BOKO HARAM 3

‘Boko Haram mere insurgence, not terrorism’ Alhaji Rasheed Adesokan, Director, Nigeria Society for International and Strategic Studies, Ibadan, is an authority in security and strategic planning. In this interview with AKEEB ALARAPE, in Ibadan, Oyo State, he examines the spate of sectarian violence in Nigeria and declares that what we have in the country is mere insurgence and not terrorism. Thursday, July 21, 2011 Insecurity in the land We are having these scenarios now and that we will continually get deeper into the mire because successive governments have not been able to give the people their dues. Government, willingly or unwillingly, must give people their dues. If you don’t give people their dues, people will ask for their dues. And if they ask for so long and you refuse to give them, people will now demand for their dues. That is what is manifesting in the North-east; in the Niger Delta and also in the activities of miscreants in some of the South-western states. It is just a manifestation of a people neglected for so long; whose government, in the face of so much resources, denied them for so long. And so, in a way want to vent their anger and tell such successively uncaring governments that the resources are for them and not for a group of people, who got themselves selected into governance by one way or another, which clearly excluded credible, free and fair election. The amount of resources the parliamentarians, both at the federal and state levels, are taking away is scandalous. Yet, one of the Senators said his remuneration was not up to one-third of his colleague’s in the United States. Which of his colleagues in United States? Is he comparing himself to an American Senator? Right from the grassroots, an American Senator is known by the people and he goes there regularly, performing his constitutional responsibilities. How many Nigerian Senators even know the people that supposedly elected them? You want to compare our Senators to American Senators? They know deep down themselves that they are not the same. What are the similarities? Is it the way they got elected as Senators or what? They clearly know it is not. This is not to denigrate anybody but they know it is not the same. The type of election that picked an American senator into the House of the Senate cannot be compared to the one that got a Nigerian Senator elected. They do know. They cannot be the same. Also, the sense of patriotism certainly can’t be the same because of the circumstances in which both found themselves. Boko Haram and linkage to Islam It is very sad the way which, even our Muslim brothers and sisters, even people who are supposed to know, the way they bandy this word ‘terrorism’ about, they are so uninformed about it. What is happening about Boko Haram is not terrorism; what is happening in Nigeria is not terrorism. Whether in the Niger Delta, whether in the North-east, where we have Maiduguri and the Boko Haram people as well as in the South-east, where kidnapping is rampant, is not terrorism. What we call all these happening is insurgence. There is a gulf of difference between terrorism and insurgence. So, when people bandy the word ‘terrorism’ about you continue to wonder: where is terrorism? Do our people really know what terrorism is? If they do not know, why can’t they go to the barracks and ask an average army officer in the barrack what are we having in Nigeria? Do they call it terrorism? An intelligent military officer will tell them this is not terrorism. May we never have terrorism in Nigeria because terrorism is a stone throw to complete civil war. That is what they have in Somalia. In Somalia, that is what happened. In Sri Lanka, that was what happened before it spread to civil war. In Sudan, that was what happened and led to the separation of the country to Sudan and South Sudan You see, there is a wrong choice of words. What is happening in Nigeria is not terrorism; it is simply insurgence. Insurgence is resistance to a government policy, either by a group or a band of people and it is largely restricted to a particular area. The number one difference is the scope and the intensity. The scope of insurgence is limited to a separate area. You can have ‘terrorism’ labelled to it when you have a civil group like Boko Haram in Maiduguri, blasting off the power plant at Calabar; breaking the newly- constructed bridge in Ilorin; getting to Osogbo, blasting the power plant there; go to Kaduna sabotaging the water works there; getting to Enugu to sabotage the airport there such that the radar would be rendered useless through bombing. Such is full-fledged terrorism because the scope is now wide and not restricted to a particular area. Now, as far as Islam is concerned, it is most appropriate to advise that Muslims should not label themselves. If Muslims do not bring about topics like terrorism, which they know less or nothing about, nobody will call them terrorists. There is no need for saying they want to do some talking and they are labelling your topic as ‘Terrorism and Islam’. There is nothing like that. What they are doing is to encourage other people to call them terrorists. It means they too have admitted that they are terrorists. Do they know what terrorism means? Look at Northern Ireland, which is where real terrorism is. Look at the Red Brigade in Italy. That is active terrorism. But when you have two, three bombs exploded in a small area and you say that is terrorism; no, that is not terrorism. There is nothing