Boko Haram and APC’s changing narrative

Boko Haram and APC’s changing narrative

By Femi Ayelabowo

THESE are particularly trying times for Nigeria, make no mistakes about that.  The nation is under constant attacks by a terrorist group, Boko Haram, which has sworn to impose its warped understanding of Islamic law on everybody.  The other day, it was in Borno; and now, it is Kano and Damaturu.

As body counts continue to rise over the wicked bombing of the Central Mosque in Kano yet again by the merchants of death, so is the justified anger and frustration of the people over the ability of the security agencies to protect them.

Yes, when the body bags of innocent citizens, including women and children, cut down in mid-trajectory keep piling, it is natural to question the role of government in protecting its citizens.  Yet in all the frustrations, can we find the sobriety and good conscience to consider, for once, if President Goodluck Jonathan has been fairly judged and treated in this matter?

It is patently mischievous, misleading and incendiary to link the government, let alone accuse it of throwing bombs at its own citizens just to score cheap political points.  This is precisely what the statement released by Jama’atu Nasril Islam (NJI), the apex Northern Islamic body, headed by the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Muhammadu Sa’ad Abubakar 11, on the recent bombing of the Kano Mosque, suggested.

These are the precise words of Dr. Khalid Abubakar Aliyu, the secretary of JNI at a press conference in Kaduna: “We are indeed shocked and pained beyond words over the news of the bomb blasts in Kano Central Mosque, which claimed the lives of over one hundred innocent Muslims … But must blood be spilled to justify the extension of the state of emergency? Why is it that any time the ineffective state of emergency is about to elapse and or an extension is being sought, attacks are carried out with sophistication?”

What the JNI and its political wing in the opposition, the All Progressives Congress (APC) conveniently forgot to tell Nigerians is that, there has been a series of bombings in the country each time it was anticipated that the President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, would want to declare his re-election bid. In fact, a day before the President’s declaration, several innocent students were killed by a suicide bomber at Government Comprehensive Secondary School, Potiskum in Yobe state.

And as has been their script, the APC accused President Jonathan of insensitivity and callousness for not cancelling the political engagement that had long been fixed for that day because of the Boko Haram attack at the Potiskum College.  This is the same Jonathan who is now being accused of sponsoring Boko Haram attacks on the very people who elected him some three years ago and the same people he is asking to renew the mandate in 2015.  If this is a joke, somebody is definitely taking it too far!

There is no argument that Boko Haram considers any Nigerian who believes in a free society a targeted enemy.  The insurgents have been killing both Muslims and Christians without any discrimination. That said, no one can contest the fact that more Christians have been slain by the murderous insurgents in their jihadist campaigns. More churches have equally been destroyed in the Northeast.  What point is being made here?  President Jonathan is a Christian. Hey, he is the victim here; not the aggressor!

It is very unfortunate and intriguing that JNI, an organisation headed by the Sultan, which has been very reticent in condemning the nefarious and terrorist activities of the Boko Haram group for the past three years is now finding its voice.  Are there any fears that the attacks are gradually coming closer to Sokoto?  Or, is this part of the APC script to get Jonathan out of power by any means possible?  As you might have known, another Sokoto boy in APC is already spear-heading the impeachment of the President in the House of Representatives, lest Jonathan wins in 2015 and keeps the North waiting again till 2019.

What the apex Muslim organisation in our country, the JNI, may have wittingly or unwittingly achieved with its incendiary statement is to play into the hands of the Boko Haram sect.  One of the apparent strategies of the group apart from terror is to create animosity between Christians and Muslims and thus divert their attention and concerted efforts in confronting what is the common enemy of the people. Nobody should lose sight of the fact that our soldiers, policemen and women, staff members of the Department of State Security (DSS), hunters and members of the civilian JTF on daily basis put their lives on the line in the fight against this insurgency. Many have been killed so far trying to protect all of us including those fanning the embers of insurgency.  We cannot throw away all their sacrifices in one feat of anger and bickering.

If there is anything the opposition politicians in the APC wish they can achieve as the nation inches towards the 2015 general elections, it will certainly be to change the narrative of the Boko Haram terrorism in the country.

Not a few of our countrymen and women rightly or wrongly believe that there is something about the Boko Haram insurgency that the APC people know about.  Not with the fundamentalist antecedents of some of their leaders, and the way they often gloat whenever Boko Haram bombs rip open the entrails and shatter the limbs of Nigerians, by seeing it as another problem for Jonathan to deal with.

They are even going about boasting of how they will stop the insurgency once they are elected in 2015. That perhaps explains why the Janjaweed cloth that Olisa Metuh, the spokesperson of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) sew for APC has fitted very well.  Give it to the opposition; they have been very strong in the media. In fact, the ruling PDP ought to go on apprenticeship in publicity and propaganda at the APC secretariat.  Yet, in spite of all their skills, the APC people know that the association of their party with insurgency is a masterstroke in the hands of PDP and they are leaving no stones unturned in order to change the narrative.

It all started with, one Steven Davis, a self-appointed Boko Haram “negotiator” who opened his mouth and claimed that the former Chief Army Staff, General Azubuike Ihejirika, who gallantly routed the insurgents and pushed them into the Sambisa forest was one of the main sponsors of Boko Haram.

Today, APC is claiming that Jonathan, the man whom its members promised a hellish time as president, is now the sponsor of the same insurgency targeting to bring down his presidency simply because he wants to renew the state of emergency in the three north-east states of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe. C’mon, APC, you can’t spin this!

Mr. Femi Ayelabowo, a commentator on national issues, wrote from Ibadan, Oyo State.

-Vangurad