by Bitrus Kaze
Like the proverbial birds of the same feather that flock together, the Boko Haram Islamic fundamentalist have made public those they want as negotiators including not surprisingly, Gen Muhammadu Buhari. Anyone who has been following on the internecine violence perpetrated especially North of the Niger by these merchants of death should understand their choice of Gen Buhari. Eventually the men behind the masks are beginning to unveil.
In my view, Gen Buhari like the Boko Haram is a religious extremist who cannot be trusted to negotiate for sustainable peace in Nigeria. In the build up to the 2003 Presidential elections, Gen Buhari was reported to have ask Muslims across the country to vote only for the presidential candidate that would defend and uphold Islam. Even before the emergence of Boko Haram, Gen Buhari had vowed not to “stop the agitation for the total implementation of the Sharia in the country.”
If it is too much to say Gen Buhari has a soft spot for Boko Haram, the incontrovertible facts show that he has consistently instigated violence in Nigeria. In his desperation to rule Nigeria again, Gen Buhari ordered his supporters in 2011 to “finish” anyone who tampers with the votes, whatever that means. Sheik Lemu may have attempted although unsuccessfully to vindicate him, but at least his Presidential Panel on Post Elections Violence acknowledged Gen Buhari’s “provocative utterances” which according to them appeared to have been “misconstrued by many voters to include recourse to violence.” Nigerians won’t forget in a hurry that after his woeful loss to President Goodluck Jonathan, many voters resorted to violence leading to unquantifiable loss of innocent lives and properties.
Against this backdrop therefore, it is unthinkable that anyone will expect peace from an engagement with an advocate of violence like Gen Buhari. By nature, thorn bushes do not yield bananas! The terms under which Boko Haram terrorist are seeking negotiations in the first place invariably offend the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended) which government has sworn to uphold, protect and defend. They are asking for what they have been bombing Nigerians for all these murderous years. Any government that considers as cardinal the protection of lives and properties of its citizens cannot contemplate any negotiation with those demanding for the release of captured terrorists who are in the custody of security agencies awaiting trial. A government that has not compensated victims or reconstructed any place of worship destroyed by these suicide bombers has no business sitting at the same table with terrorists under any guise.
On the verge of 100th anniversary of Nigeria’s amalgamation, President Jonathan cannot afford to be deceived into mortgaging Nigeria’s national sovereignty in the name of dialoguing with terrorists in Saudi Arabia or anywhere. Desperate power mongers like Gen Buhari will more than likely misconstrue this as an opportunity to negotiate for 2015 albeit in the name of peace. There is no country in the whole wide world that has ever succeeded in checkmating terrorists by negotiating on their terms. Peace and terror like light and darkness do not and will never mix.
- Hon. Bitrus Kaze is a member of the Federal House of Representatives, representing Jos South-Jos East Federal Constituency, in Plateau State