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Disruptive forces from within in Buhari administration
By DICKSON OMONODE
The rising insecurity in Nigeria has been the albatross of the administration of President Muhammadu in the governance of the country. The insecurity crisis has become anti-thetically obstructive to good governance as non-state actors have occupied larger operational space than the government. The insecurity crisis further evolved multiplicity approaches, creating hydra-headed wars for the security agencies in the country. The Boko Haram terrorists have held sway in the northeast Nigeria, bandits in the northwest Nigeria and beyond, Fulani militia or killer herdsmen in other parts of Nigeria, including the south.
Despite repeated assurances of President Buhari to contain the insecurity crisis in the country, the federal government, as well as governors of the northern states act in ways that arouse suspicion that the governments have sympathy for the perpetrators of insecurity. In several instances, ransom is paid to kidnappers, amnesty is suggested for the killers, monetary rewards made for assumed repentance, suggestions made for dialogue with bandits, among other measures.
The bandits, the Boko Haram grow in confidence. They ambush and kill operatives of the Nigerian Army with ease, attack barracks and escape with arms and ammunition without resistance from the army.
In the northwest and north central, students are being kidnapped at will by the bandits, negotiations initiated, and in most instances, the kidnapped victims are released.
In all these, the president is dragged to the mud; criticisms mount on the Buhari administration, the All Progressives Congress (APC) government has been meant to be diminishing with reoccurrence of banditry attacks or invasion of rural communities by the Fulani militias. Schools were being shut down in some northern states, from Niger to Kaduna, Katsina and others. The bandits were getting bolder, the name of President Buhari was being maligned, his leadership competence being questioned by many.
After listening to demands to change the service chiefs, the insecurity crisis remained unabated. Insinuations of perceived political actors being behind the bandits began to filter into the government arena. The presidency about two months ago cried out that wealthy people are behind the insecurity in the country. The presidency further revealed that the government has intelligence on those sponsoring the bandits or the militias. While Nigerians were awaiting details of the presidency revelation, the Minister of Communication and Digital Economy, Dr. Isa Ali Pantami, bust a suspicious sensitive bubble that suggested there are citizens that are happy with the killings in Nigeria which President Buhari has been battling to end and restore peace in the country. The statement raised dust, compelling many Nigerians to demand for the resignation or sack of the minister in the Buhari cabinet.
A stakeholder of goodwill in the Nigerian project, Prof Moses Ochonu, was of the view that the dust is yet to settle on the Isa Ali Pantami scandal, noting that the issue is beyond Pantami and goes to the issue of what ails Nigeria. Prof Ochonu identified a few provisional lessons that can be learned from the PantamiGate, whether or not he resigns or is fired (as he should).
he indicated that everyone has a past, and people evolve, but all pasts are not created equal. Some pasts, he said, are disqualifying when it comes to holding public office. Others are not.
Prof. Ochonu questioned the capacity of the Nigerian Senate to screen a nominee for ministerial or other federal appointments before confirmation. Same he said of the DSS or the police. He cited an example that “persons who dabbled in narcotics or engaged in bullying can legitimately be questioned about the past if they are being screened for public office.”
He noted that “However, if they are now sober and are otherwise qualified, that past should not prevent them from being appointed.”
Prof Ochonu declared: “Not so for someone who openly endorsed terrorism, religious and sectarian hate, volunteered to lead violent jihad in Nigeria, declared that the killing of non-Muslims make him happy, criticized the extra-judicial execution of bloodthirsty Boko Haram leader, and eulogized leaders of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.”
He further declared: “a past which includes being suspended from university for issuing inciting fatwas that led to riots and may have spilled the blood of fellow students and being thrown out of a mosque for incendiary preaching is not a redeemable one.
“Such a past is a clear and present danger to the republic. “Such a person should not even be nominated and if nominated they should never be approved for any ministerial position, let alone one that puts them in charge of sensitive national telecom and biometric databases that can be exploited by terrorists.”
Prof. Ochonu advocated: “before you think of going into public office, if you have a disqualifying history like Pantami’s, you have to publicly renounce that past and create a countervailing history and a personal archival record of tolerance, ecumenism, and moderation.”
He observed that President Buhari is a lost cause, adding that future presidents should not nominate toxic and dangerous people with a history of intolerance, incitement, support for terrorism, and hateful preaching.
“This should be a watershed moment in the history of cabinet formation in Nigeria. People with disqualifying infractions in their past do not have any business in public service.
“They can remain private citizens and continue to hold or practice beliefs that are injurious to Nigeria’s already shattered social fabric.
“We would criticize them, but we would reluctantly concede to them the rights to their beliefs and opinions as long as they don’t directly hurt anyone. Public officials do not have such privacy privileges,” Prof. Ochonu stated.
He decried that the senate ministerial screening process is fatally broken and needs to be totally overhauled, so that public petitions are entertained, and the nominee’s personal and professional histories are thoroughly scrutinized.
He also declared: “our DSS screening of nominated federal public officials is a disgraceful joke and must be totally revamped with tools to scour both paper and online archives and databases for disqualifying information on nominees.
“If you have Pantami-like baggage with egregious ramifications for national security and existential harmony, you need to steer clear of public service and sort out yourself. No one can do it for you. “If you have evolved from your violent and dangerously bigoted positions, the burden is on you to demonstrate it by first doing a public mea culpa, recanting, apologizing, and then, contritely taking concrete steps to win back the trust and forgiveness of Nigerians who are justifiably outraged that a person with such baggage was appointed to a high-profile public office in the first place.”
Prof. Ochonu advocated: “we need to cultivate the practice of drawing a line in the sand and demanding that public officials who turn out to be dangerous, violent, divisive, and hateful characters resign, even if, as we know, their principal may not fire them and they may not resign on their own.
“It may not force anyone out, but it would be a powerful symbolic marker of who we are and who we want to be.”
Meanwhile, President Buhari has just returned from London, the United Kingdom, where he went for a two-week routine medical check. Before his departure, he gave the service chiefs the mandate to eradicate banditry, and others forms of crime in the country. It is not likely that President Buhari would delight in accommodating sabotage within his administration on the fight against insecurity in the country.