Max Siollun
As
the north of the country suffers at the hands of Boko Haram one former
military ruler, known for his ‘iron fist’, is enjoying huge levels of
support for his presidential bid. Max Siollun assesses what might happen if he wins
Former military ruler and presidential candidate Muhammadu Buhari in Lagos. Photograph: Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP/Getty Images
Max Siollun
With only two weeks to go until the most closely contested
presidential election in Nigeria’s history, the biggest issue on the
agenda is security. From Boko Haram to the instability of the
oil-producing Niger Delta, the political fight between incumbent
President Goodluck Jonathan and the lead opposition candidate, Major-General Muhammadu Buhari, revolves around who will ensure peace and stability.
Buhari is relying on his credentials as a retired general and former military ruler to convince the electorate that he is the man to end the violent Boko Haram insurgency that has killed more than 10,000 Nigerians and displaced 1.5 million others.
But what would Nigeria be like under a Buhari presidency? He has vowed to take the fight to Boko Haram, crush the sect, and “lead from the front”. Expectations of the stern and resolute general are sky high – many think he is tailor made to end Nigeria’s insecurity, but is he the reformed democrat he claims to be?
Boko Haram
Senior security figures have repeatedly stated that there is no
military solution to the insurgency, and that the government must
address the socio-economic causes of Boko Haram. Nigeria’s former chief of defence staff General MartinLuther
Agwai has said: “You can never solve any of these problems with
military solutions … it is a political issue; it is a social issue; it
is an economic issue, and until these issues are addressed, the military
can never give you a solution.”
Buhari has dealt with insecurity in Nigeria before. In 1983 he led an
army unit that drove out Chadian rebels who had made incursions over
the north-easternNigerian border. In an ironic
reversal of fortunes, the Chadian army is now helping Nigeria to fight
Boko Haram insurgents in the same corner of Nigeria. In response, Buhari
has called the current Nigerian government’s reliance on assistance
from a much poorer country like Chad a “big disgrace”.
Chadian soldiers gather near the Nigerian town of Gamboru. Photograph: Marle/AFP/Getty Images
The current government’s security forces have made tentative steps in
the direction of a “soft approach to countering terrorism”. The
national security adviser Lt Colonel Sambo Dasuki appointed Dr Fatima
Akilu, a psychologist, to work as the director of behavioural analysis
and strategic communication in his office. Last year it was announced
that Akilu had designed a programme for de-radicalising and
rehabilitating militants, and a communication strategy to counter Boko
Haram’s narrative. However initiatives such as this will take years or
decades to have effect, and the Nigerian public is not patient enough
for incremental progress.
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The
rhetoric of Buhari’s campaign suggests that the defence policy is
likely to change greatly if he were to win the election. His
tough-talking promises to confront Boko Haram resonate with the Nigerian
public. He has said he
“will not tolerate insurgency, sabotage of the economy” and, in
reference to the instability in the Niger Delta, the “the blowing up of
installations, by stealing crude and so on ... All these things will be
things of the past.”
If Buhari comes to power Dasuki and his colleague Lt GeneralAliyu
Mohammed, the minister of defence, are likely to find themselves
unemployed. Both men were key figures in the military palace coup that
overthrew Buhari in 1985 (when Dasuki was a young army officer and
Mohammed was the head of military intelligence).
There are questions over a military approach, too. So far, when the
military has hit Boko Haram hard the group has escalated its violence
and taken indirect revenge
against civilians. Even if Buhari does end the Boko Haram insurgency,
the conspiracy theorists among his opponents will likely use that
against him to buttress their narrative that the insurgency led by
northern Islamic insurgents was a political ploy to destabilise the
southern Christian President Goodluck Jonathan.
The Niger Delta
Boko Haram is not the only security menace threatening Nigeria. In 2009,
after years of disrupting Nigeria’s oil production, exports and
installations, more than 25,000 militants who waged an armed insurgency
in the oil-producing Niger Delta areas of southern Nigeria
to protest against economic exploitation agreed to lay down their
weapons. In exchange for peace, the government promised to grant them
amnesty, cash stipends, and training.
The elephant in the Nigerian room is that the government’s amnesty
deal with the Niger Delta militants expires later this year, and the
militants have threatened to take up arms
again if Jonathan is not re-elected. Many militants see Jonathan – who
comes from Bayelsa State, the heartland of Nigeria’s oil producing
region – as one of their own. Eighty percent of the Nigerian government’s income
comes from oil exports, so the Niger Delta insurgency carries much more
severe economic consequences than the Boko Haram in the north.
Worryingly, four states in the Delta (Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Delta, and
Rivers States) alone produce 80% of Nigeria’s oil (out of a total of 36 states in Nigeria).
Four states in the Delta alone produce 80% of Nigeria’s oil. Photograph: George Esiri/EPA
Although Buhari has said very little about the Niger Delta during his
election campaign, the militants have reason for discomfort if Buhari
becomes president. Militant leaders have become very rich
from government patronage and contracts. Many ex-militants have been
awarded security contracts to guard the oil installations they once
protested against and attacked. Buhari – a man with a reputation for
austerity and a no-nonsense approach to hard graft – is not the type of
person to pay people money to not be violent.
In addition Nigeria’s ethnic, geographic, and religious differences
can prove explosive, and it’s unlikely that Buhari – a Muslim from
northern Nigeria – will treat the southern Christian Niger Delta
militants differently to the Islamic Boko Haram , who this week declared their allegiance
to Isis. Buhari simply won’t be able to hit one group of insurgents
with an iron fist while negotiating with the other. But, if he stops the
Niger Deltamilitants’ payments, then the country could face the daunting prospect of simultaneous insurgencies in both the north and south.
Those who have worked with Buhari describe him as “strong willed” and
“completely inflexible”; suggesting that his resolute and unyielding
temperament means he will stick to his words and will try to force a
result with insurgents on the battlefield, rather than in the
negotiating room.
If he becomes president after the vote, postponed until the 28th of
March, Buhari will face the unenviable task of inheriting a nightmarish
security landscape. But Nigeria’s problems are so deep and complex that
they are likely to outlast Jonathan, however long he hopes to cling to
power, and Buhari too if he is sucessful. Max Siollun is a Nigerian historian, writer, and author of the books Oil, Politics and Violence: Nigeria’s Military Coup Culture 1966-1976 and Soldiers of Fortune: a History of Nigeria (1983-1993). Follow him on Twitter @maxsiollun
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