THE RULE OF LAW AGAINST CIVILIAN-JTF IN BORNO STATE When in 2009 - TopicsExpress



          

THE RULE OF LAW AGAINST CIVILIAN-JTF IN BORNO STATE When in 2009 the activities of the Boko Haram sect went down a ‘steep slope’ resulting in the wanton destruction of lives and properties by the group; the effect was not lost on all including the international community. The climax of it all came in the way of the 2011 bombing of the United Nations (UN) building and the suicide attack at the Louis Edet Police Headquarters in the heart of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja. By the time the smoke, ash and debris from the blast at the UN building had subsided, at least 21 people had been gruesomely murdered and 60 others wounded. In the same year, 2011, the sect carried out another deadly attack in Damaturu, Yobe State, where they killed more than 100 people and injured hundreds more. That was in November of 2011. A month after, it carried out another dastardly attack on the city, leaving behind a pool of deaths. This time, the death toll included the civilian and military population. In subsequent years, the dastardly activities of the sect continued on a rise to include the 2012 attack on a Deeper Life Church in Okene in Kogi State; another 2012 attack on a Catholic church in Madala, Niger State, just to list a few. The slaughter of school children and their teachers in Borno and Adamawa State and the unscrupulous bombing of a motor park in Kano State that left no fewer than 20 people dead, are some of the fallouts of the sect’s activities. Needless to state, the Machiavellian movement of the sect has literally crippled the economy of the affected states as people are fleeing the states and markets have fewer commodities to sale and buy. On the whole, Nigeria did not fare any better as the country’s reputation in the international arena continue to suffer measurably. Nigeria joined the unenviable list of terror stricken countries of the world and the average Nigerian became a ‘second-guess’ when visiting Western countries. It therefore was for many a ‘relative-relief’ when President Goodluck Jonathan declared what analysts described as a long-awaited “State of Emergency” on states that were strong holds of the insurgents. As expected, Borno, Adamawa and Yobe States were placed under emergency rule with constitutional authorities like the state governors allowed to continue exercising their authorities on issues outside the purview of security. In other words security became the exclusive preserve of the federal government; as the military deployed in these states was to hold this task in trust for the federal government. This later fact for many was “good riddance to bad rubbish” as the Boko Haram sect had unleashed unprecedented mayhem on Nigerians hence the need to employ high-handed measures to rid these states of them. Without recourse to litanies, the military also referred to as the Joint Task Force (JTF) swooped into action and began a tidal military campaign that annihilated many insurgents and drove others into hiding. Some of those driven into hiding quickly diffused and integrated into the civilian population from where they continued to carry out guerilla attacks on civilian targets and the JTF. Others who fussed into the civilian population went ‘solo’ and began a quiet but fearful (so as not to be identified as members of Boko Haram) process of self-rehabilitation in order to carry on with their lives as they used to before they were forcefully or otherwise, recruited into the insurgent group. With this new reality emerged another potentially dangerous phenomenon called the CIVILIAN-JTF. When former and war-hungry American President, George Bush Jnr attempted as it were, to initiate a war propaganda campaign against American military albatross, Vietnam, the Vietnamese were quick to remind the war-monger of the disastrous mistakes made by those who are poor students of history. It will be recalled that in the history of America’s efforts to showcase its military might to the rest of the world, Vietnam remains the North America’s worst military expedition. It was in the war against Vietnam that America suffered its worse military casualty and yet came out of the war more disillusioned than it was when it entered it. It lost the war and risked potential far-reaching mutiny in its army. Back home in Nigeria, it would seem that many in government are ‘very’ bad students of history. Apologies remain that civil unrest with attendant blood-lettings are seemingly a part of the north. From the Maitasine crisis of the 1980s in Kano, the “Kafachan and Zango-Kataf” bloodletting of the late 1980s and early 1990s in Kaduna; the various ‘Sharia riots’ in the same Kaduna, just to mention a few; it is only summary to state that the north most often than not sits on a keg of gun powder. As commendation for the JTF’s near-success campaign against the insurgents continues to pour in, it remains instructive not only to applaud the efforts made by the locals in Borno State especially in rooting-out residual elements of the insurgent group; but to also recommend caution as a circle of violence is in the offing. At the risk of sounding sympathetic to Boko Haram; a sect that has unleashed such savagery on Nigerians in recent times, what is in operation today as far as the activities of the Civilian-JTF is concerned is no better than what the