Comrade Shehu Sani is an author, a playwright and the President of the Civil Rights Congress of Nigeria, a human rights organization based in Kaduna. In this interview with AYORINDE OLUOKUN, the renowned civil rights activist who is now the Senator representing Kaduna Central Senatorial District in the Senate spoke about the Boko Haram insurgency, the crisis affecting the All Progressives Congress in the National Assembly, the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari and other issues. Photos: FEMI IPAYE

Given what you know about the way they operate and their motivations, what do you think is responsible for the upsurge in attacks by the Boko Haram insurgents across the Northern states in the past few weeks?

We need to remind ourselves that this insurgency started in 2006 when the leader of Boko Haram group was killed by the police. And since that time, there have been fluctuations in terms of successes and failures of the Nigerian military when it comes to issue of curtailing or crushing the insurgency. And we have also seen change in strategy and mode of operations by the insurgent group. First of all, it was suicide bombing, then it came to issue of kidnappings, then it moved to the point of taking over territories and hoisting flags and now, the strategy of suicide bombings has returned. Now, the resurgence of the group could be attributed to two or three things. First of all is that they held territories which were later retaken through joint action by the Nigerian, the Nigerien and the Cameroonian military. Now, the very fact that they have been dislodged from most of their strongholds now pushed them back to their initial strategy of suicide bombings whereby they target soft areas within the cities and then, they blow up themselves thereby inflicting damage and killing people. When they were involved in taking territories and hoisting flags, they were engaging in protecting those areas and imposing their strict version of Islamic rule and then, they didn’t reach out to cities with suicide bombers and all that, but now we are back to that. And secondly, this resurgence can also be attributed to the fact that there is a misconception that the group has been defeated or that the group is likely to fizzle out because we have a new government. So, what they are doing by this new wave of attacks is to send a statement that they are still very strong and still have the capacity to inflict damage on Nigerians. They are also saying clearly that things have not changed in their pursuit of their violent agenda despite the change of government from Jonathan to President Muhammadu Buhari.

•Comrade Shehu Sani

What are the immediate steps that you think the President must take now to stop the ongoing mindless bloodletting by the insurgents?

There are two ways in which we can address the problem. The first is that President Buhari must follow up his words with action- fund, empower, boost the morale of the military and conclude the joint task force with the neighbouring countries to come up with strong actions through which this group can be contained and crushed. That is the military strategy. He must also take up the intelligence angle- empower and fund them and let there be an intelligence agency – civil and the military – that will provide important information through which the insurgents could be curtailed and crushed. And then, on the other side, we have to look at the carrot approach, whereby political, religious, communities and traditional leaders as well as members of civil society groups in the North could be carried along in terms of draining the resource base of the insurgents and also engaging the insurgents. The insurgents are using Islamic texts to say this is their agenda and so, the Islamic leaders of other sects – the Tijaniyya sect, the Izala sect, why don’t they intellectually engage the terrorist group in the sense that you kill children, you kill women, you kill innocent people, you put bombs in schools, churches, markets and motor parks and you call it Jihad? So, we want to engage you from that perspective that this is not what it is and this is what it is supposed to be. And again, since the beginning of the insurgency, there were interventions that we have had from Borno Elders, from the governors in the North East, from the Northern Governors, but what we need to understand is that if the group pick up arms, using Islam as a pretext but engaging the leaders with other Islamic leaders is something that we have not done. And what have clearly sustained the insurgency is the fact that the community, the villages and the people who live along this flashpoints were not carried along in this fight. If you look at the report from the Amnesty International which clearly indicted the Nigerian military, it is very clear that the scorched earth system that was adopted by the military is not something that will produce result. We have seen a situation whereby a whole community is collectively punished for the fact that they are harbouring insurgents, we have seen unlawful arrests, illegal detentions, cases of people disappearing and being tortured in detention centres leading to people being fearful of the military as they are fearful of the insurgents. Nigeria is not an exception in the war against terror. Pakistan, Kenya, Ethiopia, Algeria, Egypt, Yemen are all fighting terror. So, I believe that some of the strategies we need is to learn from these countries which have long history of fighting terrorism.

You are an advocate of the carrot and stick approach for which you advocate some sort of negotiations with the Boko Haram sect and very recently, the presidency also said it will be willing to negotiate with members of the group who are ready to drop their armed struggle against Nigeria. You’ve been nominated to be part of one of such negotiation process in the past, but you backed out. Would you be willing to be part of such process this time around if you are called upon?

Let’s look at history of negotiation with Boko Haram. The first intervention was the dialogue I facilitated between families of Boko Haram members with former President Olusegun Obasanjo. The second one was the intervention of Dr. Datti Ahmed which was facilitated by a journalist who is now on self exile. And there was a third attempt by the journalists himself to broker peace. All the three attempts were sabotaged. The first one was sabotaged by the former National Security Adviser, the late Andrew Azazi who saw no value in reaching out to the insurgents based on the fact that he was very confident that the group could be defeated within very few months, which never happened. The second one was also sabotaged by the security agencies who leaked details of the negotiations to the media and this made it impossible for the negotiation to continue and Dr. Datti Ahmed felt betrayed. The third one was by the freelance journalist himself who tried to work it out, but it didn’t work in the sense that the conditions given by the insurgents were not accepted by the government. There was a fourth attempt and that was purely on how we can secure the release of the Chibok Girls. And in that very one, it was at the point in which the government and the insurgents were agreeing to swap the girls with the insurgents that were in detention that it failed. The insurgents gave the list of members they wanted to be released, the government agreed, but later reneged at the last minute, saying they have only very few of the Boko Haram members and the talks ended abruptly. I personally declined to serve in the Committee set up by former President Jonathan to dialogue with the group for a number of reasons. One is that we took up two to three initiatives in which the government disappointed us in the end and I wasn’t sure whether that one was going to be any different. And the second point is that there was no prior information to me that I was a member of that panel, my name was simply announced on the air. When my name was announced, I did not just immediately denounce it. What I did was that I made some contacts with the family members of the group and I asked them if anybody was available for dialogue and they said they were not because all the three previous attempts were simply thrown away. So, because of that, I kept that aside. Now, the way forward is, I believe, we can divide this issue into two. The first is that I believe we can explore the possibility of having a dialogue with the group for the purpose of getting the Chibok girls out of captivity.