The dancing obscenity of Shekau and his gang of psychopaths
and child abductors, taunting the world, mocking the BRING
BACK OUR GIRLS campaign on internet, finally met its match in
Nigeria to inaugurate the week of September 11 – most
appropriately. Shekau’s dance macabre was surpassed by the
unfurling of a political campaign banner that defiled an entry point
into Nigeria’s capital of Abuja. That banner read: BRING BACK
JONATHAN 2015.
President Jonathan has since disowned all knowledge or complicity in
the outrage but, the damage has been done, the rot in a nation’s
collective soul bared to the world. The very possibility of such a
desecration took the Nigerian nation several notches down in human
regard. It confirmed the very worst of what external observers have
concluded and despaired of - a culture of civic callousness, a
coarsening of sensibilities and, a general human disregard. It affirmed
the acceptance, even domination of lurid practices where children are
often victims of unconscionable abuses including ritual sacrifices,
sexual enslavement, and worse. Spurred by electoral desperation, a
bunch of self-seeking morons and sycophants chose to plumb the
abyss of self-degradation and drag the nation down to their level. It
took us to a hitherto unprecedented low in ethical degeneration. The
bets were placed on whose turn would it be to take the next potshots
at innocent youths in captivity whose society and governance have
failed them and blighted their existence? Would the Chibok girls now
provide standup comic material for the latest staple of Nigerian
escapist diet? Would we now move to a new export commodity in the
entertainment industry named perhaps “Taunt the Victims”?
As if to confirm all the such surmises, an ex-governor, Sheriff,
notorious throughout the nation – including within security circles as
affirmed in their formal dossiers - as prime suspect in the sponsorship
league of the scourge named Boko Haram, was presented to the world
as a presidential traveling companion. And the speculation became:
was the culture of impunity finally receiving endorsement as a
governance yardstick? Again, Goodluck Jonathan swung into a
plausible explanation: it was Mr. Sheriff who, as friend of the host
President Idris Deby, had traveled ahead to Chad to receive Jonathan
as part of President Deby’s welcome entourage. What, however does
this say of any president? How came it that a suspected affiliate of a
deadly criminal gang, publicly under such ominous cloud, had the
confidence to smuggle himself into the welcoming committee of
another nation, and even appear in audience, to all appearance a co-
host with the president of that nation? Where does the confidence
arise in him that Jonathan would not snub him openly or, after the
initial shock, pull his counterpart, his official host aside and say to
him, “Listen, it’s him, or me.”? So impunity now transcends
boundaries, no matter how heinous the alleged offence?
The Nigerian president however appeared totally at ease. What the
nation witnessed in the photo-op was an affirmation of a governance
principle, the revelation of a decided frame of mind – with precedents
galore. Goodluck Jonathan has brought back into limelight more
political reprobates - thus attested in criminal courts of law and/or
police investigations - than any other Head of State since the nation’s
independence. It has become a reflex. Those who stuck up the
obscene banner in Abuja had accurately read Jonathan right as a
Bring-back president. They have deduced perhaps that he sees
“bringing back” as a virtue, even an ideology, as the corner stone of
governance, irrespective of what is being brought back. No one
quarrels about bringing back whatever the nation once had and now
sorely needs – for instance, electricity and other elusive items like
security, the rule of law etc. etc. The list is interminable. The nature of
what is being brought back is thus what raises the disquieting
questions. It is time to ask the question: if Ebola were to be eradicated
tomorrow, would this government attempt to bring it back?
Well, while awaiting the Chibok girls, and in that very connection, there
is at least an individual whom the nation needs to bring back, and
urgently. His name is Stephen Davis, the erstwhile negotiator in the oft
aborted efforts to actually bring back the girls. Nigeria needs him
back – no, not back to the physical nation space itself, but to a
Nigerian induced forum, convoked anywhere that will guarantee his
safety and can bring others to join him. I know Stephen Davis, I
worked in the background with him during efforts to resolve the
insurrection in the Delta region under President Shehu Yar’Adua. I
have not been involved in his recent labours for a number of reasons.
The most basic is that my threshold for confronting evil across a table
is not as high as his - thanks, perhaps, to his priestly calling. From
the very outset, in several lectures and other public statements, I have
advocated one response and one response only to the earliest, still
putative depredations of Boko Haram and have decried any proceeding
that smacked of appeasement. There was a time to act – several
times when firm, decisive action, was indicated. There are certain
steps which, when taken, place an aggressor beyond the pale of
humanity, when we must learn to accept that not all who walk on two
legs belong to the community of humans – I view Boko Haram in that
light. It is no comfort to watch events demonstrate again and again
that one is proved to be right.
