Dr. Abubakar Sulaiman, a lecturer  in the Department of Political Science, University of Abuja bares his mind on some topical issues, including the current security challenge which he believes is not Goodluck Jonathan’s creation. The political analyst also predicts a dismal outing for Kwara APC in 2015 .  ABDULRAHMAN A. ABDULRAUF reports

Fifteen years of democracy
So far so good, fifteen years of uninterrupted democracy is a good omen that we have not had military incursion into politics. Besides, it has been quite interesting in terms of political culture. The electorate as well as the politicians have developed some level of consciousness which was not there before 1999. We have learnt so many lessons where we have gone wrong. We  have developed some consciousness in our attitude, in our orientation in the electoral process. We have developed the attitude of give and take in terms of dissenting voices . On the whole, we have come of age in terms of our thinking, orientation and disposition, and in terms of  the awareness of Nigerians to political issues, the perception of the electoral process.  Before then, when you talk of the politics of the 1960’s , the first and  second republic, the fundamental factors then was the politics of regionalism, politics of ethnicity  and politics of religion which were more fundamental and more pronounced .
In spite of challenges in the last couple of years bordering on Boko Haram, Taraba crisis, Jos crisis and all what have you, we are still forging ahead. Before now, the military would not wait till this time before they strike. The resilience  and patience of the military to allow civil rule to hold sway, to allow dialogue is s thing of joy that no matter how bad, we are allowing the people themselves to resolve issues among themselves without resort to brute force, without inviting the military. I think we have made great inroad in this regard and that’s a big plus for us as a people.

Aren’t  primordial factors still playing out?
I believe like I said before,  primordial factors have some components in our body polity but not as fundamental as we had in the past republics. The Nigerian politician employs the instrument of religion to feather their nests, to advance their political agenda. But when you talk of region and ethnicity in the first and second republic, it was done at the level of a political party. How do I mean? NPC of Ahmadu Bello did not hide their feelings and bias for the protection and promotion of Islam and other interests. Same goes for NCNC and AG. These parties were reincarnation of ethnic interests. You cannot talk of that today. It was a kind of ethnic and group agenda. In spite of the effort  made in 1979 Constitution to make political parties national by  deemphasising the issue of religion, NPN , though claimed to be national,  was still  more or less a northern party. Their members then did not hide their bias for Islam. Same goes for UPN, PRP and GNPP.  The point I am trying to make here is that individuals under this dispensation, could want to use to advance their own interest but not at the group level, not at ethnic level. Perhaps, the Atikus may want to do it to curry a favour from the north, from the Muslims.  So, if at the individual level, you see the Asari of a man saying ‘yes we can concede’, it’s Asari speaking not PDP, not South-South.

What’s the implication?
The implication is very clear. Such a people need to be cautioned and called to order in order not to send a wrong signal. These are individuals that should not be taken seriously giving their pedigree.  The  truth is that all these people are just looking for what they will eat by trying to give impression they are in support of the government. But yours truly, it doesn’t help the polity neither does it help the party.

Jonathan sacrificing his ambition
You can only make that proposal if the security challenge is traceable to Jonathan, but you and I know  that  the present security challenge is not about Jonathan . This obvious truth must be told. It’s just like a coach and the players. He will not be on the field of play. Jonathan is not the security personnel. This  issue should be addressed holistically. If  we are facing this problem out of  sabotage, who are the saboteurs? Even if Jonathan goes which I don’t  agree with, will these saboteurs not still be there?

Security challenges
What is happening in this country today is a case of real threat to Nigeria’s territorial integrity. In security parlance, we have what we call the emerging threat, potential threat, passive threat and real threat. Before it gets to the real threat, you must have seen the tendency for a perceived or imagined threat and where we are now came about as a result of our inability to really assess what I call emerging threat which had been there for over 40 years.  Remember, in our university days, from Niger state to Kaduna, any restaurant you got to , you saw the almajiri boys  in a jiffy,  swooping around your food in a jiffy. That is to tell you we have reservoir of uneducated children uncatered for. No programme put in place to address these floating boys. When those boys could not find meals to swoop on any longer, when those restaurants parked up, they simply became willing tools in the hands of those willing to give them money.

Two, for over 40 years we have clamour for  resource control by people who believe they are being   marginalised , who believed their environment is being denigrated and degraded  but not adequately compensated, and we are trying to because of one hegemony or the other, play it down as they were no issues. That clamour culminated in Niger Delta crisis, MEND and militancy. That was an emerging threat  and we failed to key this into our defence policy , into our poverty related programmes, into our education policy, into our environmental policy. Again, this got to a climax and blew out under this republic.

Thirdly,  for  decades we have been seen herdsmen , the Fulanis, raring their cattle. Do you have any plan to carve out for them a grazing reserve? While this was on, there were cases of Fulani/farmers attack but  successive governments underplayed and trivialised it.  This was another case of emerging threat, perceived threat and potential threat.  All these now rare their heads and the only place they could fully come to the open was under a democracy, because that was where anybody can speak up, where your voice is not heard, you could resort to anything. Unfortunately for us, the security people in charge of intelligence gathering did not assess the situation very well to really allow the perception of the trends  to key into our policy for government to now plan adequately.  Honestly, where we have found ourselves today is not accidental, rather a culmination of series of events and our failure as a government and as a people to nip this in the bud.

IT’s unfortunate that up till today, we have not really come up with any serious surveillance on the basis of academic research to get to the root of the situation. A policy is bound to fail when it is not a product of any research work. In   advanced democracies, before they come up with any policy, they  must have ventured into some fact  findings. The trial and error system we presently adopt to address the issue is not helping the situation and cannot help the situation.

