RALPH ODUA, publisher, journalist, teacher, homeland security scholar and leader of Occupy Nigeria Movement, speaks on the motivation for the recent protests in Nigeria. He rejects calls for regime change and talks on the need to tackle the culture of corruption in Nigeria.
In this interview with Oladimeji Abitogun, editor-in-chief of sharpedgenews.com, Odua leans on knowledge of securing homelands to deep tactics for quashing Boko Haram terrorism in Nigeria. It is a frank talk like never before on the security challenges of life in contemporary Nigeria.
EXCERPTS:
I created the “Occupy Nigeria Movement” on November 4, 2011. I was motivated by a picture that was sent to my Facebook Wall concerning a house purportedly owned by Mr. Lucky Igbenidion, the former governor of Edo State. I was amazed that somebody had such money to build that type of outlandish house, just because he was in office for only eight years or so. I therefore decided to form the Occupy Nigeria Movement in order to actually resist and fight corruption and push for good governance in Nigeria. This was before the avoidable crisis of fuel subsidies removal started. And when the issue of subsidies came up, we felt it was one slap too many, so decided to make it part of our focus.
You were up to some things before the Occupy Nigeria agitating started..
Yes. I am a publisher. I am a teacher. I am a journalist. I publish NigeriaPolitico.com, an online newspaper. When I lived in Nigeria, I published the community newspaper known as EsanNow. I currently work with New York City as a public school teacher. I am also a PhD student of Homeland Security of Walden University. I did my bachelor’s at the then Bendel State Univiersity, Abraka campus. I did my Master’s degree at Grand Kanyon University in Arizona.
It seems that the struggle you kick-started has grown beyond your original vision. People are no longer talking about subsidies; some are calling for regime change. Was that part of the plan? What are you really after?
Our original idea was to enthrone good governance in Nigeria. We were and still are appalled by the depth of corruption in going on in Nigeria. We wanted people to speak out and expose the corrupt person as the administration. We want the world to know how corrupt the administration is so that people understand accountability and transparency, to see if there can be a change, so that more opportunity can be opened up for the average Okoro, Femi and Ahmed out there.
We are planning a march that would Occupy Abuja, Lagos, Kano, Port-Harcourt, Kaduna, so that the administration would know that we have had enough, that was our initial plan and then Mr. President a catalyst when on January 1, 2012, he decided to increase the price of pereol from N65 to N150 per liter, and the whole dynamic changed. We now decided to go for the moment, to hold the government to a decent standard, by calling for a reversal of the extreme price jerk.
We did a lot of campaign, we mobilized people on-line and were very successful in mobilizing people, and the government eventually listened and changed the price to N97. The whole idea behind the increase is something we don’t agree with. We don’t agree with the government. And we stated our case online.
We shall come back to the ramifications of the Occupy Nigeria struggle, but accusations are coming from some people in government, and maybe genuinely concerned Nigerian, that your movement was not motivated by ideological commitment, social welfare commitment or principle, but that you merely wanted to ape the Arab Spring to call for regime change. Dr. Jonathan got into office barely eight months ago, he is not like of the middle-eastern or North-African sit-tight despots. What say you? Is this a cut and paste thing? Are on ego trip that it must happen in Nigeria if it happens elsewhere?
Actually, our movement has more resemblance to Occupy Wall Street protests than the Arab Spring revolt. If you go online to check our printings, we preached non-violence. And I remember telling you in the past that would minimize possible blood-shed in case the police wanted to kill our protesters. We were not modeling our demands after what happened in the Middle-East. Rather, ours was more like what happened in New York and other cities where corporations, government and politicians were held accountable for global economic meltdown.
Our struggle is not directed mainly at the president. It is aimed at corruption and insensitivity. Government is a continuum. It did not start under Jonathan. But this is the time; there is a time in one’s life when you say enough is enough. When do we stop this corruption? Jonathan is only in power, any other person could have been in power, the same thing would have happened. But now we used online communication tools to mobilize for a bloodless resistance and they heard us loud and clear. We did not have the effective tools in the past, but now we do and the people won. The fight is mainly against corruption.