Thus, it would be inaccurate to say that I have been detached from the
Boko Haram affliction – very much the contrary. As I revealed in earlier
statements, I have interacted with the late National Security Adviser,
General Azazi, on occasion – among others. I am therefore compelled
to warn that anything that Stephen Davis claims to have uncovered
cannot be dismissed out of hand. It cannot be wished away by foul-
mouthed abuse and cheap attempts to impugn his integrity – that is
an absolute waste of time and effort. Of the complicity of ex-Governor
Sheriff in the parturition of Boko Haram, I have no doubt whatsoever,
and I believe that the evidence is overwhelming. Femi Falana can
safely assume that he has my full backing – and that of a number of
civic organizations - if he is compelled to go ahead and invoke the
legal recourses available to him to force Sheriff’s prosecution. The
evidence in possession of Security Agencies - plus a number of
diplomats in Nigeria - is overwhelming, and all that is left is to let the
man face criminal persecution. It is certain he will also take many
others down with him.
The unleashing of a viperous cult like Boko Haram on peaceful citizens
qualifies as a crime against humanity, and deserves that very
dimension in its resolution. If a people must survive, the reign of
impunity must end. Truth – in all available detail - is in the interest,
not only of Nigeria, the sub-region and the continent, but of the
international community whose aid we so belatedly moved to seek.
From very early beginnings, we warned against the mouthing of empty
pride to stem a tide that was assuredly moving to inundate the nation
but were dismissed as alarmists. We warned that the nation had
moved into a state of war, and that its people must be mobilized
accordingly – the warnings were disregarded, even as slaughter
surmounted slaughter, entire communities wiped out, and the battle
began to strike into the very heart of governance, but all we obtained
in return was moaning, whining and hand-wringing up and down the
rungs of leadership and governance. But enough of recriminations - at
least for now. Later, there must be full accounting.
Finally, Stephen Davis also mentions a Boko Haram financier within
the Nigerian Central Bank. Independently we are able to give backing
to that claim, even to the extent of naming the individual. In the
process of our enquiries, we solicited the help of a foreign embassy
whose government, we learnt, was actually on the same trail, thanks to
its independent investigation into some money laundering that
involved the Central Bank. That name, we confidently learnt, has also
been passed on to President Jonathan. When he is ready to abandon
his accommodating policy towards the implicated, even the
criminalized, an attitude that owes so much to re-election desperation,
when he moves from a passive “letting the law to take its course” to
galvanizing the law to take its course, we shall gladly supply that
name.
In the meantime however, as we twiddle our thumbs, wondering when
and how this nightmare will end, and time rapidly runs out, I have only
one admonition for the man to whom so much has been given, but
who is now caught in the depressing spiral of diminishing returns:
“Bring Back Our Honour.”
Wole SOYINKA.
and child abductors, taunting the world, mocking the BRING
BACK OUR GIRLS campaign on internet, finally met its match in
Nigeria to inaugurate the week of September 11 – most
appropriately. Shekau’s dance macabre was surpassed by the
unfurling of a political campaign banner that defiled an entry point
into Nigeria’s capital of Abuja. That banner read: BRING BACK
JONATHAN 2015.
President Jonathan has since disowned all knowledge or complicity in
the outrage but, the damage has been done, the rot in a nation’s
collective soul bared to the world. The very possibility of such a
desecration took the Nigerian nation several notches down in human
regard. It confirmed the very worst of what external observers have
concluded and despaired of - a culture of civic callousness, a
coarsening of sensibilities and, a general human disregard. It affirmed
the acceptance, even domination of lurid practices where children are
often victims of unconscionable abuses including ritual sacrifices,
sexual enslavement, and worse. Spurred by electoral desperation, a
bunch of self-seeking morons and sycophants chose to plumb the
abyss of self-degradation and drag the nation down to their level. It
took us to a hitherto unprecedented low in ethical degeneration. The
bets were placed on whose turn would it be to take the next potshots
at innocent youths in captivity whose society and governance have
failed them and blighted their existence? Would the Chibok girls now
provide standup comic material for the latest staple of Nigerian
escapist diet? Would we now move to a new export commodity in the
entertainment industry named perhaps “Taunt the Victims”?
As if to confirm all the such surmises, an ex-governor, Sheriff,
notorious throughout the nation – including within security circles as
affirmed in their formal dossiers - as prime suspect in the sponsorship
league of the scourge named Boko Haram, was presented to the world
as a presidential traveling companion. And the speculation became:
was the culture of impunity finally receiving endorsement as a
governance yardstick? Again, Goodluck Jonathan swung into a
plausible explanation: it was Mr. Sheriff who, as friend of the host
President Idris Deby, had traveled ahead to Chad to receive Jonathan
as part of President Deby’s welcome entourage. What, however does
this say of any president? How came it that a suspected affiliate of a
deadly criminal gang, publicly under such ominous cloud, had the
confidence to smuggle himself into the welcoming committee of
another nation, and even appear in audience, to all appearance a co-
host with the president of that nation? Where does the confidence
arise in him that Jonathan would not snub him openly or, after the
initial shock, pull his counterpart, his official host aside and say to
him, “Listen, it’s him, or me.”? So impunity now transcends
boundaries, no matter how heinous the alleged offence?
