The mass killing, in one fell swoop, of over 100 serving police officers at Nasarawa-Eggon in Nasarawa state, North Central of Nigeria, by a group of, in plain language, cultists, painful and dastardly as the incidence looked, was certainly a throw back into a long history of police wrong way of starting a just cause, especially in the Northern part of the country, in wrong way.

The mass killing of police and other security officers had earlier been witnessed in Bama, Borno state via the rampaging Boko Haram.
The thread that runs through the manner which police have been handling those considered to be constituting danger to the peace and tranquility of the society has remained the same: from the era of Maitatsine saga in 1981 through Boko Haram that has remained a thorn in the flesh of the country since 2010 to date to that of Nasarawa-eggon.
In the case of Maitatsine, like in almost all other cases, it was an attempt by the police to dislodge the adherents from their Yan Awaki enclave in Kano that sparked off one of the bloodiest battles which armed forces had to be drafted into so as to quell the insurgency. It was the same manner of trying to dislodge members of Boko Haram, resulting in alleged extra judicial killing of its leader by police in Maiduguri, the Borno state capital that sparked off anger amongst members of the group: the anger that has thrown many parts of the North into daily orgy of killing.
Report of what led to the killing of over 100 police officers in Nasaraw-eggon has similar trend: the police went to dislodge the worshipers of Ombatse Deity in the small, hilly town of Nasarawa-eggon but were resisted by members of the cult who lay ambush for the intruding police men, and perhaps women. The rest is now history.
The questions that have continued to linger have been: what kind of danger these groups (Maitatsine, Boko Haram and even Ombatse ) initially constituted to the peaceful existence of the society that would call for police intervention?
In the case of Maitatsine for example, Malam Marwa Maitatsine, the leader, was just doing his own kind of preaching to adherents of his doctrine but seemed to have attracted and infuriated those who were in power: who had ironically benefited from his supposed knowledge and “power” in the past. When police were later drafted in to arrest Marwa or chase him and his members away, they turned their other side, which was deadly.
For Boko Haram too, it is fresh in our memory that Mohammed Yusuf, as a leader of the group, never really attempted to force the doctrine of hatred to anything western education or, in Hausa language, Boko Haram, on anybody. Agreed that members of Boko Haram, the way their historical emergence was related, suddenly realized that western education was an evil they hated to have acquired (as most members were well educated) and they insisted on the Shari’a form of governance, they never, in reality, caused any confrontation to the constituted authorities.
Even if they did, it wasn’t just enough for the police to hunt them and going ahead to kill their leader without the due process of the law.
It really worries one that, it is only in the North the police are always eager to enforce whatever law that exists, on “undesirable” groups, and even going as far as trying to eliminate the leadership of such groups.
Come to think of it, the South West had and still accommodates, such “undesirable” groups as Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC), the Area Boys or the Afenifere, one of which is being led by a stark illiterate in the person of Gani Adam: the South East has Movement for the Actualization of State of Biafra (MASOB), the South South has the Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND), the Niger Delta Peoples Volunteer Force (NDPVF) and many others in other parts of the country, but police in these zones of the country have never been excited or in a hurry to clamp down on them. Even the Niger Delta militants, represented by various groups, prominent among which are MEND and Asari-Dokubo-led Niger Delta Peoples Frontier Force (NDPFF), who had caused a lot of havoc to the nation’s economy were treated with respect. In fact, the views of some of their leaders on state and national issues, wild and treasonable as they really appear, are tolerated and subtly adhered to.
Of course, it is not uncommon to see some feeble attempts made by security agents to harass the leaders and members of such other “outlawed” groups in the country, but most of such attempts had never gone beyond arrest, detention (of leaders with executive treatment in the detention) and eventual continuation of the atrocity they were accused of responsible for committing in the communities.
From the way things are done in this country, impressions are being given daily that some Nigerians are untouchable because of their noise value while others are easily cowed and maltreated because they are not noisy.
It would not be out of place to say that the Obmatse cultists killed the large number of police drafted to go and pick their leader like a common criminal, out of panic and with fear that their leader might end up being killed the same way Mohammed Yusuf of Boko Haram was eliminated. It is also not too far to suggest that quite a number of “big” people in the society are beneficiaries of the Ombatse cultists and would therefore, not want a situation where the arrest of their leader would lead to their being exposed, which many people suspected was the case with the killed Boko Haram leader.
While the nation sympathizes with the Nigeria Police Force and the Ministry of Police Affairs for this gargantuan loss, time has come for the policing system to be re-directed from being used for settling scores or the divide-and-rule in the same country, to a more purposeful and peaceful one, with the aim of building a truly law abiding citizens of the country.
As the minister of police affairs, Caleb Olubolade said, the challenges before police today are more than before, stressing that what is important now is to restrategise and empower them the more.
I subscribe to that.

