In August last year, development economist and former deputy governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Obadiah Mailafia, offered a lead that could have been explored to get to the roots of the insurgency in the country. But the chance was fluffed.
Speaking during a programme on Nigeria Info 95.1FM, Abuja, on August 10, Mailafia said that repentant insurgents had informed him that a governor from the North was their commander. The statement caused a stir among Nigerians, with the Northern Governors’ Forum asking the security agencies to investigate the allegation.
Apparently rattled by the disclosure, the Department of State Security (DSS) dismissed the allegation as fake news, but Mailafia stood his ground, insisting he was ready to lay down his life for Nigeria.
“This is not the time to disown what I said. Yes, I was privy to some very sensitive information, which all statesmen are entitled to have by virtue of our public roles,” he asserted.
But after several invitations by the DSS and rigorous interrogation, Mailafia backed down on his claim, saying that he lacked the evidence to back his allegations that the government was culpable in the killing of Nigerians and that an unnamed governor was a sponsor of bandits terrorizing the country. Even with the volte-face, Nigerians were not convinced. The suspicion, rather, was that he may have been forced to make the confession as condition for his freedom from overzealous security agents. With that, the opportunity to dig into the sponsorship of insurgency in the land was bungled.
But the unfolding persona and character of the Minister for Communication and Digital Economy, Isa Ali Pantami, show that Mailafia may not have been careless in his disclosure, after all. An online publication, NewsWireNgr, had earlier in the month alleged that Pantami was an ally to the founder of Boko Haram, Mohammed Yusuf, adding that the minister has been listed by the American government under its terrorist watch list. Faced with threats of libel, the medium quickly pulled down the story with a retraction but a daily newspaper, which also carried the piece, maintained its stand.
More audio materials published by Peoples Gazette gave out the minister as sympathetic to Boko Haram members in his sermons at several worship centres in the late 2000s.
Other public comments by Pantami, including a 2004 speech, exposed where he expressed support for the Taliban and al-Qaeda (“O God, give victory to the Taliban and to al-Qaeda”). He was also said to have preached that “jihad is an obligation for every single believer, especially in Nigeria.”
These views tallied with an occasion in 2006, where Pantami reportedly mourned the death of the leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, “May God have mercy on Ahmad Fadeel al-Khalayleh (al-Zarqawi’s birth name).”
His image handlers have alleged misrepresentation in translation and a calculated agenda to undo him. But following strident calls for his resignation, Pantami caved in, saying “Some of the comments I made some years ago that are generating controversies now were based on my understanding of religious issues at the time, and I have changed several positions taken in the past based on new evidence and maturity.”
The minister’s confession may have recorded some points in some places. But that is not enough. The axiom that to whom much is given, much is expected, is apposite here. As a young adult of 49 years, Pantami has achieved much in position and academic standing, given the relative education disadvantage of his region of birth. He attended leading institutions of higher learning, including Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, Scotland, where he earned a PhD. Pantami was also trained in digital transformation at Harvard University, USA; management strategy at both Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Institute of Management Development in Loussaune, Switzerland. He was in Cambridge University for a management programme, among others. At various times, he was a lecturer in information technology at Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University, Bauchi, and at the Islamic University of Madinah, as head of technical writing. He is an author of several publications. His last outing before being appointed minister was as director-general and CEO of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) from September 26, 2016, to August 20, 2019.
By all standards, Pantami parades a comprehensive resume that should advertise him as an emerging leader in the march for a better Nigeria. But, as the saying goes, the hood does not make the monk. The academic laurels garnered by the minister do not have much impact in broadening his world view. Rather, he has proven to be a typical Nigerian politician who readily exploits the various fault lines in the country to achieve a particular advantage at any particular time. While, for instance, it served him to play the religious card to hoodwink vulnerable members of his faith and region, it did not matter to him that such dubious engagement could weigh heavily on the unity and corporate existence of the nation. Now, it favours him to claim that he has known better and seen clearer. In a situation as ours, where religious and ethnic sentiments take the place of rational reasoning, it will not be unusual for foot soldiers and sympathisers lining behind the minister.
But a thorough check on Pantami could have saved Nigeria the present embarrassment that he constitutes, if those charged with the responsibility had done their work. For whatever it is worth, a man of such bigoted past should not have had anything to do with public office in a delicate religious setting as Nigeria, let alone heading a sensitive ministry as communications and digital economy. That in itself is a threat to national security.
Of course, we may never know the report presented on him to the President by the relevant security agencies. But it will be difficult to exonerate President Muhammadu Buhari from the Pantami embarrassment. The minister’s parochial views, to some extent, run with the President’s exclusionist mindset.
We may blame Pantami for his fanatical antecedents or the DSS for not doing the needful but the fact remains that he must have found favour with the President in clinching his current office. If you see this rapport from the angle of two like minds bonding on issues of religious extremism, you may not be entirely out of order. After all, before the Boko Haram fully unfurled to its current murderous tendencies, Buhari was among those who saw the military offensive against the group as an attack on the North. Young Turks as Pantami must have drawn a lot from that bizarre interpretation. But that is a story for another day.
For now, the minister has to go. Any day he remains in office reinforces the insinuation that the President has two sets of laws, one for those he hates and the other for those he loves. Such duplicitous postures will always fire the demand for the resolution of the Nigerian National Question.