EXPRESSO >> By Steve Osuji
The very name, ‘Eastern Sanity’ is derogatory. The military seems to insist that the Southeast of Nigeria is devoid of enough normalcy for sound human existence. Therefore, only a military operation can imbue sanity on the zone. This seems to be the thought process behind OPERATION EASTERN SANITY, OES, currently being embarked upon by the Nigerian Army in the Southeastern end of Nigeria.
This column avers that this mindset of the Army, especially their commanders, is flawed, provocative, perverse, and liable to yield negative results in the end.
Yours truly is writing this from the SE zone. He has been there since mid-December. He has travelled around the zone a bit. He makes bold to say that the oriental side of Nigeria is probably the most peaceful and most quiet part of Nigeria currently.
The massive return for the Christmas and New year festivities by Ndigbo went almost perfectly. There was nary an security incident.
Right now, (mid-February), life seems to have further normalised in the SE. Not even the sit-at-home conundrum is effective anymore.
Though the NA didn’t categorically communicate the rationale for it’s ongoing operation, it is Understood that the OES may be a mop-up action against IPOB and its ESN arm, but since Nnamdi Kanu, the arrowhead of the Igbo separatist agitation was incarcerated late last year, all has quietened.
Locked away in faraway Sokoto, the public optics remains that it’s a ‘conquest’ of the Igbo nation, and they seem to be living out their ignominious fate with equanimity. This column cannot remember any major IPOB-related incident or violence since Kanu was neutered with that choreographed court conviction.
WHY IS THE SOUTHEAST BEING GARRISONED? The question now is why would the Nigerian Army move troops to the southeast as if it were another country? Why would the southeast not be allowed to breathe for a while? Southeast is already on lockdown with probably the most military checkpoints in Nigeria; every state has military commands and barracks… Why do we need to further garrison an area that’s landlocked and the smallest zone in Nigeria? Fulani terrorists have made a sport of killing hapless Nigerians in Kwara, Kaduna, Borno, Benue, Plateau and Niger States, nigh every day. On most occasions, the murderers walk away after every massacre or mass abduction. No arrest, no reprisals. If only there were as many military checkpoints in these states as in the southeast.
SOUTHEAST NEEDS OPERATION SAFE CORRIDOR OR OLIVE BRANCH: We have seen thousands of Fulani terrorists being de-radicalised and reintegrated into the society in the SAFE CORRIDOR programme of the military. This soft approach can also be introduced in the SE.
It needs to be noted that hunting down and mopping up of Igbo youths who are supposedly IPOB members would not end the Biafra agitation. On the contrary, it would gain more sympathy, win more followers and drive the struggle underground. Boots and guns never extinguishes serious agitations for separation. Soft power is more effective. Let’s have OPERATION OLIVE BRANCH in the southeast instead.
Speaking of non-kinetic approach, it is common knowledge that the SE has been meted with humiliating marginalisation, unfair and unjust policies in the last decade of the APC government starting with the late President Muhammadu Buhari.
A change in what seems like a scorch-earth policy against Ndigbo will work like magic if the federal government truly seeks peace in the east.
For instance, the Aba-Owerri road has been abandoned for nearly 15 years. Rail lines, sea ports, international passenger and cargo airports and requisite federal appointments will douse the incipient agitation in the SE; not all the arsenal of the NA can purge Igbo of Biafra.
Of course ‘operations’ are carried out with big budgets and it’s one way to keep the ‘boy’ happy.
Former COAS … Buratai was a master of the ‘game’. He embarked on all sorts of his so-called operations in the SE, including Python Dance and Egwueke. But in the end, Buhari ended up escalating the conflict and amassing body bags. Amnesty International has reports of atrocious extra judicial killings and missing persons in the SE at that period.
(At least 150 peaceful pro-Biafra activists killed in chilling campaign of extra-judicial executions I Onitsha, 30th May, 2016). This is an Amnesty investigation report.
Let’s recall that IPOB was largely a nonviolent movement before President Buhari tried to end the agitations with arms and anger. That was when the ESN was formed more in self defense than in open defiance of the Nigerian state. This was thereabouts 2017.
LET THE POLICE DO IT’S JOB: Perhaps as proof that OES is ill-considered: First week, the troop picked up an IED in a church under controversial circumstances. In the second week, the NA 144 Battalion under OES arrested three suspected criminals and recovered a stolen Mack in Abia State.
This shows the army is clearly usurping the duties of the police in the guise of some nebulous military operation.
In summary, what is needed in the SE today is improved policing and intelligence gathering and processing. There’s already too much military presence. And in case the military hierarchy feigns ignorance, let it be revealed to them that most of the men mounted on those ugly checkpoints in the SE are doing everything but security work. Armed soldiers in uniform are openly taking bribes and extorting commuters. It is a show of shame and a debasement of the much vaunted professionalism the NA is known for. This column hopes that someday, a reform-minded Army Chief would come along and stop this festering sore in the once highly regarded army, considered the best in Africa.
LASTLINES: LET EL RUFAI BE! Nigeria’s political season is in full bloom. And the ruling APC government has helped in no small way to muddy the democratic waters, so to speak, making the atmosphere tense. Since you cannot eat your cake and have, the APC needs to tread softly so that it doesn’t bring down the roof over our head eventually.
We all have looked on as the democratic spaces are being shuttered… We see almost all serving governors and elected legislators being ‘taken over’ by the APC, like a big man openly buying over the wives of poor men. We haven’t seen a scenario like this before in Nigeria’s political history. We see the game being played with the electoral law…
Now the APC paints Nasir el Rufai with dark colours as if he was born yesterday.
Whatever Nasir is today, the same he was yesterday when he was the APC lynchpin. All the crimes he is being accused of today, he committed under the APC yesterday in a decade of impunity.
To pull him in today because he’s no longer in the APC camp is POLITICAL PERSECUTION!
It’s the same with the trial of the former Attorney-General and Minister for Justice, Abubakar Malami, it is political witch-hunt, short and simple.
The point is that the APC has lost the moral authority to fight corruption; all the anti-graft agencies have become a reproach unto themselves.
We are not impressed by the ongoing charade. They all should actually be disbanded for now!
