Preamble: During the commemoration of the 2018 Armed Forces Remembrance Day
on January 15, 2018, news
reverberated that, the Nigerian Army unconstrained 244 so-called ‘repentant’
Boko Haram suspects who the army claimed have given up membership of the
dreaded terrorist group to the Borno government. Put it bluntly, it means the
Nigerian Army pardoned, granted ‘’amnesty’’ to 244 Boko Haram members? The
Theatre Commander of Operation Lafiya Dole, Rogers Nicholas, a major-general,
said the Boko Haram detainees have been de-radicalized for reintegration into
the society and that the acquittance of the ‘’repentant’’ Boko Haram members
was Okayed by the Chief of Army Staff, Lt. General Tukur Buratai. The British Broadcasting
Corporation, BBC says,
‘’there have been mass releases of Boko Haram suspects in the past, but this is
the largest following a de-radicalization programme’’. Recall that President
Muhammadu Buhari had at a National Security Council meeting in September 2015,
directed the establishment of “Operation Safe Corridor (OPSC)” which is aimed
at facilitating the deradicalization, rehabilitation and reintegration of Boko
Haram insurgents into normal life. A while ago, a so-called former Boko Haram
intelligence chief - Abdulkadir Abubakar (also known as Abu Muhammad), arrested
by Nigerian security agents in Yobe hinted
that factional leaders of Boko Haram - Abu Musab al-Barnawi (son
of Muhammad Yusuf, Boko Haram’s founder), and Mamman Nur (the alleged
UN Abuja Office bomber), ‘’indicated interest to
dialogue with the government to end insurgency and provide a lasting solution
to the crisis’’. The way it is going, won’t be surprised if we hear that the
aforesaid, including Abubakar Shekau have been deradicalized and granted an amnesty.
The Human Rights Writers Association
of Nigeria (HURIWA) criticizes the Buhari administration’s proclivity to train
and reintegrate ‘repentant’ Boko Haram terrorists. HURIWA submits
that “the [Buhari] administration has no plan on the long, short and medium terms
to commence the prosecution of all detained terror suspects of Boko Haram,” but
lamented that “what we see is that the government has consistently ordered the
freeing from detentions of detained suspected terrorists over the last two
years.” During a workshop in Maiduguri titled: “Sensitization of Religious and
Traditional Leaders, De-radicalization, and Counter-Terrorism in the
Northeast”, IDPs in Maiduguri expressed concerns
over plans by the Federal Government to grant amnesty to certain repentant Boko
Haram insurgents. Not only HURIWA,
seeing that exonerating and unleashing terrorists, criminals is now a new
normal in Nigeria, yours sincerely is miffed and compelled to revisit this
subject matter again after my earlier piece titled: ‘’Recidivism;
Unintended Consequences of ‘Amnesty’ To Boko Haram Insurgents, Militants And
Chibok Girls Swop’’. This is
aimed at engendering healthy debate, encouraging academic research on terrorist
recidivism in Nigeria and to make the Nigerian government to rethink this uncertain
gambit.
The More You Look, The Less You See
Every day we hear that a ‘’top’’ Boko Haram ‘’Commander’’ was
arrested. The news trends for a few days and nothing is heard about it again.
Next time again you hear that hundreds of ‘repentant’ Boko Haram suspects have
been deradicalized and freed. The army will do well to reconcile
Nigerians with the criteria, rationale deployed to ascertain whether an
insurgent has TRULY ‘’repented’’ or not. Is there a guarantee that they will
not relapse? How pragmatic is it for a brainwashed, bloodletting
terrorist with a warped religious ideology to be weaned of his/her bloodletting
streak? Isn’t simplistic to assume that these blokes have ‘’repented’’? Isn’t
it dangerous to unleash them to the same community where they killed people?
Are there foolproof mechanisms put in place to monitor these so-called
‘’repentant’’ terrorists (possibly in real-time) to ensure they don’t pose a
threat and do not relapse to their old ways? Why is the Buhari administration
bent on freeing scores of Boko Haram terrorists under the pretext of an
untested deradicalization programme rather than prosecuting them? Why recite
poetry to folks who don’t appreciate poetry? What is the role of the judiciary
when people transgress the law? Is Nigeria's
antiterrorism law a paper-tiger?
Terrorist Recidivism: Case
Studies
Recidivism refers to a person's relapse into criminal behavior, often after
the person receives sanctions or undergoes intervention for a previous crime. The Charlie
Hebdo terrorist attack in Paris, the Sydney siege,
and the broad daylight murder
of a British soldier Lee Rigby by Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale near the Royal Artillery Barracks in Woolwich, southeast London and the
gruesome murder of a priest, Jacques Hamel, 85, by Adel
Kermichie in a church in Normandy, France, amongst others,
lend credence to recurring incidents of Islamic radicalization, recidivism.
There is paucity of credible statistics of terrorist’s
recidivism in Nigeria hence I am going to suffice scenarios from other parts of
the world. The United States National Institute of Justice asserts
that ‘’within three years of release, about two-thirds (67.8 percent) of
released prisoners were rearrested’’. Saudi Arabia
Interior Ministry Spokesman, Maj. Gen. Mansour al-Turki, told
reporters that some 12 percent of people who had been involved in its deradicalization
programs had recidivated to activities related to terrorism. Also recall that
Saudi Arabia has one of the lowest crime rates in the world. A former Guantanamo detainee, one Ibrahim al-Qosi, Osama bin
Laden's former cook and driver, released
under the Bush administration to Sudan in July 2012 rejoined al Qaeda in the
Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP. As at January 2017, the Office of the Director of
National Intelligence, United States reportedly
asserts that out of the 714 detainees transferred from Guantanamo Bay, 121
(16.9%) returned to terrorist or militant activities. Abu Bakr Baghdadi was
freed from Abu Ghraib in a prison attack. He didn’t renounce his ideology but
stepped into the shoes of al-Zarqawi and fulfilled his now crumbling dream of
establishing an Islamic Caliphate in June 2014.