Boko Haram had left at the wake of its near-extermination. For what it is worth, it is a jungle affair where the bestiality law of “an eye for an eye ‘to’… leave every man blind” as Mahtma Ghandi of India would say, is operational. Tales of summary death and arson in the hands of the Civilian-JTF are quickly becoming the order of the day in the already deaths-weary Borno Stated. Ibrahim Gobabir who studies Business Administration in Ramat Polytechnic in the heart of Maiduguri was almost lynched by an irate Civilian-JTF on account that unknowingly to him, “my friend Ali is a member of Boko Haram.” According to Ibrahim, Ali never mentioned his membership of the then dreaded sect to him. In fact, “he was even more vocal in condemning killings by the sect as been un-Islamic.” Like Ibrahim, more and more residents of Borno State are confused as to the double-standard approach of the more recognized JTF whose initial entry into the state was hailed by residents. For them, the formal JTF represented order, law and hope. Mustapha Dandabino says that “when the JTF came in large numbers we were happy and felt that at last the insurgents will be no more. Today, we are seeing a continuation of the violence in the form of the Civilian-JTF. These youths are hungry either for revenge or to extend the circle of hatred and death to places that were untouched by the activities of Boko-Haram.” This fact calls to mind the ideas of Roger Nash Baldwin that “The rule of law in place of force, always basic to my thinking, now takes on a new relevance in a world where, if war is to go, only law can replace it.” It also reiterates the truth in Oscar Arias Sanchez statements that “I cannot accept that to be realistic means to tolerate misery, violence and hate. I do not believe that the hungry man should be treated as subversive for expressing his suffering. I shall never accept that the law can be used to justify tragedy, to keep things as they are, to make us abandon our ideas of a different world. Law is the path of liberty, and must as such open the way to progress for everyone.” Against this background, the fact as it remains suggest that to consolidate on the successes of the Nigeria Armed Forces in the troubled states of Borno, Adamawa and Yobe respectively, the rule of law must be allowed to prevail. That is to say that instead of such unlawful acts like the burning of the house of Alhaji Mala Atuman, who incidentally is the State Chairman for the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) by irate youths, the JTF on ground should insist on respect by all for all against the background that such irate action may fuel the embers of possible reprisals by supporters and sympathizers of the affected. This is even more cogent in the light that such action against a highly placed Stewart of the party in power in the state may give rise to clandestine witch hunting of innocent citizens assumed to be part of the arsenic group. As holders of federal government trust in the affected states, the military must therefore realize that under the Laws of the federation, “The right to property is the social-political principle that human beings may not be prohibited or prevented by anyone from acquiring, holding and trading (with willing parties) valued items not already owned by others.” “Such a right is, thus, inalienable and, if in fact justified, is supposed to enjoy respect and legal protection in a just human community, and the right to private ownership of property is the most honorable of all fundamental rights in point of antiquity as the philosophical and economic theories on the origin and justification of the right are legion.” Even so, Section 43 of the Nigerian Constitution has guaranteed for law abiding citizens; “Right to acquire and own immovable property anywhere in Nigeria.” Section 33 also noted that “Everyone has an inviolable right to life.” When interpreted, it means that no one may be deprived of life except for the defense of any person or property, or in order to effect a lawful arrest or in the course of suppression of riot, mutiny or insurrection. Where any person’s life is unlawfully taken, it is extra judicial killing. Having stated this, the JTF must also come to terms with the understanding put forth by St. Thomas Aquinas that “‘the rule of’ Law; an ordinance of reason for the common good, made by him who has care of the community,” can only be achieved in the affected states and the human and material instruments of violence and hatred relegated to the background when a section of the society is not supported to interpret justice according to their whims and caprices. Besides the affected Borno State Chairman of the ANPP whose siblings fell to the bullets of insurgents during the reign of insurgency in the state, accounts have it that many who are today being hunted by the Civilian-JTF have at one time or another suffered the brutality of members of the routed Boko Haram sect. As these events unfold, the place of the Borno State House of Representatives and the National Assembly to investigate underpinning activities of the Civilian-JTF cannot be overemphasized so that the nation will forever as it were, place a lid on the evolution of such menace not only in a part of the country that is notorious for civil unrest, but in Nigeria as a whole.
Posted on: Thu, 11 Jul 2013 14:27:59 +0000

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