Retired military personnel, Captain Aliyu Umar, has emphasised the need for Nigerian leaders to be sincere and move from Demagoguery to State Craftsmanship in order to end the insurgency in the north east.
Discussing issue of insurgency in Nigeria on Sunday, on Channels Television’s programme ‘Politics Today’, Mr Umar stressed that a Demagogue would appeal to sentiment, religion and emotions to do what he must do while a state’s craftsman would see potentials in those resources that seem to be scattered and articulate them.
He stated that the insurgency was fallout of the doings of the leaders who had left so much undone.
“The undoings of our leaders in the past are what we are seeing now as security challenges.
“Our leaders should learn to be social engineers. Those security problems that the police need to go there and monitor properly are actually sponsored by deficits in policies they are known to spurn.
“Having a state police is one way less travelled. It seems to me that people who are avoiding it have something to hide,” he said.
He also disagreed with the notion that education was western and should not be embraced by Muslims, a notion that the Boko Haram terrorist group have held unto when it started attacking villages in the north east.
“I want to make a position. I do not see education as being western or eastern. Education is education.
“If you go into history of education, Algebra, Astrology and History, they all have their roots in the endeavours of Arab scholars and for us to start appending education to cardinal points it is somewhat a bit comic.
“Education is about individuals and getting them to know things,” he stressed.
Captain Umar also explained that terrorism only thrive where there are no contentment, unity and responsible governance.
“What the terrorist does is to look for incubative areas that have certain traits. When they get it, they go and woo the oppressed class and give them what they feel they cannot get from their own government.
“They were suicide bombers but today they are plunderers.
“The design, modus operandi and temperament of the people we are seeing today are more of the Janjaweed inclined than the Boko Haram we use to know,” he pointed out.
Another discussant, a Senior lecturer of the University of Jos, Professor Tor Iorapuu, said that Nigerians had compromised the country’s security for many reasons – selfishness, interest of ethnic dimensions and intrigues of religiosity to that extent.
On the killings by herdsmen in Plateau State, Professor Iorapuu said that thhe attack had spilt to other states because it was not checked.
He stressed the need for delegates at Nigeria’s National Conference to discuss issues of insecurity and how to end it, but pointed out that deliberations would be successful when there is respect for each other.
“There should not be situations where people would be made to feel they are second class or third class citizens.
“The leaders should be sincere.
“The security system in Nigeria shuld also be purged,” he suggested.
The third discussant and one of the delegates to the National Conference, Mr John Dara, also blamed the insurgency on the government’s failure to educate northern children.
“I think we, as a people, have treated the issue of our national security with too much levity. We should know that we have, even among our neighbours, people who do not wish Nigeria well.
“There is self-inflicted division, hatred and crisis.
“It is a multidimensional problem and it demands concerted efforts in order to bring it under control.
“The problem is a bit complex and we should avoid simplistic analysis or solutions. It is correct that Boko Haram is a religious organisation but what created the Boko Haram phenomenon was the neglect to educate the children of northern Nigeria,” he stated.
Mr Dara described as tragic the fact that out of 10 million children that were out of school worldwide, seven million of those children were in Northern Nigeria.
“We are behind war torn countries in the education of our children.”
He also said that Fulani children would be more influential if they get educated and that the herdsmen would also become richer if the nation would modernise pastoral farming.
He suggested that the government should consider creating grazing areas for herdsmen to confine them in a particular location.