There has been an outpouring of varied reactions since yesterday’s announcement of a state of emergency in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states by President Goodluck Jonathan.
Opposition Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) described it as lacking in original thinking and therefore asked the National Assembly to reject it. It argued that while the president was right in expressing outrage over the mindless killings and wanton destruction by the insurgents, he was wrong in proposing more of the same measures that have failed to yield results.
”If the medicine given to a patient has not cured his or her illness, is it not futile to prescribe more of the same medicine for the patient? If the declaration of a state of emergency in 15 local government areas in four states in 2011 has not curbed the activities of the insurgents, why extend such measure to other areas? If the use of force in the affected states has failed to curtail the activities of the insurgents, why send in more troops?” ACN’s National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed queried in a statement issued in Abuja on Wednesday.
”There is nothing new in the president’s action. It is more of the same: deployment of more troops to the affected states and the use of tougher, scorched-earth tactics against the insurgents. In the first instance, this stepped-up militarization of the states amounts to an asymmetric use of force in an environment where the insurgents operate within a civilian population, hence it will ultimately be counterproductive as the death toll will continue to mount while the civilian population — who will be caught in the cross fire — will be alienated.
”Secondly, the president should go ahead and disband the committee he recently inaugurated and saddled with reaching out to the insurgents, because by opting to flood the states with more troops under an ill-advised emergency rule, he has succeeded in pulling the carpet from under the committee’s feet. Who negotiates genuinely with a gun to his head? The committee’s job is over; the members can as well pack up and go home.
”Thirdly, one hopes the president’s action is not linked to the politics of 2015. With the three states militarized, there can neither be electioneering campaign nor voting there. We had warned earlier that as 2015 approaches, the Jonathan Administration will increasingly take measures that will make it impossible to hold election in many states The over militarization of some states in the north, the plan to destabilise the South-west using slush funds from the so-called oil pipeline protection contract and the infantile threats from some Niger Delta militants seem to be part of this plan.
”Fourthly, what happens if and when the declaration of emergency rule fails to stem the violence, now that the president has gone for broke and played his last card? In view of the reasons stated above, we hereby reject the declaration of emergency rule in the three states of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe, and we call on the National Assembly to also reject it and not allow itself to be used to rubber stamp a declaration that is largely cosmetic.
ACN reiterated earlier statements that the Boko Haram crisis has its roots in years of bad governance that have produced an army of unemployed,
unemployable, disenchanted and demoralized youths who are now ready hands and willing tools for those seeking to perpetrate violence.
“The unprecedented corruption across the land, as well as injustice and extra-judicial killings are also fuelling this crisis,” it added.
“While the short-term solution to the Boko Haram crisis should be a combination of dialogue and a minimal use of force, the long-term measure to deny Boko Haram of willing recruits and make the sect unattractive to anyone is to ensure that the State can adequately meet the yearnings and aspirations of its citizens.
“And the only way to do this is through good governance that delivers the dividends of democracy to the citizens; stamps out corruption and ensures a just and equitable society. Boko Haram is like a bad tree. To kill it, it must be uprooted, instead of trimming its branches. The measures announced by President Jonathan on Tuesday will not deliver the killer punch to this reprehensible sect. There is need to think out of the box.”
Responding, the Peoples Democratic Party described the reaction of the Action Congress of Nigeria to the declaration of state of emergency in three states of the North East as that of a political party speaking from either a diseased and confused state of mind: a blackmailer who doesn’t mind doing the trifle to remain relevant, or a political party actively conniving at this mindless war on Nigeria.
Chief Olisa Metuh in a press statement, said,“Yesterday, the ACN, the sole repository of Solomonic wisdom, who was against Amnesty to insurgents, who indeed described the Federal Government in unprintables has today turned a proselyte of amnesty and dialogue.”
“Few things are possible. The ACN and their cohorts in the opposition are behind insurgents and therefore must subvert every measure taken by government to tackle escalating insurgency. We recall that the opposition boasted recently that they would end the Boko Haram scourge within two months of their presidency. There is no smoke without fire.”
“The other is that the opposition sees the escalating terror as short-cut to power. Recall also that the statements of the leaders of the opposition at the eve 2011 presidential election gave birth to violence which has snowballed today into terrorism.”
“We therefore call on the leaders of the opposition to remove the mask on their faces and publicly declare their stand,” a statement from the National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Chief Olisa Metuh, said.
“But we must educate the ACN,” the statement continued. “The state of emergency does not run contra to the spirit and the assignment of the presidential committee on amnesty. The committee will take the job to its logical, fruitful end while the deployment of more troops under the emergency is an irreducible necessity to stem a determined war on the nation.”
” May we also educate the ACN that a just and equitable society cannot be achieved over night in the same manner, good governance is not an already- made commodity waiting on the counter. We wish to emphasize that in over a decade, the PDP has not only rebuilt the decayed fabrics of the nation but has taken recognizable and commendable steps in the direction of good governance. We shall remain committed to that despite distractions.”
