Misunderstanding insecurity: Hold Sobowale Responsible

By Dauda Iliya

Dr. Dele Sobowale has been every reader’s delight for decades now. His Sunday columns fill up our weekends.

Dr. Sobowale writes in his own style: persuasive, lucid and witty. He has carved his own niche with his style of reaching out and pulling along, his readers to whichever directions he desires, well-intentioned or otherwise.

Sometimes he can be reckless and controversial. For some, this is what draws them to his weekly offerings.

He freely dabbles into issues he doesn’t fully understand. This was the case in his last column. He ventured into an unknown terrain, and lost all control.

To everyone possessing passion for, and genuinely committed to, justice and fairness with regard to issues affecting our dear country, most especially the seemingly intractable insecurity incinerating majority of its sections, the column vividly portrayed Sobowale as having sight, but lacking vision.

He has sight to see the things that inspire him to write, but completely lacks the vision to see beyond what have often turned to be his faulty sights about those things, and fathom them well enough to guarantee credibility for his writings, for the sustenance of the tradition of justice and fairness on issues affecting humanity.

It is a pity. Dr. Sobowale started mixing up things from his first sentence. He said Borno—perhaps he meant Nigeria—was under the PDP between 2011 and 2015.

This glaringly portrayed him as laughably very hasty to castigate Governor Babagana Zulum incontrovertibly unjustly on the resurgence of insecurity.

We wish to proudly report to Sobowale that not only the majority of the Nigerian public, but even the entire globe, represented by the United Nations, have hailed the governor over the non-kinetic-approach projects and programmes to solve the massive humanitarian crisis concomitant to the Boko Haram/ISWAP terror.

Sobowale the columnist continued on his free-fall until he was lost in the debris. He tried to turn the whole Boko Haram crisis on its head. It is weird. He was looking for who to blame. In his obviously now failing judgment, he visited it on Gov. Zulum. It is time for some education.

It is inconceivable how Sobowale failed to get the details of the ongoing reintegration program. First of all, it is not a program of the state government. It was initiated by the Federal Government. The state government is only a partner because most of the rehabilitation centers are located in the state.

In fact, until recently, the program was run in Gombe State. As such, Gov. Zulum has never claimed to have singlehandedly run the program, let alone order the reintegration of surrendered fighters. We do not seriously know where he got his facts, but the official position which the governor has mentioned several times is the receipt of over 300, 000 surrendered members of the group. It is often mistaken. Of this number, a lot were captives or conscripts who fled and turned themselves over to authorities when they saw an opportunity.

Without any labor, Sobowale should have known that no governor in Nigeria can unilaterally receive terrorists, run a de-radicalization program and reintegrate them. That act is itself terrorism. In this case, these surrendered fighters surrender to the Nigerian military under the Operation Safe Corridor.

OSC was launched in 2016 by the federal government. It was also one of the recommendations of the 2013 Boko Haram dialogue committee set up by President Jonathan. It was a platform for repented terrorists or those who wanted to give up arms to turn themselves over.

They go through preliminary investigations in military facilities before they are finally handed over to the state government, on behalf of the FG. Again, they go through another round of profiling before their exact de-radicalization and rehabilitation programs are prescribed.

A lot of these people were only associated to the terrorist groups. As such, they require different rehabilitation programs and approaches. There is a case of forcefully recruited young men and women; who, even when armed and deployed to fight, did it more under duress than ideology. Others were recruited as cooks, errand boys and menial laborers. They also share neither ideology nor creed.

Some of them were seized from their communities and herded into forced marriages. From these forced marriages, a lot have given birth. These boys and girls are now aged between five and fourteen—growing up to join the ranks of their fathers, if not rescued. These unsuspecting children need to be rescued—for their good and the country. They are victims.

The profiling process separates between combatant and noncombatant. Most of the latter do not require de-radicalization, they are only traumatized.

They need psychological therapy and support. Somewhere in his piece, Sobowale alluded that the governor carried out the reintegration unilaterally; and even worse, without any knowledge or research on security. Unfortunately, he failed his own test. Apart from mixing up basic facts, he also failed to carry out any research or inquiry about the subject he wrote about.

For, if he had done that, he would have come across the Borno Model, the elaborate manual used for the de-radicalization, rehabilitation and reintegration program.

Let’s serve Sobowale a little of the education he has failed to acquire justly and fairly to sustain whatever he sees as as his reputation among his blinded readers: The Borno Model template, developed by experts from various sectors, government institutions, communities, CSOs and development partners, is a product of months of rigorous research and exhaustive case studies of several instances worldwide.

It is disturbing that Sobowale is still, despite decades of exposure, at a point where he thinks a government is simply a one man’s enterprise.

To assume that, as a professor of Engineering, Gov. Zulum is not qualified to take policy decisions on security is truly shallow. This being the logic, why should he be allowed to make one on health, as he is not a medical doctor?

Beyond being an alumnus of the country’s leading institute of policy and strategic studies—the National Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies, NIPSS—Gov. Zulum, as every other governor, has in his services seasoned civil servants, aides and consultants. He has the state executive council.

In fact, even in dictatorships, leaders always have a body of advisors who advise them. Let me also remind Mr. Sobowale that the federal government has also outlined the surrender of Boko Haram insurgents as gains recorded under President Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda.

The National Security Adviser, Malam Nuhu Ribado at the recently held APC summit in Abuja said “In the North East, 13,543 terrorists were neutralised, 124,408 Boko Haram/ISWAP fighters surrendered, and 11,118 weapons were recovered”.

This is a most-authoritative testament to the excellent stewardships of Zulum and his other governors of the subregion on the concrete accomplishments, not abstract statistics, with regard to the management of the terror- orchestrated humanitarian crisis that has rubbled the North-East economy.

It is, therefore, devastating that Mr. Dele Sobowale would, on the basis of inaccurate premises, visit such heavy allegations—of being responsible for the resurgence of terrorist attacks—on the governor.

One has to visit and sufficiently traverse an entity before one can credibly understand it’s complexities. However, Sobowale simply thinks he can understand the complexities of Boko Haram from the pages of newspapers or search engine results.

People who truly understand it are raining encomiums on the governor and marveling at how he is midwifing massive infrastructural projects, rebuilding of damaged communities, resettling of displaced persons and refugees, with provision of basic amenities to his people, including those in remote settlements.

He must have seen the hero’s welcome Prof. Zulum received from his people upon return from a one-week tour of several remote villages. It was a bravery that ends every bravery.

Sobowale’s utter ignorance of the true nature of things extends beyond Boko Haram. He doesn’t have even an elementary understanding of the demography he was talking about. For him, it was ludicrous that the governor called for prayers and a one day fasting.

He said, given the level of hunger in the country, the call was an attempt to cause massive deaths in the state. In this case, it is a wonder that Dr. Sobowale hasn’t yet launched a campaign or protest against the 30-day Ramadan fasting and 40 days of lent every year.

Across faith, people heeded the governor’s call. Some of these demographic nuances are obviously beyond the understanding of Dr. Sobowale. And it is a pity that this undermines his judgment of basic things.

So, last Sunday’s Vanguard column should have analysed ‘holding Sobowale responsible’ for worsening the misunderstanding of his readers on the true state of insecurity in Borno, which tantamount to misleading them on the complexities of their dear country, instead of ‘holding Zulum responsible’ for the resurgence of insecurity in Borno, which is in complete contrast to his exemplary accomplishments in the management of the terror crisis, accomplishments hailed by the entire globe, represented by the United Nations.

Dauda Iliya is the Special Adviser to Borno State Governor on Media/Spokesperson