Boko Haram’s murderous exploits too had to be protested and we put it on our agenda. It has been a wonderful experience to expose Boko Haram. Nigerians now know that Boko Haram people are evil people. We were not in support of the way government was handling the issue; they are terrorists. We were hammering on the need for government to be tough on Boko Haram in our blog online and then the president now increased the price of soil, and what followed was spontaneous, it was not planned.
Interestingly enough, people with vested interest – people who contested and lost against the president, have since come on stage to hijack your movement, to make world think that they genuinely feel what the masses are feeling. Even people who have been tested and known to fail in teir communities and national politics, now make it look like Jonathan is the worst thing to have happened to Nigeria. What do you think of those kind of political manipulation?
We are really missing the issue. Whether we like it or not, Jonathan is the president. And the struggle has to be aimed at the symbol of the system. I don’t know if it is true that some people said while campaigning that Nigeria would be ungovernable. I don’t know if it is true or not. Maybe Buhari or Bakare got mad that they lost, but they also went to court. What we are against is the corruption in government. It has nothing to do with the election, not just this administration, even previous government including all the past military crooks. All we are saying is that corruption is not good for Nigeria. It is destroying Nigeria and that this government should get away and let those who can do something come in and create a change.
The way government was initially handling Boko Haram was not proper. It was not well-handled. So we said that it was not proper for the government to dialogue with terrorists in the hope that murders would stop. Even the so-called compromise with MEND, the Niger-Delta militants, was a wrong decision. It is wrong to reward evil. Nigeria should stop rewarding evil. It is good to reward the good guys, not the bad ones. Because evil people are being rewarded in Nigeria, you see worse things happening. It is as if it pays to be a bad person in Nigeria.
I say it is the responsibility of the government to prosecute them if there is that evidence. If they don’t do it, we don’t have the right to accuse people against whom we have no such facts of culpability. We don’t have the right to make up stories.
So is regime change an option at this point in Nigeria, because we also note that some people are using your genuine discontent with the government to ask for military rule. Is that an option for you?
We have not called for military rule..
But some people are doing that openly.
Well, people have different views. But we always make our collective releases free. We allow people for debates in Occupy Nigeria Movement. People can express their views, but that is not our official position. Our official position is that we are not in support military rule. Nigeria is a democratic country.
Personally, I think we should give the president a chance. I am against his policy of removing fuel subsidies. And we did our best, although we couldn’t make him change his mind completely. He has a made a lot of promises. There are people who believe in his agenda. I think we should give him some time to see if he can do what he promised he would do.
You are one of the premier PhD students in Homeland Security..
Yes.
What do you think must be done about the situation in Nigeria at this point concerning Boko Haram?
I have two strategies for Nigeria. First, the fire brigade strategy that must be immediate, and then the long-term solution that must be a continuum. The president should be able to define who the enemy is for Nigeria. There is no clear definition of who Boko Haram is. Everybody has become an expert on the issue in Nigeria. Some would tell you that Boko Haram is sponsored by disgruntled politicians who don’t want Jonathan to succeed. Some would say they are sponsored by Moslems, yet some would say they are from some Northern leaders. Some people say they have links to Al-Qaeda. The president should be able to tell us who our enemy is. George Bush was able to define Al –Qaeda. He said that Al Qaeda could not be equated with real Islam. He told us not to fight Moslems, but fight Al-Qaeda. He made it clear that America was going to fight Al-Qaeda to in order to destroy Osama bin Laden. We must know the enemy so as to know where to start from.
Any reasonable president must first unite the people behind the common goal during the war. The president cannot defeat terrorism when the people are not united. This is the time for the president to reach out to opposition as a politician and try to unite Nigerians, Christians, Moslems, North and South against the criminal Boko Haram.
I do not agree with those who say Boko Haram is invisible or invincible. They are not ghosts and they don’t have super-natural power – they are not all-powerful. They have a leader. The founder, Yussufu, was killed by the police. The new leader is Shekarau. He was once detained and he is out today. And he is declaring war against Christians. By now the government should put money on his head – two hundred, three hundred million for information leader to his arrest or his assassination.
