Comrade Hassan Taiwo Soweto, an activist, is the National Coordinator, Education Rights Campaign (ERC), National Youth Leader, Socialist Party of Nigeria (SPN) and the party’s 2019 candidate for Ifo Constituency 2 seat in the Ogun State House of Assembly, as well as a National Executive Committee (NEC) member, Democratic Socialist Movement (DSM). In this interview with EJIKEME OMENAZU, he speaks on the recent suicide bombings in Borno State, even as proffers solutions to insurgency. Excerpt:
What is your take on the renewed suicide bombings, with the recent in Gwoza in Borno State?
The recent bombings reflect the fact that while the Nigerian government has been making claims of technical defeat of Boko Haram, the fundamental roots of the insurgency have not disappeared. Having lasted 15 years, the Boko Haram insurgency is now one of Nigeria’s longest running crises. It is also one crisis that graphically depicts the crass uselessness and utter ineptitude of the Nigerian capitalist elite and their imperialist backers when it comes to guaranteeing the sanctity of lives of average Nigerians. Ordinarily, this is not a militancy that should have lasted a month, let alone the 15 years it has lasted. But we have a capitalist elite whose special skill is turning small fires into big ones. By now, many people may have forgotten that Boko Haram started in Borno State back in 2009 as an uprising of Islamic religious fundamentalists primarily armed with knives, cutlasses, armed with bow and arrows and maybe a few guns. But, overall, they were poorly armed and ragtag.
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Without going into the details of how local capitalist politicians like the Borno State governor at the time, Ali Modu Sheriff, were allegedly involved in the emergence and growth of the sect, it is a fact of history that it was the action of the Nigerian state in violently repressing Boko Haram and the extra-judicial and summary murder of its leader, Mohammed Yusuf, in public that transformed a small group into one of the most feared terrorist groups in the world. Just like the same way the police still publicly parade and execute people accused of crimes, Yusuf was arrested after hundreds of his poorly armed followers had been massacred following a dispute with the police over sect members’ refusal to wear crash helmets while riding on motorcycles. Yusuf was paraded on television for all to see. Then hours later, he was shot and killed extra-judicially while in police custody. The police later claimed he was shot while trying to escape and died of his wounds. But everyone knew this was a lie. That singular reckless action of the police and the Nigerian state is what has cost the thousands of innocent lives that have been lost since.
As soon as his scattered sect members re-grouped, the leadership fell on the hardliner, Abubakar Shekau, who vowed to avenge Yusuf’s death, hence the bloody carnage we have witnessed since then. Now, the group has morphed into a franchise of the Islamic terrorist group, ISIS, making it one of the most dangerous terrorist groups in the world. Since 2009, official estimates say over 30, 000 innocent lives have been lost in the hands of both the insurgents and the Nigerian Army while over two million people are displaced. But we know the real figures are much more. Nothing less than 60, 000 people must have been killed in the 15 years of the insurgency. The unending violence has also disrupted the social and economic equilibrium of the North East by inhibiting farming, fishing, trade and other local economic activities of the people and turning previously habitable areas into wastelands. The overall result is a highly volatile and unstable situation which in turn reinforces all the vulnerabilities that has been feeding the insurgency ever since.
Despite millions of dollars spent over the past 15 years and the setting up of a multinational task force involving countries in the Sahel like Cameroon, Niger and Chad, what exactly has been achieved? Not only has Boko Haram morphed into a deadly group that has only been weakened but not decimated, the insurgency is reinforcing other crises like banditry and the herders-farmers crisis. In the entire North today, one of the best paying jobs is to be a hired gun. Once you can handle a gun, then you can easily get employed by any of the marauding gangs, whether they are Boko Haram or ISIL, bandits or unknown gunmen and kidnapping gangs.
Don’t you think the Nigerian military is capable of defeating the insurgents?
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Just as the Buhari government was unable to end Boko Haram despite claiming he would do so in a few months because of his military background, we can say with all certainty that the Tinubu capitalist government is bound to fail terribly in resolving the crisis. This is because the government has been following the failed playbook of the past which involves simply launching military expeditions at a crisis that has deep roots in social inequality and injustice.
What then do you proffer as solutions to the Boko Haram insurgency?