There is no doubt that Dr. Datti Ahmed is a very important personality in Islam and in the Nigerian socio political setting, donning a patriotic toga. His importance and relevance on these two fronts is firmly rooted.
On the socio political front, it is on record that he contested the position of Presidency in the second republic, making him to be conversant with the leadership burden and of course, the Nigerian situation.

This became so, realizing the fact that he expectedly traversed the length and breadth of this country in the process of seeking for vote.
And on religious front, Dr. Datti is believed to be well-read not only in the Qur’an as is usual with an average Kano person, but also in all the Islamic religious jurisprudence.
The advantage he has by being one of the few Nigerians whom the government and top hierarchy of Boko Haram simultaneously trust to represent them on each side of the divide, stands him out too, on another count.
Dr. Datti was one of the 26 eminent Nigerians who President Goodluck Jonathan named on Wednesday last week on a committee, charged with drawing up the modalities for the granting of amnesty to Boko Haram. Conversely, he was also one of the few Nigerians who top notchers of Boko Haram named last year to negotiate with government on their behalf.
Such privileged position on both sides makes Dr. Datti a kind of special personality among his peers.
But, he seemed uncomfortable to serve on the 26-member Presidential committee and said so by rejecting his membership.
In declining to serve on the committee, Dr. Datti said that the government did not appear to be sincere. His reason was that President Jonathan’s government had earlier reneged on promises by the government, following the recommendations made by the first reconcilliatory committee he chaired to mediate between Boko Haram and the government.
Of course, no one would fault Dr. Datti in being skeptical about the sincerity of the government to implement the outcome of the committee on amnesty, whose membership he had rejected, citing also, the composition of the membership of the committee.
However, Dr. Datti might have deliberately or unknowingly misunderstood a few points in rejecting the offer to serve on the committee which is part of the efforts being made by all well-meaning Nigerians to find a lasting solution to the insurgency that had claimed thousands of innocent lives of Nigerians over the last three years.
He may not be faulted, however, in thinking and even concluding that the government might not implement the outcome of the amnesty committee, taking a cue from an earlier move he made, along with others. His may be a confirmation of an old saying that once beaten twice shy.
But in a matter of national importance: a matter that involves mass losses of innocent lives and properties, one is almost certain that Dr. Datti knows very well that every sacrifice that is available, even the improbable ones, need to be thoroughly explored. We are here talking about humanity generally, not religion.
Besides, as a confirmed Islamic scholar, it is also almost certain that Dr. Datti knows the Islamic religious injunction that forbids Muslims from casting an “assumption” on fellow human being (zeto zunubi) or rushing to conclusion on a matter that has not been started. Assuming that Jonathan government would not implement the recommendations of a committee that has not yet been inaugurated falls within such “assumption” or rushing to conclusion.
Yes, the Jonathan government might have earlier failed to implement some recommendations he made, as adjuncts to ending Boko Haram, but the question is was the circumstance under which such thing happened the same as the one now being presented?
Is it not the same President Jonathan who, last month made it clear in Yobe and Borno states that he would not grant amnesty to Boko Haram that has now set out to grant amnesty?
Dr. Datti knows as much as other well-bred leaders in this country that the only thing that is permanent is change: that leaders, and of course, human beings are conditioned to change all the times. Or, at least, make mistakes.
Using the past action of a person to judge his present or even predict his tomorrow is not fair, especially, in a matter that needs the contributions of individuals and groups.
As a matter of fact, if Dr. Datti had chosen to accept the offer to serve on the committee, he would only have been answering the national call to service to the father land, thereby engraving his name subsequently in gold, even if his best did not produce satisfactory result, through an act of man or by natural evolution of human life.
His rejection of the offer to serve the nation in what, to him, looks an insignificant committee or what seems far from his perception that borders largely on religion, is certainly not the way to patriotism. And as I knew Dr. Datti in the 80’s, he is never known to be in that light. Except, like I said, if he has changed!

Philosophers across the world have always tried to put a price to the attainment and or the maintenance of peace in any given society: the amount of physical cash, time, resources and man-hour that could be expended to attain peace.

Unable to find a proper price-tag for peace in all its ramifications, an American Author, Robert Fulghum concluded that humanity needed nothing other than selflessness for the much needed peace. According to his postulation, peace is not something we just wish for; it is something we have to make by ourselves: “it is a gift we offer to ourselves. We do not do a favour to anyone by chatting the course of peace because trouble is mobile (air); it steadily comes to our safe homes when we fail to share efforts to stop it from breathing in the very far.”