Invitation of foreign troops as an indictment?
No, it’s not. Nigeria as a sovereign nation is a member of so many organisations. The essence of such international organsiations is for member nations to court each others’ friendship and enhance cooperation. The issue of terrorism is not a domestic issue but a global issue. There are so many protocols, so many conventions and resolutions of the United Nations.

Why was it difficult for our security agencies to tackle the crisis before metamorphosing into terrorism?
The security strategy has so many levels, many components. In advanced countries, you don’t see military, yes these are people that handle instruments of coercion, they defend the country’s territorial integrity. Even within the armed forces, there are some intelligentsia and a kind of linkage between what they do and those outside the institution.

Coming to Nigeria now, I am sorry to say that the police and the military see themselves as far from the civilians and the people they are to protect. Even the police that are supposed to be civil are not in the real sense of it. A police will confront someone in a very aggressive manner. The first thing in policing or military work is to embark on intelligence gathering.  Who  is the criminal, who is sponsoring him and where does he stay? Carrying ammunition should not be the identity of whom you are. Saudi Arabia is a good case study. You hardly see their security agents carrying guns. This orientation is lacking in Nigeria’s security circle.  It ’ s worrisome  for instance in the wake of this challenge to see SSS personnel  wearing uniforms and wielding guns. It’s not done. You don’t create fear in the minds of those who will assist you in information gathering that will assist you in apprehending the so-called armed robbers.

Mutiny in Maiduguri
The  development over the soldiers trying to humiliate, embarrass , confront  or attack is an unfortunate development. This however never came to me as a surprise. In the 60’s and 70s through the 80’s, this was a period discipline held sway in the military. The institution was then devoid of politics. A Gwari man could lead an Hausa man and he must take order, an Igbo or any other tribe. The language and only language then was military and not who you knew.  From 90’s to date, the discipline is gone. We have seen a junior police officer disrespecting   a superior. In this same country, we saw a general kneeling down for a major under Abacha.  Things have gone that bad and the implication is what you are seeing.

Dialogue for Boko Haram
Before now, I subscribed to the military option. But with the abduction of  our children which I want to believe the terrorists want to use as shield, I will want to make a case for negotiation .  The fact that these children are not killed from what we saw on the video,  gave a picture of what  they really(terrorists) want.  What they want to achieve is negotiation, what they want to achieve is swapping , what they want to achieve ultimately is the release of their colleagues  in detention. What we could not achieve before now was dialogue because government  did not know who these people are.

Government has made some progress with the arrest of some of the terrorists and the Boko Haram may have come under pressure from family members of those in detention, hence the need to resort to abduction of these school girls. The message is very clear to the Nigerian government and I want to urge that government should take advantage of this. One life is important to American government  much less over 200 lives. There is nothing bad if government resorts to negotiation for the safety of these children.  We have eminent Nigerians, global conflict resolution experts that could be used.  The terrorists  have defined their enemies which are government, government and government. If that is the case, I will therefore want to key into what eminent Professor Gambari(Ibrahim) said that we have some eminent Nigerians, we have eminent strategic experts globally that could be used to achieve a lasting peace. We should look at people that are impartial, credible and not necessarily the faces they know, regardless of who they are. We are talking of the likes of Professor Gambari himself, the like of Anyaoku and even experts outside Nigeria because it is an international issue. I want to say if the likes of Buhari is invited, he should not see it as PDP affair, he should oblige the government of the day for the sake of these abducted children,  because he fought for the unity of this country and  if the unity is now being threatened , he cannot but come up to the nation’s rescue to really show  his statesmanship.

How  easy is  Kwara for PDP?
I think that question is a very simple one. I don’t see any difficulty in PDP reclaiming Kwara state, I used the word reclaiming because it was a PDP state before the sell-out to APC. I am not just an analyst, I am not just from the state but a participant in the electoral process in that state. From my observation in the last election, I discovered that the opposition party then-the ACN in so many areas won the election. I am from Ilorin. In Ilorin South, from the INEC declared results the ACN defeated Bukola as a sitting governor , in Ilorin West the PDP defeated the ACN with less than 1000 votes. Where the then ruling party had  some granted margin were in the rural areas and you know what that means. In the central you are talking of Asa and Baruten in Kwara North.  These are areas that are not easily penetrable by electoral officers. In the urban areas, the opposition is in control. Those who made the opposition then like the Belgores, the Gbemi Sarakis are now within the PDP fold, as  well as Prof Oba Abdulraheeem and Bio Ibrahim.  When you combine the ACPN  and ACN votes that time, they were more than that of the PDP. Don’t forget again that the PDP equally has one senator(Simon Ajibola) who is till with them  and two House of Assembly  members. If you look at all these , you will realise that it is very difficult to defeat PDP in the contest.

How strong is Saraki factor in Kwara politics?
I mean Saraki as a   name.  Saraki factor is still a factor in Kwara politics. But don’t forget we have a divided Saraki institution as at today. Four of the Sarakis were in PDP but today  one moved to APC while the three others , led by Gbemi are with PDP. As a sitting governor then, Bukola  was defeated in Ilorin South and almost   lost out in Ilorin West.  Today, he is no more a sitting governor but a senator, whose seat is still being disputed at the Supreme Court level. When  you look at that vis-a-vis the poor performance of the Ahmed-led administration, then you know how difficult it is for the APC to win Kwara  state . Are Kwarans not jobless? How many youths are being employed? Forget about the N10,000 empowerment programme.  A situation where the state’s money  is being shared between government and a so-called godfather, a situation where ventures that are supposed to be bringing in money for the state is being personalised is not good for the state. Talk of Harmony investment, Shonga Farm and all of these, they  are issues that will determine the 2015 contest. In short, Kwarans are disenchanted with  Bukola Saraki.