The dust raised by the stunning exposé of Australian independent negotiator, Dr. Stephen Davis, on the alleged sponsors of the Boko Haram Islamic sect, indicting former Chief of Army Staff, General Azubuike Ihejirika (retd), the usual suspect, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, former Borno State governor, and an anonymous senior official of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) may not settle any time soon. This is even as fingers are now being pointed at the Presidency for hobnobbing with accused sponsors of the immitigable and unmitigated terror that has been unleashed on Nigerians.

Dr. Davis alleged that prominent politicians are the chief sponsors of Boko Haram and that they channel their fund through the CBN so it appears to be legal. The official in charge of the transactions, Davis alleged, currently works in the currency operations division of the CBN. One would think the President would order security operatives to swoop on the CBN official and the two other accused persons. Hell no! Not here. The presidency would rather regard Davis’ exposé as an attempt to bring down the Goodluck Jonathan government.

Whatever must have emboldened the Hostage negotiator to name names, he has broken the official taboo against exposing persons behind atrocities like the Boko Haram menace. And Davis can’t be wrong. He has worked for three successive presidents. Even if the Jonathan presidency denies it, there is incontrovertible evidence that he was part of negotiators contracted to broker the release of the abducted Chibok girls. His revelation gives us an opportunity to nail the sect’s backers. However, there was nothing he said about the sponsors that was new.

Senator Ali Modu Sheriff has been in the news, not once or twice, for alleged links with the rampaging Jihadist fundamentalists. The sect blossomed to full terror under his ‘stewardship’ as governor of Borno state. Sometime in 2011, Senator Sheriff was named as an alleged sponsor of the sect in a confessional statement made by one Sanda Umar Konduga, an arrested spokesperson of the Boko Haram. As ex-governor, he was arrested on March 28, 2012 in Cameroon on the grounds that he was sponsoring terrorism in neighbouring Borno state. Like a tail that wags behind a dog, the tag of a Boko Haram sponsor would not sever from Modu Sheriff anywhere his name is mentioned.

Nevertheless, the hostage negotiator’s claims against Gen. Ihejirika, former Chief of Army Staff, the CBN official and Modu Sheriff are mere allegations and should be treated as such until proven otherwise.

Have we not read reports severally in the media by local mediators and military sources that Boko Haram sympathisers are in the military? Are these not indicative that the Nigerian military’s rank and file has been infiltrated by the terrorists? So, what did Stephen Davis reveal that we didn’t have the slightest hint? President Jonathan had also admitted in January 2012 that members of Boko Haram sect had infiltrated his government. The intelligence and security agencies have been infiltrated, as well.

If this war is to be won, it goes beyond naming those who fund the ceaseless bloodbaths, abduction of adolescent girls as sexual slaves, arson, maiming etc by an Australian, American, or Nigerian. The beginning of the end of this insurgency is bringing their sponsors, home or abroad to justice.

Nigerians are not stupid to think this government and security chiefs do not know the real sponsors of terrorism. Otherwise, we don’t have any intelligence service in our country. Boko Haram’s political backers are the sacred cows that cannot be brought to book. Not until we cut the source of their supplies and get those who are involved, we cannot stop them. This is the level of insincerity with which the counter terrorism war is being fought by the present day government. The battle is being prosecuted even by the military perfunctorily. Soldiers won’t literarily be fighting with bare hands if some army chiefs have not been diverting billions voted for regular upgrade of military equipment over the years.

We can make revelations on Boko Haram all we want but until suspected persons are made to face the full wrath of the law we will only be going in cycles, as usual. Considering that the same government has not prosecuted any highly placed individual indicted of corruption since President Jonathan mounted the saddle, it might be wishful thinking to assume these accused persons will be prosecuted.

No amount of pressure, it seem, will compel Mr President to order an honest investigation to a logical conclusion of indicted persons with 2015 elections just around the corner. The strategy of the President’s men is to capitalise on the festering crisis in the North East to gain sympathy votes across the country in next year’s polls. Exposing the sponsors of terror most of whom are northern political figures will be tagged witch-hunting and tantamount to political hara-kiri for President Jonathan.

“There is some level of political undertone to the problem,” Late General Andrew Owoye Azazi, former National Security Adviser, opened up on the Boko Haram onslaught. He situated the Boko Haram scourge within the PDP as an aftermath of the internal wrangling for the presidency during the 2011 election. He promised to release a list of politicians allegedly backing the Islamic sect. Soon after those declarations, he was unceremoniously sacked by President Jonathan and thereafter came his mysterious death, with Governor Patrick Yakowa of Kaduna state in a copter crash. The official cause has since not been released.

The least expected of President Jonathan is for him to refer the suspects to the Special Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in view of the gravity of the allegations of crimes against humanity perpetrated by the political backers of the extremist group as any local investigation conducted by the federal government may be manipulated by vested political interests, radical lawyer, Femi Falana forthrightly advised.

There’s no better window than the heightened attacks to seize territories and declare caliphates of the past few weeks for the Commander-in-Chief and President to go after the sponsors of the sect. This government may risk being branded complicit if these allegations go uninvestigated especially as the present administration have chosen instead, to hobnob with persons indicted with allegations of terrorism, than shove them to justice. The sight of President Goodluck Jonathan all smiles with Ali Modu Sheriff in Chad sent niggles and ruckus back home. Mr Jonathan gave Sheriff the privilege of partaking in a closed door deliberation on terrorism he had with the Chadian President. Modu Sheriff, the de facto poster-politician allegedly sponsoring Boko Haram, as one writer described him, has since taken refuge in the ruling party by defecting from the APC, apparently to shield himself from prosecution.

Sadly, except these indicted persons are dragged before the International Criminal Court (ICC) by concerned Nigerians or civil and human rights organisations, we may not win this fight against insurgency in the remaining months of this administration.

You can follow the writer on twitter @tilevbare. [myad]

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 danse 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, intimate 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 Wrote In From Lagos.

[myad]