They have to kill him, because in the world, when you kill their leader, it delivers a killing blow and unsettling effect; it shatters the myth and superstitions of indestructibility. At least Nigeria must be able to point out the first ten leaders in Boko Haram hierarchy. Put money on them and pursue them to wherever they are.
Also, I would suggest that the president must fire his security chiefs. He must urgently get a new security team. There should be road blocks all over Nigeria, within cities and highways. All the roadblocks must have bomb detectors. The borders to the north must be closed and twenty-four hour surveillance must be mounted with floodlights. Helicopter attaches with gunboats must deploy to monitoring it, and grenade launchers must be engaged.
You cannot win the war on terror without intelligence. It is an intelligence-based war, that is why there must be a lot of propaganda work to win minds and souls, to get the trust of the governed and get information from the people.
People don’t trust the police in Nigeria. The government must encourage and accept anonymous suggestions from vigilant citizens. People must be able to call without saying who they are to give information, because they need it. They need intelligence.
On a bigger perspective, the Senators and Lawmakers are only sleeping and eating. They are not doing anything. They need to enact anti-terrorism laws. If you sponsor terrorists, you go to jail. Boko Haram or any combatants for that matter are enemy combatants who must be tried by special courts or military tribunals in order to get the maximum penalties possible. If someone is caught funding terrorism, such a person should be sentenced heavily. They cannot be granted bail until their case is dispensed with. Laws that must target their financiers and funds must be made. They should also look outwards.
The government must look in the direction of Iran and Saudi Arabia. Their role must be exposed. All the preachers on the sides of Sunni and Shites Islam must be checked out. They look at the role of Iran especially in ending arms and money and intellectual backing to any religion or political groups in Nigeria.
It is also time for the federal government in Nigeria to admit that it is having a problem in fighting terrorism, and must therefore call for help from countries like Britain and the United States and other European countries to assist in intelligence gathering and training. We need to learn. The most important factor for defeating terrorism is intelligence. You can deploy a battalion of soldiers, without intelligence there can be no victory. The government must also look into the pyramid of command on how we build our security. We use top to bottom approach instead of down to the top. We must plan security from home to the ward to the local government, state and federal. The police must be able to operate from these levels. When you have community police, it would be more difficult for terrorists to infiltrate at that level.
Some people say that if the local government chairman is given charge of police, state governors would use it for political reasons. But that is essentially what the federal government is doing at the top. Instead of abandoning a very good program that would help the people, the interest of the people should be more than any other thing. Instead of abandoning a down-up security plan for the country, by having the local government and state police idea because of fear of misuse, we must devise a way, put in the structures that would ensure against possible abuse. People can support something that would prevent misused by a local government chairman. Nigeria really needs local police. This time they need it.
All churches and mosques must now have bomb detectors installed. Our police must be pro-active. We are talking of the bomb in Kano on Friday; we should be able to have that imagination on where they want to attack next. We should be thinking of the possibility of airport attacks – they would want to hijack planes. That is how an intelligent mind thinks. Our security must be more pro-active. Nigerian security people do not think of what and where and who could be next. You allow the terrorists to dictate the terms and you begin to look for reactive solutions? That is not good. Oh, Kano is bombed today, you could think that is going to be the last bombing. What is the next likely place they would attack?
If I may suggest, they may want to hijack planes, because terrorists love creating that kind of drama. What is the federal government doing now to secure our planes? What are they doing to secure our airports? What are they doing to secure our public schools and other landmark institutions? Do such landmark institutions have bomb detectors? What are they doing to secure churches and mosques? They should all have bomb detectors. Our government should be proactive. They should be ahead of these criminal, murderous terrorists.
If our government does not do this, then we are in real trouble in Nigeria. The ultimate agenda of Boko Haram is to cause sectarian wars in Nigeria. They say it. They want a war between Christians and Moslems. They want the country to divide, so that they can enslave the north. That is their aim. So it is either the government allows them to achieve their aim or they stop the evil goal. All Nigerians must join together on this security issue, join with the president. Help the president solve the problem.
I used to think that corruption and other similar ills are number one on the list of things to do before now. But the security issues have become number one, while corruption fight has become number two. We must come together and win this war.