Recent events in Borno State have put a huge question mark on the state’s acronym as the “Home of Peace” The Boko Haram insurgency has shattered the peace of the state.? In this interview with LEADERSHIP editors, the commissioner of Information, Mr. INUWA BWALA, besides assuring that peace is gradually returning to the state, also challenges the security outfits to investigate politicians’ involvement in the alleged Boko Haram activities. Excerpts:
What is the state of things in Borno state presently given the Boko Haram insurgency?
Thank you, first, I must say that it is unfortunate that Borno state noted as ‘a home of peace’ for many years has become a war zone as a result of the Boko haram insurgence. Our people are known to be peaceful, known as their brothers’ keepers, so it was a great surprise when this thing happened. Be that as it may, it is gratifying to note that peace is beginning to return to Borno state. As you may be aware, people that fled during the crisis are beginning to return to the state. As a government, we have been trying to rebuild the confidence of people. Normalcy returning.
Thank God that some of our brothers who felt aggrieved and took up arms against their brothers are beginning to see reasons in our offer of dialogue. Naturally, when things like this happen especially in such magnitude, it sends panic. Some people may still be panicking about the whole situation, we thank God that things are beginning to take shape. Offices and the banks have opened, houses that were locked in the heat of the crises have opened, people now stay in the street even beyond 11 p.m; unlike before when between 6 and 7 p.m; streets were deserted.
As you must be aware of, we have banned the use of motorcycles and introduced tri-cycles, which we call ‘keke kashim’ and we have purchased about 5,000 pieces for distribution to operators of the motor bikes. They have not been fully mobilised, but we are distributing in batches. This is to avoid letting the wrong people come in possession of them.
The genesis of this crisis lies in unemployment,frustration and poverty. So, the focus of our government for now is to build the human person and have the confidence that he/she can contribute to the development of the nation as a person. I can say that our government is an all comers affair; our doors are open to anybody to contribute positively to the development of the state. We have put behind us politics; we are now looking forward to partnership. Very soon, we will arise from the ashes of this crisis and shine once more as a land of peace.
Have their leaders been identified, so they can come to a round table with the government of Borno state?
That is what we are pursuing for now. We have offered to dialogue with them and from the report we have been reading in the papers, from interviews they have granted to various? media houses, they are no longer faceless. Some of them are known faces, so reaching out to them is perhaps the next step we are going to take. We are looking for people who can serve as intermediaries to see how they can arrange for us to sit down with these people and discuss with them. Without discussing with them, we will not know exactly what their grievance is. As it is ,we are relying upon the reports we read in the newspapers to infer that this is what they want. We are very sincere on taking the part of dialogue. As you know the federal government promised to apply the carrot and stick approach, as for us we cannot afford to apply this method because in the first place we do not even have the instrument to apply the carrot and stick approach. That is why we are have opted for the carrot approach, moreso these are our own brothers.
You mentioned that frustration, poverty and unemployment are responsible for this problem, how far has the Borno state government addressed these issues?
This is a new government and part of the article of trust with the people of the state is to as much as possible rid the streets of unemployed youths and employ them in something gainful. One of which is to strengthen our poverty alleviation drive. Only last sunday, we commissioned four skills acquisition centers in Gubio. We intend to build one skill acquisition center in each of the local governments across the state, so that after training we can assign them as apprentices to professional technicians, so that we can see how to make them self-employed.
For those we can absorb in the system we absorb. One of the various programmes we are concentrating on is youth employment, poverty alleviation and skills acquisitions. This is to address the youth unemployment. Poverty as you know is a general social problem in the country. We intend to model a peculiar economic programme that will take into consideration the plight of the down trodden, who do not have assess to government facilities. For civil servants no matter their level, at the end of the month they are sure of something to take home no matter how small. But for the peasant farmers, for the unemployed youth on the street, there is no means to assess government facilities. Those we can train, we will train, those we cannot train, we have to introduce a sort of welfare package, such as offering them monthly palliatives that will enable them move around engage themselves and help keep body and soul together.? For us, we want to create an economic policy that will take into account the plight of our people who do not have the privilege to access government facilities.
Do you think there are some influential people in the society who are behind the Boko Haram sect, especially going by reports linking between them and the past administration in the state?
Let me say in fairness members of the Boko Haram are bigger than any individual anywhere, so insinuations of somebody creating them is misplaced. Among them are very high intellectuals, trained technicians, well read academicians etc,. It is a social problem that evolved over time. It is a philosophy where people decided to take solace because of the frustration of the system and that is not even taking account the level of education, ones political affiliation.
In any case, those who link Boko Haram with the present administration are just being mischievious, because in the first place the thing is not only in Borno state, but because of the porosity of the borders around Borno and its link with three other countries, it serves as an operational, base because it is easy to gain access to the country, that is why they find it easy to operate from there. We have incidents of Boko Haram in Bauchi, Kaduna and Sokoto, also in the Federal Capital Territory, so I think it is being mischievious for people to say that Boko Haram is the creation of a particular individual, they are much more than that and people should not trivialise the operation of this group, otherwise they will be taking our minds away from serious issues.
What we should concentrate upon is addressing the root causes of these peoples grievances, part of which include governments insensitivity to the plight of the common man. This they have said time without number. It will be difficult to declare a sharia state in Nigeria as that is a very tall demand, but I can assure you that if we address some of the social problems that gave rise to agitations of various crimes including Boko Haram, then we would have solved half of the problems in the country.
Return of peace to Borno, is it an endorsement of the military action in the state?
There are two levels of approach to resolving the security problem in the state. The federal government opted to deploy the military. In their wisdom, it is the best approach. If that is what is resolving the issue or the one we employed is not a matter of contention here. What we are saying is that we thank God that peace is gradually returning to the state.
The military in the street of Borno has become a necessity, most of their operations have desirous consequences, perhaps their presence in the wisdom of the federal government is necessary at this moment. Operation and insurgency of this magnitude does not come easy, so we have to make sacrifices and when peace return the soldiers will leave our state. We have to appeal to the citizens that the present situation is meant to safe guard their lives.
Critics allege that the spate of attacks concentrate on certain political parties. Can you shed light on this?
Given available data, you will see that all the politicians felled in the last eight months have been members of one party, the ANPP, not for once has any member of any other party be felled by the bullets of assassins. That gives enough room to conclude that perhaps the targeting of members of a particular political party has a political undertone, especially against the background that no member of any political party aside the ANPP has risen against the operations of these people to either condemn, condole or sympathise with the victims. What they did was that when the situation started escalating they started calling for a state of emergency and to our understanding what they could not get through the ballot box they wanted to get through the backdoor, but Nigerians are wiser. It is even unfortunate that some motor bikes found from scenes of bomb blasts and crime scenes had insignia of a political party and the portraits of a particular politician.
Sometimes we are been compelled to conclude that not only are these politicians involved in this thing, but perhaps, the brains behind it. Several groups are hiding under Boko Haram to perpetrate crimes. Armed robbers have found an alibi to operate unhindered to loot banks and politicians have found very good cover to kill their political opponents. The conventional Boko Haram does not go to the bank and steal. Fortunately Boko Haram has come out to disclaim some of these activities. It is left for security operatives to fish out these criminals perpetrating crime under the guise of Boko Haram.
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