“What is new in what the President has done if we must again tell the ACN, is that President Jonathan is a core democrat, who appreciates the core values of democracy and who believes firmly that democracy must be practiced in Nigeria in its undiluted form. (Perhaps the ACN had waited for the dissolution of political structures so as to stretch further it’s blackmail) What is new is that the President by offering amnesty has opened the window for insurgents with genuine agitations to access redress while stopping intransigent criminality from consuming the nation.”
In his own reaction, President of the Christian Association Nigeria (CAN), Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor has described the declaration as a justified action and a vindication of CAN’s position that negotiation with terrorists will always end up a futile exercise.
“We are being vindicated that no reasonable agreement can be reached with terrorists,” he said in a statement release by Kenny Ashaka, his spokesperson.
According to Oritsejafor, not dissolving the political structures coupled with the retention of the office of the governors are signposts that President Goodluck Jonathan is a democrat and that the action of the president is also an indication that he is primarily concerned with the issue of human rights abuses and the need to secure the territorial integrity of Nigeria.
While saying that the state of emergency declared in the three states is not unexpected, he called on the three governors to reciprocate the kind gesture by cooperating with those charged with the responsibility of bringing down the insurgency, just as he called on all Nigerians of goodwill, in and outside the three states, to join hands with the Federal Government in dealing with the Boko Haram issue.
Also reacting, Deputy President of the Senate, Ike Ekweremadu argued that the president’s declaration was a necessary step to curtail the excesses of the Boko Haram insurgents.
He commended President Jonathan for following the constitutional prescriptions that provided that all elected structures should remain in cases of emergency. He said the Jonathan example would correct previous misinformation concerning state of emergency as it was implemented unconstitutionally before now.
“Importantly, I commend the president for abiding strictly with constitutional provisions on State of Emergency by taking only the requisite extraordinary measures to contain the insurgence and insecurity in the States without dismantling the elected democratic structures,” he said.
“While a State of Emergency is welcome as a first aid in tackling the security challenges, my stand has always been that we have to reappraise how we organize our national security as a federal entity, especially our policing system to guarantee the security of lives and property in every part of the country.”
Human rights lawyer, Barrister Festus kenyamo, who was one of the first to react to the president’s declaration, described it as a step that has long been overdue.
“The bloodletting in these states left the president with no other option but to take this extraordinary step. This step must be appreciated in the light of the refusal of the insurgents to even dialogue with the Federal Government,” Kenyamo wrote in a statement to Huhuonline.com.
“The primary duty of any government is to protect lives and properties and it is only right that government should dig deep to find a lasting solution to this ceaseless carnage.”
However, he argued that there are strong caveats that must be issued to government in respect of the extraordinary action:
“That government must not in any way politicize this action. It is constitutionally correct that the President did not attempt to suspend the Governors from office as nothing in Section 305 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) gives him such a power.
“What Obasanjo did in the past in suspending governors through a declaration of a State of Emergency was illegal, unconstitutional, null and void. Unfortunately, none of the governors had the mettle to challenge him in court.”
He urged the Military to be careful at all times not to trample on the fundamental rights of innocent citizens in these states, so that they do not become the scourge rather than solution.
“The president must follow all the steps required in Section 305 of the 1999 Constitution as amended to legitimize his action,” he added.
“That the moment calm is restored, the troops must return to the barracks so as not to give the Military unholy ideas about their role in our democracy. We all owe it a duty to assist government to restore law and order in the country. It is for our overall benefit.”
Also, the public Interest Lawyers League described the move as a welcome idea. In a statement by its president, Abdul Mahmud, the group argued that although the declaration has come on the heels of the declaration of state of emergency in 15 local government areas across the North-East almost two years now, it came almost too late considering the insecurity challenges ordinary citizens contend with.
“The declaration of state of emergency by the president, which in the purview of Section 305 (2), (3) (c), (d) and (f) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended) guarantees the president the powers to so declare, will allow our soldiers to gain footholds on those parts of our sovereign territory that have been seized by insurgents in Borno and Yobe states, for instance,” he said.
“We would however be disturbed if in discharging their combat remits, soldiers abuse the fundamental rights and liberties of citizens of states affected by the declaration as we have seen in Baga and Bama.”
However, National Leader of ACN and former Governor of Lagos State, Chief Bola Ahmed TinubuIt disagreed, saying it is now abundantly clear that President Goodluck Jonathan has finally bared his fangs confirming what was widely speculated.
“By declaring a state of emergency in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa, he has intimidated and emasculated the governors of these states. We are witnessing a dangerous trend in the art of governance and a deliberate ploy to subvert constitutional democracy,” he said.
“The body language of the Jonathan administration leads any keen watcher of events with unmistakable conclusion of the existence of a surreptitious but barely disguised intention to muzzle the elected governments of these states for what is clearly a display of unpardonable mediocrity and diabolic partisanship geared towards 2015.
