Guardian

Mr. Anthony Sani, chieftain and national publicity secretary of the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) told SAXONE AKHAINE, the Guardian Northern Bureau Chief that emergency rule might not solve the problem.

Do you think imposition of emergency rule would address insecurity situation in affected areas?

I am not sure whether emergency rule can work, since force has never worked anywhere in the world, including Nigeria, as experience has shown since 2009, and in Baga and Bama. What is more, emergency rule, which implies use of force and not rule of law, has failed to bring about peace in Plateau State and later in some local government areas in Northeast. That may explain why I have no confidence in emergency rule in the circumstance. The ACF has always doubted the efficacy of the use of force to bring the problem of insurgency to an end. Force has been used all along. There is no difference between the declaration of a state of emergency and the use of force, which has been deplored by government in the past.

The question we should be asking ourselves is, when they introduced state of emergency in Plateau State by Obasanjo, did it work? What is the difference between Plateau, Borno, Yobe and Adamawa?

I doubt the wisdom of that action and also doubt the efficacy of a state of emergency in those three states.

I will not condemn Jonathan for not removing the Governors in the states where state of emergency were declared and replacing them military commanders, because we are in a democracy and more so, it will lead to more problems because some people will say he has removed their governors because he is from a different political party and so on.

In view of the unmitigated bloodletting and killings by insurgents, despite the olive branch of dialogue and amnesty extended by government, don’t you think something urgent needed to be done?

The recent hype in security challenges in Baga, Bama, in Yobe, in Taraba, in Nasarawa and Benue states, are unrelated. For example, only those of Borno and Yobe states are traceable to Boko Haram. Others are violence due to either to communal clashes or actions of cultists.   As for Boko Haram, I have never believed the introduction of amnesty would bring about an automatic end to their activities. It will take some time. Amnesty is the beginning of the process that can hopefully solve the security problems.

Book Haram may be hyping their acts in order to negotiate from position of strength and secure the best of terms. That should not deter the committee.

As the Irish Ambassador told us when he met ACF recently, amnesty and dialogue should expect sand bags along the way because there are hardliners on both sides of the divide who would not accept amnesty. He said from the experience of his country with IRA, Nigeria’s situation demands the highest of imagination, determination, political will, perseverance and purposeful leadership that can take the risk. So let all groups give the government and amnesty committee a chance, and not

to hanker on the defeatist attitude that amnesty would not work.

So all we need do is to work hard and overcome those differences in favour of core value of humanity that bind us. To this end, the president should inspire Nigerians, prepare them and lead them against the insurgents. It is a collective responsibility under the watch of Mr. President, on whose table the buck stops.

I believe that our intelligence community and security agencies need to brace up for the task ahead despite the effort at amnesty and dialogue. This is because if amnesty leads to dialogue and bringing the insurgent activities under control, there will still be need for long term counter terrorism strategy to monitor our borders and check inflows of arms, ammunition, explosive

chemicals, immigrants, sources of funding, radicalization and recruitments.