Buhari has lost credibility on national security

In September 2015, as President Buhari marked his first 100 days in office, I wrote a piece titled “Buhari plays to his strengths, but the economy is his Achilles heel”. I argued that, overall,he had started well in the areas of his perceived strengths –tackling insecurity and fighting corruption – but badly in his area of historic weakness: economic management. With an academic hat on, I awarded him a Third for his cluelessness and atavism on the economy, a 2:1 for his early anti-graft initiatives, and a First for his initial approach to tackling insecurity.

Earlier, in July of that year, a TIME magazine journalist emailed me, asking:“What’s next for Nigeria’s fight against Boko Haram, following Buhari’s firing of his senior military commanders?” I replied that, so far, Buhari was doing everything right to defeat the Boko Haram insurgency. He had appointed new service chiefs widely believed to be“first-class officers”; was building a strong regional alliance against Boko Haram; and was reaching out to the international community for help. Buhari emanated credibility, and few around the world doubted that he would deliver on his promise to make Nigeria safer.

But we were wrong. I was wrong. Yes, I was wrong in thinking that he would play to his fabled strength and tackle insecurity in Nigeria. Instead, insecurity has worsened, turning Nigeria into a fragile if not a failed state.As I said, I awarded Buhari a First for his initial approach to tackling insecurity in Nigeria.But, three years in office, truth be told, he now deserves a Third or even a Fail on national security!

In Lagos recently, Buhari repeated the platitude about his government’s “commitment” to “improved national security”. Indeed, he wants to take $1.3 billion from the Excess Crude Account to “fight the rising spate on insecurity across the country”. As former Senator Naj’atu Muhammed said recently, “terrorism has become a multi-billion-naira industry in Nigeria”. Yet, Nigeria is the 5th most dangerous (i.e. least safe) country in the world, according to the 2018 Legatum Prosperity Index for Safety and Security.

This is a fundamental failure of governance. The first duty of any government is to protect and safeguard the lives of its citizens. Great philosophers such as Thomas Hobbes and John Locke have long espoused the idea that governments have their roots in an implied social contract. Under this social contract, according to Hobbes, government exists to insulate us from the arbitrary violence of nature and protect us from each other. For Locke, citizens agree to surrender absolute freedom in return for the state safeguardingtheirlives, liberty and property.

But Buhari has violated this social contract, this fundament purpose of government. His government has not only failed to generate economic prosperity,it has also failed to protect the lives and properties of ordinary Nigerians. The government’s inability and/or unwillingness to stop the atrocities of Boko Haram and the criminal herders has allowed these dastardly groups to continue to traumatize local communities in Nigeria.

Of course, Buhari inherited the Boko Haram problem and, in fairness, the situation is slightly betterunder him than it was under Goodluck Jonathan, when, particularly in 2014/15, Boko Haram attacks paralysed most of the north-east. But it’s also true that the Boko Haram Buhari inherited was decimated after the overwhelming, if belated, military offensive launched by the Jonathan administration, with international support, during the 2015 general election campaign.

Surely, Buhari was expected to do better, to finish off the insurgents or at least render them incapable of causing more havocs. But, alas, three years into the four-year term of this administration, that has not happened. Boko Haram remains a very potent and dangerous terrorist group, and over 100 of the 276 Chibok girls they abducted on 15 April 2014 are still being held by them. 57 of the girls escaped, and, OK, to its credit, the Buhari government negotiated the release of 107. But 113 girls are still with the terrorists!

Two weeks ago, on the 4th anniversary of the Chibok girls’ abduction, President Buhari’s spokesman, Garba Shehu, issued a perfunctory statement, saying the government “is doing its very best to free the girls from their captors”. He blamed friction among the Boko Haram members for the failure of the government’s negotiation to secure the girls’ release. But what this shows is that the government is at the mercy of the insurgents. Boko Haram is very much in charge, dictating the agenda, despite repeated official claim that it has been “technically” defeated!

Indeed, the folly of this “Mission Accomplished” rhetoric was laid bare on 19th February this year, when, just two weeks after the government said that Boko Haram was on its death throes, the insurgents struck! They attacked a school in Dapchi, Yobo state, and abducted 105 schoolgirls.It was Chibok all over again! The government secured the release of the Dapchi girls 30 days later after a negotiation that looked dubious and inscrutable in many ways.