“Borno and Yobe states have been literally under armies of occupation with the attendant excruciating hardship experienced daily by the indigenes and residents of these areas. This government now wants to use the excuse of the security challenges faced by the Governors to remove them from the states considered hostile to the 2015 PDP/Jonathan project.”
He further stated that this administration will be setting in motion a chain of events the end of which nobody can predict, adding that experience has shown clearly that actions, such as this one under consideration, often give root to radical ideologies and extremist tendencies, a direct opposite of the intended outcome of unwarranted and unintelligent meddlesomeness.
“The present scenario playing out in the country reminds one of the classical case of a mediocre craftsman who continually blames the tools of his trade for his serial failure but refuses to look at his pitiable state with a view to adjusting,” he added.
“It has become crystal clear, even to the most incurable optimist, that the country is adrift. That the ship of the Nigerian state is rudderless is clearly evident in the consistent and continual attacks ferociously executed by elements often referred to as the insurgents in some northern states of the federation, particularly Borno and Yobe states respectively. Indeed, no part of the country is immune from the virulent but easy attacks, veritable indices of a failing state.
“Unfortunately, the tenuous and uncoordinated approach adopted by this government betrays a grossly incompetent disposition which stands at variance with current realities in the country, nay the international community where acts of terrorism are engaged and contained. No Governor of a state in Nigeria is indeed the Chief Security Officer. Putting the blame on the Governors, who have been effectively emasculated, for the abysmal performance of the government at the centre which controls all these security agencies, smacks of ignorance and mischief.
“Terrorist acts are perpetrated routinely and the government at the centre appears incapable of stemming the tide of the horrendous crimes unleashed on the hapless populace. The considerable ease, with which lives and property are destroyed on a daily basis, should excite deep introspection on the part of a government truly desirous of finding a lasting solution. The Constitution provides that the safety and welfare of citizens shall be the primary purpose of having that structure of any political leadership in the first instance. This Government, through acts of omission and commission, has fallen far short of expectation. It actively encourages schisms and all manner of divisive tendencies for parochial expediency. Ethnicity and religion become handy weapons of domination. Things have never been this bad.”
Tinubu described the response to the pervasive chaos in the Northern region of the country as characterised by militarisation, mass arrests and extra judicial killings by the Joint Task Force (JTF), a convenient euphemism for an army of occupation seemingly set loose on the people of the localities concerned. He added that the tenor of the State of Emergency declared by the Federal Government portends danger for the polity.
“The full militarisation of security operations in these states will compound the already tense situation. Both local and international media are awash with news of reckless attitudes of the invading forces. The fact that security operatives are killed cheaply and reprisals from the state find expressions in organised pogroms in the immediate communities is sure evidence of a government, which lacks basic understanding to appreciate the enormity of the current security challenges. If development is about the people, all measures put in place for the sustenance and maintenance of the super-structure of the society must take into cognisance local contents.
“It is evident from the grim experiences in recent times that this government has failed, or does not know that it is necessary for it to avail itself of the benefits accruable from exchange of ideas and notes on the latest in terms of technology and human resources among nations of the modern world, especially those which have been fighting terrorist organisations over the years, on the most effective mode of combating this menace.
“Technologically advanced countries of the world will never discard the idea on the need for the establishment of an effective local intelligence outfit. Our suggestions along this path have always been met with suspicion and acerbic criticisms from both the informed and the ignorant alike. A government which stoutly defends its opposition to the decentralisation of the police force from its present over-centralised command structure is already experimenting with all manner of means patently extra-legal.
“The massacres of local communities attendant upon the attacks on security agents by unknown elements will further alienate the people who should, ordinarily, partner with the government in securing their immediate environments. An army which invades a community maiming, raping and killing defenceless civilians will end up radicalising the youths whose parents and young ones have been wiped out most cowardly and recklessly.
“This government should concentrate more on encouraging the development of local intelligence which will, inexorably, lead to the practice of true federalism. Adopting the use of excessive force against those perceived as harbouring terrorists does not portray this government as possessing the wherewithal to find abiding solutions to the lingering security challenges.”
He went on to brand the president’s pronouncement as seeking to abridge or having the potential of totally scuttling the constitutional functions of governors and other elected representatives of the people, which will be counterproductive in the long run.
“A State of Emergency already exists in the states where JTF operates. Residents of these communities live in constant fear. Their rights are violated with impunity under the guise of searching for terrorists in their respective domains. Hiding under some nebulous claims which border on the intractability of the security challenges posed by Boko Haram or some acclaimed traditionalists who have killed some policemen to render ineffective the constitutional powers vested in elected Governors and other representatives of the people, perceived as not amenable to manipulation for the 2015 project amounts to reducing serious issues bordering on the survival of the country to partisan politics.,” he added.
“Let all those who love this country genuinely advise the federal government not to tinker with the mandates of these Governors under any guise. It is a potentially destructive path to take. If security of a society is about the protection of lives and property of the citizenry, the involvement of the people is a sine qua non to effective intelligence gathering. Any measures put in place which alienate the people, in particular their elected representatives, should be considered as fundamentally defective by every right thinking person in the country.”