Of course, emotion has a way of developing wings and flying whenever issue of peace comes up in Nigeria and the religious and by extension, regional matter happen to be the fulcrum of such peace talks.

Some opinions for or against any measure the government intends to take for the attainment of peace and such measure is found to be laden with religious colouration across the regional divides are welcome with sentiment, which, in some cases are well founded, and in most cases, are simply self-serving and even self-destructive.

The same emotion is now flying around the country with all the trappings of religion and regional cleavages, as the issue of amnesty for or forgiveness of the sins of members of Boko Haram is on the table. Boko Haram, to be sure, has held most parts of the North to ransom for close to four years now, bombing, killing, maiming people and destroying public and private properties with impunity. Most of the victims of Boko Haram onslaught are clearly innocence of what the war-mongers perceived to be their grievances.

Indeed, those who are clamouring for amnesty for what the government of Goodluck Jonathan called “ghost” may be having some traces of group-interest, the same way as those who have been opposing the amnesty option. A critical look at the two opposing groups would show dangerous religious and regional slants: just listen to those that are talking on either side!

Of course, it is on record that the original Boko Haram whose members went into offensive against the authorities have been hijacked by many other groups, including armed robbers, yan tauri (the invulnerable) and even political foot soldiers. Such groups are obviously on rampage against the fatherland either as a way of protesting their being neglected by the society or just for the sake of destroy this country for various other reasons.

These later days Boko Haram hijackers seem to be using it to hoodwink government into negotiation for impossibilities.

There is no doubt that this situation has put President Jonathan in an ambivalence position: wishing for peace and wanting to go to any length to attain it but treading in the dark with people that are trying to make nonsense of his government.

In other words, President Jonathan seems to have been sandwiched by groups pursuing selfish political and regional interests agitating for amnesty for Boko Haram as well as groups pursuing religious and regional interest opposing amnesty. And funny enough, each of the groups is claiming to be aiming at peace while peace itself is suffering.

In between these two groups are the security operatives in the “war-front” who may take amnesty for Boko Haram as an affront, by President Jonathan, on their strength and ability to crush the miscreants as promised. They are likely to see amnesty as a way of surrendering to lawless groups by the government, and by immediate implication, they, the fighters.

Whatever happens however, the responsibility for the attainment and maintenance of peace, unity and forward-march of Nigeria lie squally on the shoulders of President Jonathan.

Recall that when near similar situation occurred in the case of Niger Delta, late President Umar Musa Yar’adua chose to tow the path of peaceful resolution in his own way, even when it was obvious, as it is now, that his government would lose some measures of clout, credibility and macho-like muzzle in the eyes of those who viewed peace from different perspectives, most of which were not selfless.

Of course, in spite of the amnesty for the Niger Delta militants, pockets of bombings and killings are believed to still be going on, even as there is every possibility of the “boys” getting back into the creek. President Jonathan had the course to confess recently that the amnesty for the Niger Delta militants has partially failed because of some fundamental issues that were not addressed.

And so, for Boko Haram and even the Niger Delta militants, just as President Jonathan insisted, amnesty must have a lot of components aimed at addressing critical socio-economic and political milieu under which the situation for the militants or terrorist or whatever they may be called rose and thrive. In other words, amnesty programme must of necessity, encompass a comprehensive blue-print for addressing the scourge of poverty and deprivation in all their ramifications.

What the government has so far downplayed is the extreme poverty and social exclusivity that have eaten deep into the fabrics of the society. The government, instead, prefers to address only the monetary gratification aspect of it, which of course, can be regarded as a fire-brigade and short-lived measure.

It must be understood from the fact on ground that the rot in the socio-economic and political environment that has brought us to this dangerous precipice is not the making of the Jonathan administration. It has been a gradually process of sliding into the abyss right from the Independence in 1960, with one or two corrective regimes that interrupted but never lasted.

Indeed, the sum total of the extreme poverty and social exclusivity over the years that have brought us this far into the current security challenge in the North, in particular, and Nigeria in general, is unemployment.

And for Boko Haram, such unemployment provides a fertile ground for the recruitment of new foot soldiers, for miserable pittance.

It is also not impossible that the original grouse of Boko Haram has turned full circle into full political bargaining chips, possibly by politicians that want to remain relevant even when they are supposed to have left the scene long ago.

But, hemmed-in by all these scenarios, is President Jonathan, whose decisions and actions today, as the President of Nigeria, would define the future of Nigeria and would be so judged by posterity.