Any negotiation with a terrorist group will inevitably provoke questions such as: on what terms? At what cost? For instance, how could a government that wants to promote religious harmony negotiate away the freedom of the Christian girl, Leah Sharibu, who rejected the terrorists’ demand to convert to Islam? We must also ask: did the negotiation involve payment of a ransom? But any concession to Boko Haram, whether in form of the so-called amnesty or ransom-payment, would be unacceptable. The terrorists’ heinous crime should not be rewarded. Furthermore, giving concessions to Boko Haram, which is supposed to have been “technically” defeated, would suggest the government is misleading Nigerians. And no government can successfully fight insurgency without public confidence.

Now, what about the atrocities of the criminal herdsmen? There is no space to explore the herder-farmer conflict here. But it must be said that the herders’ unabated and uncontrolled killings and violence are a stain on the conscience of this nation and a blow to the moral standing and credibility of the Buhari government. The herders’ criminal rampage led to the death of 2,500 in 2016, according to the International Crisis Group, and several hundreds more since then. This is not mentioning the humanitarian calamity, with over 170,000 internally displaced people in the north-central.

Of course, no country is immune from organised crime and violence, but the attitude and response of the government matter a lot. In Nigeria, conflicts escalate and spread for three state-induced reasons. First, government incompetence and army failure; second, government and army complicity and duplicity; and third, the government’s failure to give justice to the victims of these atrocities.

Take the competence point first. Well, it is universally recognised that the Nigerian army lacks the offensive and defensive capabilities to defeat Boko Haram. They are ill-equipped and ill-trained for the counter-insurgency strategy needed to beat the terrorist group. When soldiers start running from insurgents, as Nigerian soldiers often did, you know something is amiss. But what about the government’s own incompetence? Two weeks ago, President Buhari told the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, in London that Muammar Gaddafi was responsible for the herder-farmer clashes. Why? Because when he was killed in 2011, his gunmen moved to Nigeria. So, Nigeria is such a failed state that it couldn’t protect its borders and deal with invading foreign gunmen. Buhari also said that herdsmen used to carry sticks, but “now they carry sophisticated weapons”. But why are the herders allowed to carry such weapons? Is the government so impotent that it can’t disarm them? Listening to Buhari, one often thinks he is a helpless and hapless bystander rather than Nigeria’s president!

Then, what about complicity and duplicity? First, take that of the army. Recently, General T Y Danjuma, former chief of army staff and minister of defence, controversially urged Nigerian to defend themselves because, as he put it, “the armed forces are not neutral”, adding: “They collude with the armed bandits that kill the people; they facilitate their movement”. What Danjuma was really saying was that the social contract has broken down; the government can’t contain the Hobbesian savagery of the herders and protect innocent Nigerians against their bestiality. And, of course, once the social contract breaks down, what you have, according to Hobbes, is anarchy!

Sadly, the Buhari government itself is not neutral. It is more sympathetic to the herders than the farmers.Buhari, himself a Fulani and cattle-owner, has always identified with the cause of the Fulani herdsmen. He said in 2016, for instance, that “It would be foolhardy for someone to just say he would chase us away. So, where do we go? The “us” and “we” in that statement referred to the Fulani herdsmen. So, you have a president and a government that are clearly not an impartial arbiter in the herder-farmer conflict.

Which brings me to the third point: lack of justice for the victims of the atrocities. Humanitarian intervention has always been recognised in international law, and, in 2005, the UN General Assembly recognised the “Responsibility to Protect” in case of genocide, ethnic cleansing and massive violence. So, why has the Buhari government not intervened to prevent what is certainly massive violence, if not ethnic cleansing, by the Fulani herdsmen? Secondly, where is justice? Aprominent British writer once said that“Any violent death is a rip in the fabric of society and must be respected, investigated and punished”. So, why has there been no arrest, prosecution and punishment of the criminal herders? Professor Wole Soyinka was right when he said that the victims of the atrocities of Boko Haram and the herders do not need sympathy: they need justice! They need the perpetrators to be brought to book!

So, three years in office, Buhari has failed to make Nigeria safer, despite his promise.The deaths of ordinary Nigerians are treated as a trifle. Worsening insecurity is traumatizing local communities, harming farmers who ensure food security and discouraging foreign investors. Buhari has failed in the first duty of government: to protect the lives and properties of citizens. His fabled reputation on national security is in tatters! Sad!

Olu Fasan