North from where the Joint (Military) Task Force snuffed them out.
According to the General Officer Commanding, GOC, General Obi Umahi, the suspects were nabbed when soldiers and cops, in concert with intelligence officials, swooped on their hideouts in Ibafo trailer park and Ileke new trailer garage in Ogun State; Aviation Quarters at Mafoluku, Oshodi; Ketu/Mile 2 Motor Park; Orile Trailer Park; Lekki new extension and Bar Beach, where they were planning to unleash trouble on Lagos and other parts of the South-West.
They actually sang to the military authorities. Ibrahim Abubakar Bori, one of the suspects, confessed that he and his men took part in many operations in Borno State, and through that, many security personnel lost their lives right from when the crisis began in 2009. “We were involved in several major operations in Maiduguri, where several security agents and civilians were killed. I and some others here were recruited by Mallam Hassan Ibrahim,” said he.
The said 22-year-old Ibrahim, looking woebegone, was also present. He revealed that he was actually responsible for recruiting some of the suspects and that, according to a media report, he went with Ibrahim Ismailia and Alhaji Black to kill a soldier and a man described as Buka.
That was not the first time that the security forces have done that. For example, in February, three suspects were picked up in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital. They allegedly planned to bomb Israeli and American interests in Lagos, especially the U.S. Agency for International Development, USAID; ZIM Integrated Shipping Services Limited and the Jewish Cultural Centre. Between February and March, the army nabbed 15 Boko suspects at Ijora Badia and Kotankowa areas of Lagos, who allegedly wanted to explode bombs in the city.
For crying out loud, these suspects are children of some people. They have siblings, uncles, cousins, nephews, brothers-in-law and other family members. When they were born like every other kid, everyone rejoiced that the human race had received additions. They grew up like normal children: When it was time to crawl, they did; when it was time to walk, they did. But something snapped at a time in their lives! It is this particular thing that all Northerners must tackle.
It is high time that members of the elite (in politics, big business, religion and civil society) declared an emergency on the condition of the youths in the North. This is important because this impressionable age is when they can easily be indoctrinated by people who (despite that their own kids are studying in Harvard or Cambridge) want to later use them as bomb bearers.
I once read a report in The Mail Online, quoting Osama bin Laden’s brother-in-law, Zakara al-Sadah, that the late al-Qaeda leader “told his own children and grandchildren to go to Europe and America and get good education”. I submit that state governments in the North must make laws that will make it compulsory for parents to send their children to school.
And to take care of the unemployed, the governments up North should also make efforts to bail out companies that are literally gasping for life or have gone under completely. Carcasses of old textile concerns are, for example, strewn all over Kano and Kaduna. When they are revived, they can lap up idle hands that have become the bomb makers’ make-shift laboratory.
Moreover, governments should watch closely some clerics who have the penchant to preach hate against their compatriots.
Intellectuals of the North must rise up to the occasion by coming up with a road map for all the governors in that region on ways to rehabilitate street gangs and what to do to produce whiz kids that can turn Nigeria to another Japan or China in the next 50 years. I throw this challenge to members of the elite and radicals of the North.
•Ademola Adegbamigbe, 08055002056