In 2013, the Indonesian National Counterterrorism Agency BNPT said
25 out of 300 terrorists released from prison had “gone back to their old
terror habits”. Indonesia’s recidivism
rate is put at least 15 per cent based on the 47 cases. Five were killed in shoot-outs with police in 2009 and
2010. At least six went to fight in Syria under the ISIS banner. Several started or joined new jihadi groups that have been
targeting Indonesian police officers, including Santoso, currently Indonesia’s
most wanted fugitive. Two ideologues – Aman
Abdurrahman and Abu Bakar Ba’asyir – are even more influential in jihadi
circles with their jailhouse publications and fatwa’s, and especially after
they joined the ISIS bandwagon. They continued
to believe that jihad is a very critical element in Islamic teaching and they
therefore have to keep performing it.
For them, jihad is the legitimate use of violence against the enemy of
Islam’’. According
to two prominent researchers: “it has been practically impossible to ascertain
what is implied by or expected from [deradicalization] programs that claim to
be able to de-radicalize terrorists”.
Here in Nigeria, sometime in 2017, Boko Haram
released the video
of five “commanders” that were reportedly released by Nigerian authorities on
Saturday, May 6 in exchange for 82 Chibok schools girls. The man claimed he was Abu Dardaa, saying he was arrested by
Nigerian security forces in Gombe State, taken into custody alongside many of
his “brethren” but set free for the exchange of the Chibok girls. Similar
recidivism and Stockholm
syndrome, some women indoctrinated by Boko Haram, including Aisha Yerima,
25, rescued by the Nigerian military from Boko Haram captivity returned to Boko
Haram's Sambisa forest hideout to be with the insurgents who abducted and
married them. Though a different context but still on
recidivism, recall that notorious criminal and alleged mastermind of the
January 1st, 2018 rampage in Rivers state that took the lives of 20 people,
late Mr. Igwedibia Johnson, aka Don Waney was a beneficiary of amnesty largesse
by late President Umaru Yar’Adua's 2009 amnesty programme and another amnesty
in 2016 by the current Rivers state governor, Nyesom Wike. Dude recidivated
despite the multiple amnesty deals.
Deradicalization, How
Pragmatic Is This Concept?
Deradicalization, a budding academic field refers to preventive
counterterrorism measures that aim to have those with extreme and violent
religious or political ideologies adopt more reasonable and nonviolent views. Sociologist
Gérald Bronner says the notion of "deradicalization" is flawed,
saying "It means that you can take an idea or a belief out of the brain,
and I think that’s just impossible" and instead suggests "not a kind
of mental manipulation but the opposite — mind liberation, a strengthening of
their intellectual immune systems". The
target of deradicalization programmes in most Western countries, are largely
youths who hold extremist views, and not bloodletting insurgents as is the case
in Nigeria. In the UK, a key part of the government's counter-terrorism
strategy and deradicalization
scheme is known as ‘’Prevent’’. The scheme is aimed at stopping more people
getting drawn towards violent extremism. Nearly 4,000 people, including
children aged nine were referred to the deradicalization scheme in 2015. Following
a nine-month examination, the Open Society Justice Initiative says the
Prevent’’ policy is 'badly
flawed' and recommended a major government rethink. France’s first and only deradicalization centre was shut
down in 2017 after a Senate committee deemed the initiative “a complete fiasco”.
The centre reportedly attracted ‘’plenty of state funding but no solutions’’.
A May 30, 2015 report written by Clive Kessler and published on ‘’The
Australian’’, submits inter-alia that, ‘’deradicalization
of militant Muslims is not a viable option’’.
To Contain Terrorism,
Follow The Money
One of the keys to defeating
terrorism is stifling terrorists of finance. Folks, groups that sponsor
terrorism MUST be reined in. In nearly ten years of Boko Haram insurgency, no
one has been convicted for bankrolling the Sect yet it is an open secret that
Boko Haram is well structured and funded. I was perplexed when President
Muhammadu Buhari opined during the meeting of the African Union Peace and
Security Council in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital on Saturday September
27, 2018, that "there
was a need to curb the flow of terrorism financing". Is anyone
stopping Buhari and the Nigerian government from following the trail of money and
support that buoys up Boko Haram? President Buhari urges the world to curb Terrorism
financing yet a report by BBC's Alastair Leithhead and Stephanie Hegarty
published 19 May 2017 titled, ''The fate of the
Chibok girls’’ asserts that the Buhari administration paid a ransom of two
million Euros to secure the release of the girls. What do you think the money
will be used for? Buy sex dolls?
Conclusion:
It is dicey to sacrifice justice at the altar of Nigeria’s
wishy-washy, nascent, untested, deradicalization programme. Those who do the
crime must do the time. High time the Nigerian judiciary woke up to its
responsibility. A Punch Newspaper editorial titled – ‘’Boko Haram: Deradicalization,
a misplaced strategy’’ submits
inter-alia that, ‘’subduing Salafism through de-radicalization is often a
misplaced strategy’’. The editorial goes further to assert that, committed
ideologues never give up their beliefs…appeasement (deradicalization) does not
work with terrorists’’. ‘’If insurgents, terrorists are not prosecuted and
convicted, terrorists, would-be terrorists and other criminals out there will
believe that no matter the degree of their atrocities, they will wriggle out of
punishment’’. I think it is dangerous, a grave error to just allow a band of
bloodletting fundamentalists to waltz away with no conviction.
Written by:
© Don Okereke, a Security/Analyst/Consultant,
Writer, Ex-Military
February, 2018
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