By Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D. Twitter: @farooqkperogi My former undergraduate ideological mentor at Bayero University Kano by the name...
By Farooq A. Kperogi,
Ph.D.
Twitter:@farooqkperogi
My former undergraduate ideological mentor at Bayero
University Kano by the name of Yunusa Zakari Yau (popularly known as Y.Z. Yau)
wrote a Facebook status update on August 15 that aptly captured a barely expressed
but nonetheless widespread sentiment. “[President Muhammadu Buhari] seems
contented to answer the title of president and watch the old days of impunity
rolling back to traumatize Nigerians,” he wrote.
Y.Z.’s status update might have been inspired by a general
philosophical anxiety about the progressively disconcerting direction of the
Buhari administration. But President Buhari’s baffling silence (and apparent
inaction) in the face of the Nigerian military’s farcically inept publicity
stumbles after the release of Boko Haram’s recent propaganda video
tends to reinforce notions that he is an out-of-touch president who has ensconced
himself in the plush luxuries of Aso Rock and allows the country to be on autopilot.
I have written at least three Facebook status updates on the
Nigerian military’s ill-advised issuance of a wanted notice for journalist
Ahmed Salkida, NGO activist Ahmed Umar Bolori, and self-described Boko Haram benefactor
Aisha Wakil. It’s obvious to any perceptive observer that the wanted notice was
a mere frivolous publicity stunt designed to deflect attention from the reputational
hit the military took from the Boko Haram propaganda video.
There is no greater evidence for this than the fact that
when Ahmed Bolori turned himself in to military authorities upon reading in the
media that he had been declared wanted, he was told to “go home” and return the
following day—after waiting for hours on end and making calls and sending text
messages to senior military officers who are personally known to him, including
the man who signed the wanted notice. Who issues a "wanted notice" for
people without any interest in seeing, much less interrogating, them? Aisha
Wakil, who should be in jail based on her well-documented self-admission that she is an enabler of Boko Haram’s mass slaughter of innocents, also bragged
that she was available to be detained.
Well, certain conditions should precede the issuance of a
wanted notice for people. They should have been invited to answer questions
about their complicity in a crime. They should have spurned such invitations to
appear before law enforcement agents— and gone underground. And after they were
arrested, charged, and detained, they should somehow have managed to escape,
and be in danger of vanishing into thin air. None of these scenarios happened.
People who initially defended the military’s bungling,
hasty, unjustified issuance of the wanted notice said there was method in the
military’s madness. But in the face of the unexpected backlash against its
reckless unprofessionalism, the military was impelled to walk back its initial
press statement. Director of Defence Information Brigadier General Rabe Abubakar
said on Channels TV on August 16 that "declaring [Salkida, Bolori and
Wakil) wanted was not our intention. We are inviting them to come and shed more
light on Boko Haram so that collectively we can achieve the desired goal."
But how do you “invite,” through a news release, people
whose contact information you already have, with whom you relate on a periodic
basis, and whose homes you know? What sort of “invitation” is that? And,
although Brigadier General Abubakar said the military was merely seeking the cooperation
and help of Salkida, Bolori, and Wakil, acting Nigerian Army Spokesperson Colonel
S.K. Usman threatened them in public media. “They were evasive. They wanted
everything on their terms,” he said in a press statement after meeting with
Bolori and Wakil. “We are determined. They must cooperate.”
Seriously? How do
you injure people's reputation before the whole world (supposing they are
innocent), threaten them publicly, and expect them to help you with the
information you need to do your job?
This all frankly feels like watching an unimaginative, low-budget, slapdash Nollywood movie about clueless dolts.
Before I'm misconstrued, let me be clear that I'm NOT
calling into question the propriety of inviting, detaining, or interrogating
people who might help the military in its fight against Boko Haram. I have a
lot of respect for the valiance of our military, which has seen Boko Haram
nearly decimated. I support any legal and sensible effort to bring a total end
to Boko Haram’s deathly grip on Nigeria’s northeast. But it is irresponsible,
and even unlawful, to issue a wanted notice for people who are not in hiding,
who haven’t repulsed any invitations, who haven’t been formally charged with
any offense, and whose cooperation you desperately need in your anti-terrorism
fight.
Issuance of wanted
notice for people who haven’t been charged with any wrongdoing is a prima facie
case of libel. As my friend Dr. Raji
Bello has pointed out on Facebook, the wanted notice has been archived in
national and international media platforms, and is indexed by search engines. Hundreds
of years from now, these people will be remembered as people for whom a wanted
notice was issued by the Nigerian military. That’s incalculable injury to their
reputation. If they are, however, found guilty of aiding Boko Haram terrorists
by a competent court, the negative publicity would be warranted.
But more than anything, it’s a grave strategic and tactical
miscalculation to publicize information about the people the military needs to
get to the root of the nagging Boko Haram insurgency. The three
"wanted" or "invited" people could easily have been invited
quietly without all the media circus. We shouldn’t be discussing this issue in
the media. The military, through its incompetent information management, drew
us into this.
The needlessly exhibitionist tactics of the military has the
unsettling potential to reverse the gains made against Boko Haram and to
further endanger the lives of the Chibok girls and hundreds of other innocent
people in Boko Haram captivity.
The media bluster and the incoherent, mutually contradictory
press statements from three different military spokespersons these past few
days were obviously merely intended to impress President Buhari and to counter
Boko Haram’s recent propaganda against the military. But that’s a singularly irresponsible
way to handle delicate military intelligence matters like this.
And that’s why President Buhari needs to show decisive
leadership now. He isn’t just the president and commander-in-chief, he is also a
retired general—and a former military head of state to boot. His seeming
silence and indifference to the military’s current avoidable reputational
self-destruction is helping to feed the narrative that he is simply “content to answer the title of president”—and enjoy the perquisites that come with it—
but either unwilling or unable to do the hard work the title demands and
entails. That’s a dangerous narrative he must not allow to take root—if he is
still interested in bringing about the change he promised us and leaving an
enduring legacy.
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