As we Socialists have always argued, the solution to the Boko Haram insurgency goes beyond military actions. The first step is for the communities in the conflict zones to build up capacity to defend themselves. We need independent, multi-ethnic and multi-religious self-defense committees set up which will be under the democratic control of communities and villages to protect people and farms from attacks by Boko Haram, ISIL, bandits, and unknown gunmen. This was the initial aim of the Civilian JTF when it first emerged before it became co-opted by the Army and the state and therefore corrupted. Secondly, there is a need for a Truth and Justice Commission constituted by elected representatives of the villages in the conflicts zone, peasants groups, trade unions, human rights groups, media and non-governmental organisations to investigate the origin of Boko Haram and the role of the state and state actors in how the group transformed into a terrorist group. This is because the issue of Boko Haram goes to the heart of the question of how the Nigerian capitalist state has historically used religion as a means to divide and rule society. During the last Hajj, at least N90 billion was spent by the government to sponsor people to Mecca. In a so-called secular state and in a country where public education and healthcare are in crisis due to lack of adequate funding, this is atrocious.
Since colonial times, religion has always been a favoured tool by the Northern feudal oligarchy to divide and rule the Northern masses. Even the British colonial masters recognised the power of religion in the North which was why they implemented a system of indirect rule allowing the Northern feudal elite as much autonomy as possible. Several studies have established that Boko Haram was an offshoot of the implementation of Sharia in the North of Nigeria by Nigeria’s feudal capitalist elite at the start of the Fourth Republic. From around 2003, Boko Haram and its leader, Yusuf, allegedly received patronage from Ali Modu Sheriff in his political struggles to replace his predecessor, Governor Mala Kashalla. So, when he eventually became governor, he had to compensate those who helped him get there which, was Boko Haram.
Why don’t we have such a situation in the South?
Yes, we have. The situation is similar to how the likes of President Tinubu, some Christian and non-Christian Yoruba politicians from the South West also patronise thugs and louts in their bid to gain political power. The game is the same and this explains the role of the NURTW and its powerful gang leaders in the political situation in Lagos and other South Western states today. These overlords do no work of any kind – they are neither bus drivers nor conductors themselves. Many of them don’t even bother to own buses again. Yet they have ceded to them the power to impose fat levies on genuine bus drivers and conductors from whom they raise millions of naira every day. The BBC once did a report detailing the size of this shadow economy in Lagos State and the mind-boggling opulence of one of its best known representatives, who controls thuggery and touting from his Oshosi axis.
Still in the North, aside from the religious character, Yusuf and Boko Haram played a similar role for Ali Modu Sheriff in Borno State. Don’t forget that Alhaji Buji Foi, a Commissioner for Religious Affairs under Ali Modu Sheriff, was also killed alongside the Boko Haram leader, Yusuf. He was said to have been Boko Haram’s financier and a friend to Yusuf. That was how much Ali Modu Sheriff is alleged to have directly implicated the emergence and rise of Boko Haram. Yet, he has not been tried for his role. So, we need such a democratic Commission of Enquiry to bring to light the role of the Nigerian state and capitalist politicians like Ali Modu Sheriff in the Boko Haram crisis in order to be able to ensure justice. Without such an approach, the crises will continue interminably.
Lastly, we need to address the socio-economic root of the insurgency. It is hardly a surprise that such a deadly insurgency has raged for 15 years in a part of the country which parades the worst indices when it comes to national ranking of child and maternal mortality, prevalence of communicable diseases, poverty and educational outcomes. For as long as poverty, joblessness and destitution prevails in the North, the insurgency will continue. So, what we need to end Boko Haram and all insurgencies is socio-economic justice. But, you can’t have it with a capitalist economic arrangement where the wealth of the country is trapped in the hands of less than one percent of its population. Like Karl Marx said, “There must be something rotten at the core of a socio economic system which increases its wealth without diminishing its misery”. It is a sign of the rottenness and irrationality of capitalism that Aliko Dangote, the richest person in Africa, who hails from Northern Nigeria – the very part of the country which is in the worst possible shape out of all the regions making up Nigeria. Just a fraction of Dangote’s wealth can resolve the socio-economic crises facing the North. Just a fraction of his wealth can rehabilitate the millions in refugee camps who have lost their families, homes and source of sustenance. This is why we have to take this wealth back from the one percent and use it to set up a crash programme to transform the conflict zones through measures to rebuild destroyed schools, rebuild homes and hospitals, restore villages and give hope back to the millions suffering from a conflict they know nothing of. But all these won’t be possible on a sustained basis while capitalism still exists hence the need for a Socialist transformation of Nigeria.