The Nigerian president however appeared totally at ease. What the
nation witnessed in the photo-op was an affirmation of a governance
principle, the revelation of a decided frame of mind – with precedents
galore. Goodluck Jonathan has brought back into limelight more
political reprobates - thus attested in criminal courts of law and/or
police investigations - than any other Head of State since the nation’s
independence. It has become a reflex. Those who stuck up the
obscene banner in Abuja had accurately read Jonathan right as a
Bring-back president. They have deduced perhaps that he sees
“bringing back” as a virtue, even an ideology, as the corner stone of
governance, irrespective of what is being brought back. No one
quarrels about bringing back whatever the nation once had and now
sorely needs – for instance, electricity and other elusive items like
security, the rule of law etc. etc. The list is interminable. The nature of
what is being brought back is thus what raises the disquieting
questions. It is time to ask the question: if Ebola were to be eradicated
tomorrow, would this government attempt to bring it back?
Well, while awaiting the Chibok girls, and in that very connection, there
is at least an individual whom the nation needs to bring back, and
urgently. His name is Stephen Davis, the erstwhile negotiator in the oft
aborted efforts to actually bring back the girls. Nigeria needs him
back – no, not back to the physical nation space itself, but to a
Nigerian induced forum, convoked anywhere that will guarantee his
safety and can bring others to join him. I know Stephen Davis, I
worked in the background with him during efforts to resolve the
insurrection in the Delta region under President Shehu Yar’Adua. I
have not been involved in his recent labours for a number of reasons.
The most basic is that my threshold for confronting evil across a table
is not as high as his - thanks, perhaps, to his priestly calling. From
the very outset, in several lectures and other public statements, I have
advocated one response and one response only to the earliest, still
putative depredations of Boko Haram and have decried any proceeding
that smacked of appeasement. There was a time to act – several
times when firm, decisive action, was indicated. There are certain
steps which, when taken, place an aggressor beyond the pale of
humanity, when we must learn to accept that not all who walk on two
legs belong to the community of humans – I view Boko Haram in that
light. It is no comfort to watch events demonstrate again and again
that one is proved to be right.
Thus, it would be inaccurate to say that I have been detached from the
Boko Haram affliction – very much the contrary. As I revealed in earlier
statements, I have interacted with the late National Security Adviser,
General Azazi, on occasion – among others. I am therefore compelled
to warn that anything that Stephen Davis claims to have uncovered
cannot be dismissed out of hand. It cannot be wished away by foul-
mouthed abuse and cheap attempts to impugn his integrity – that is
an absolute waste of time and effort. Of the complicity of ex-Governor
Sheriff in the parturition of Boko Haram, I have no doubt whatsoever,
and I believe that the evidence is overwhelming. Femi Falana can
safely assume that he has my full backing – and that of a number of
civic organizations - if he is compelled to go ahead and invoke the
legal recourses available to him to force Sheriff’s prosecution. The
evidence in possession of Security Agencies - plus a number of
diplomats in Nigeria - is overwhelming, and all that is left is to let the
man face criminal persecution. It is certain he will also take many
others down with him.
The unleashing of a viperous cult like Boko Haram on peaceful citizens
qualifies as a crime against humanity, and deserves that very
dimension in its resolution. If a people must survive, the reign of
impunity must end. Truth – in all available detail - is in the interest,
not only of Nigeria, the sub-region and the continent, but of the
international community whose aid we so belatedly moved to seek.
From very early beginnings, we warned against the mouthing of empty
pride to stem a tide that was assuredly moving to inundate the nation
but were dismissed as alarmists. We warned that the nation had
moved into a state of war, and that its people must be mobilized
accordingly – the warnings were disregarded, even as slaughter
surmounted slaughter, entire communities wiped out, and the battle
began to strike into the very heart of governance, but all we obtained
in return was moaning, whining and hand-wringing up and down the
rungs of leadership and governance. But enough of recriminations - at
least for now. Later, there must be full accounting.
Finally, Stephen Davis also mentions a Boko Haram financier within
the Nigerian Central Bank. Independently we are able to give backing
to that claim, even to the extent of naming the individual. In the
process of our enquiries, we solicited the help of a foreign embassy
whose government, we learnt, was actually on the same trail, thanks to
its independent investigation into some money laundering that
involved the Central Bank. That name, we confidently learnt, has also
been passed on to President Jonathan. When he is ready to abandon
his accommodating policy towards the implicated, even the
criminalized, an attitude that owes so much to re-election desperation,
when he moves from a passive “letting the law to take its course” to
galvanizing the law to take its course, we shall gladly supply that
name.
In the meantime however, as we twiddle our thumbs, wondering when
and how this nightmare will end, and time rapidly runs out, I have only
one admonition for the man to whom so much has been given, but
who is now caught in the depressing spiral of diminishing returns:
“Bring Back Our Honour.”
Wole SOYINKA.
No comments:
Post a Comment