Editor’s note: Political analyst, Adebayo Ademuwagun, lamented the increased tempo of Boko Haram attacks and charged the government to step-up it’s military campaign against the insurgents.
Story highlights:
– “Many people do not feel safe, especially in the North“.
– “Government must not negotiate with terrorists“.
– “Boko Haram apparently is not interested in making a deal with the government”.
This article expresses the author’s opinion only. The views and opinions expressed here do not necessarily represent those of Naij.com or its editors.
Boko Haram fighters
There have been a lot of deadly boko haram attacks in the north for two months now and more than 400 Nigerians have been killed within this time. This is a ‘disaster’
A lot of people in the north do not feel safe in their worship places. They don’t feel safe at home or at work and they don’t even feel safe when they go out to the streets. For how long will people keep living this way and what is government doing to stop this massacre?
President Buhari’s spokesman Femi Adesina, said last week that the government will consider negotiating with the terrorists in order to end the attacks.
He said: “Most wars, however furious or vicious, often end around the negotiation table. So if boko haram opts for negotiation, the government will not be averse to it. Government will, however, not be negotiating from a position of weakness but that of strength”.
Is this the way to go about solving this problem? Should the government negotiate with the boko haram and will this stop the bloodshed?
A case in point is the Niger Delta militancy that happened about 10 years ago. A group rose up and started to kidnap expatriates and bomb oil facilities to provoke government to address the problems in the region.
The crisis cost the government a lot of money because it disrupted oil supply, and although the government fought the militants at first under Obasanjo, it backed down and sued for peace later when Late Yar’Adua was president. Yar’Adua offered the militants an amnesty deal and they surrendered, and soon the crisis was finished.
That crisis is pretty different from what is happening now in the north, because the Delta militants were apparently fighting for a cause that people believed in. But boko haram is not like that. These terrorists are killing people to destabilise the government and seize control so they can cause more ruin.
People are getting killed in the north because the government has not been able to win its fight against the insurgents. So if a peace talk will end this frequent bloodshed, a lot of Nigerians (especially those in the danger zones) will be happy with the government on that.
Boko Haram has killed over 20,000 Nigerians till date and it still keeps killing people. Negotiating with these criminals will be a disappointment to many Nigerians who voted for this current president, because they believed he would lead the army to crush the boko haram.
More so, last year, reports came up that the boko haram had decided to negotiate with the government and hammer out a deal. The so called peace talk received some hype and there were positive expectations while it presumably lasted. But it turned to be a complete sham.
There were no peace talks and the terrorists began pounding the north again soon after the whole thing ended. Nigerians will be gutted to see a repeat of that under President Buhari. They have put too much faith in this administration to accept anything short of victory against these rouges.
The boko haram apparently is not interested in making a deal with the government anyway, so the president’s spokesman was just being hypothetical. However, what we now know is that these terrorists are not out to negotiate peace. They just want to go on killing and destroying.
Reportedly the dreaded sect has offered to release the kidnapped Chibok girls in exchange for the militant leaders held by the government.
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