In this interview, he hails the onslaught against Boko Haram by the military forces but says the insurgency by the sect festered after government took it for granted that Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau died during a raid on his hideout in 2012.
Ndume warns that same mistake should not be made in the wake of the current claim that the sect leader has been killed. The senator also speaks on some other national issues.
Where were you and what was your reaction when you heard that the leader of Boko Haram, Abubakar Shekau, was dead?
First of all, I was not very sure since his body was not shown and there was no categorical statement from the military that he was dead, like the American military told the world about the late Osama bin Laden, they were categorical. I was not around when the announcement concerning Shekau’s death was made. However it is not the death of Shekau that concerns me, it is the problems that relate to the insurgency that concern me.
I hope the death of Shekau means the death of Boko Haram insurgency and the security challenges that we are facing in the North- east. But the death of a sect leader like this does not usually bring insurgency to an end. Government must take action in order to make sure that the Boko Haram insurgency comes to a total end. Mind you, we in the North-east are in the fore front of the whole crisis.
We are in the centre of the crisis. We know how it feels. I was home last week, I went round my constituency, saw the two most affected communities, Dambua and Dangoza. It was a pathetic sight to behold. Towns that were very vibrant and lively have suddenly become ghost towns. It is either the people have run away or have been killed. What you see are children here and there. You can hardly get somebody above 30 living around. Though I think it is getting better now especially with the emergency rule because normalcy is beginning to set in.
You were part of the Presidential Committee raised to dialogue with Boko Haram at a time and, suddenly, you found yourself in the web of the sect-government crisis, leading to your arrest and arraignment in court. Any regret that you wanted to assist the government in the first place?
No, I didn’t regret it at all. Though I feel bad about the whole thing and that is why I said before the interview that I would not want to talk about it and I will appreciate if we don’t go beyond that because security issues are not something you politicise, trivialise, tribalise. It is a calamity and I have always said instances of this nature should be looked into collectively, not looking for scapegoats, but solutions to the problems.
But when government sees problems and they begin to look for scapegoats, then you are not finding solution to the problems. And you know for now it will be subjudice talking much about it because it is still in court. As a leader and someone who is from the affected area, I think when you have serious issues like the one we are having now, you don’t trivialise, tribalise or give it a religious colouration.
It is like cancer, it will just keep on spreading and, before you know it, it is beyond control. Initially, government was trivialising the matter until they saw that it was going beyond them, so I was happy that they brought in the military. And that is why results are coming out now. People, I mean civilians, are themselves volunteering information because they have seen that government has shown seriousness.
Youths are now arresting Boko Haram members. I know some boys, all the way from Borno, went to Lagos to arrest a suspected Boko Haram member. In those days, nobody talked about it. But they have all seen that government is damn serious about fighting the insurgency, and that is why they also are showing support for the the government action and we are all seeing results.
But it is not time to relent on what they are doing until they finally get to the end of the problem. In 2009, when Boko Haram was crushed, everybody thought it was over, saying Shekau was dead even though some had contrary views, only for him to resurface in 2011 and unleashed very serious damage on government. All of us must support government because it is a national issue, it is not a religious issue because it has never been. When they now go about attacking mosques, would you now say that is religious?
Talking about government showing seriousness, some have said the emergency rule was late in coming?
That is true. The emergency rule had been in some local government areas in the states affected prior to the main emergency. Government was not as serious as it is now in tackling the issue. It has even gone further in creating a garrison in that area in order to effectively tackle the issue. This is something that would have been done long time ago.
If it were done then, we would have gone very far. But as the saying goes, it is better late than never. And I think we have paid the price for it. Of course, the action is effective. But it is not perfect as we all know. I am more concerned about the civilian JTF, that is, the youths who are giving out information leading to the arrest of the sect members, I think they (government) should use this opportunity to organise them because, at the moment, they are just there, there is no structure; government should take advantage of this opportunity and organise these youths. There is no support whatsoever aside the cover the JTF gives them. After the menace of the Boko Haram, what do you do with them? The soldiers would go back to their barracks, where would the youths go ?
Source: Vanguard
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