By Olakunle Olafioye
After branding bandits terrorists, the Federal Government will have to go a step further if its war against insecurity in the country must succeed.
This is the view of Jackson Lekan Ojo, a certified golden member of International Security Association, Switzerland and fellow of International Institute of Professional Security, IIPS.
Lekan-Ojo, who is also a chieftain of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), in this interview, said that the Federal Government has only succeeded in exerting five per cent of the needed strength in fighting banditry in the country, calls for a more decisive stance in dealing with enemies of the country.
He speaks more on other issues of national significance, including the state of affairs in APC, PDP and the Third Force.
The Federal Government has finally declared bandits as terrorists. How is this likely to impact on the nation’s security?
I want to applaud the government for this not minding the fact that it was Nigerians that forced the Federal Government to court and the court listened to their prayer by declaring bandits as terrorists. But the only thing is that the change of nomenclature does not matter; it’s government‘s subsequent actions that matter. Nigeria, for very long time was supposed to have dealt decisively with these terrorists. By changing their name from bandits to terrorists, the only thing it implies is that the issue of someone suing somebody for violating their fundamental human rights will no longer be there because the moment they are tagged terrorists, they don’t have any fundamental human rights in the same country they wage war against. By their new tag, the government can now deal with them ruthlessly. But then, if we call them terrorists and there is no political will to deal with them decisively, it does not change anything. The most important thing is that the government should be decisive in dealing with them. That is what will deter them from continuing with this fight. But if after branding them terrorists you refuse to kill them in the hope that they could repent and bring them back to the society for amnesty, you will only succeed in adding more fuel to the fire. If the government can come out fully to attack them, not only to just demonize them without treating them like demons, I strongly believe that they will be defeated.
Does it mean that the government, prior to the declaration of bandits as terrorists, has not been doing anything to rein these criminals in?
I make bold to say that when you are using one stick of broom to fight thousands of flies it can be said that you are doing something, but you are not doing it efficiently and effectively. That is why you see bandits strike every day. If they strike in Sokoto today, they will move to Zamfara tomorrow and move on to other places the next day just because we are just dealing with minimal effort; they have not been decisively dealt with. It is not to say you are fighting a man with a stick when he has a gun. In that situation, your effort will remain a futility because you fail to deal appropriately with him. The government has not been responding to the atrocities of these criminals with commensurate efforts. There has been no enough confrontation from the government end. That is why we are saying this time around the government must go all out against them. Imagine the government mobilizing about 34,000 policemen for Anambra election and God knows number of soldiers, DSS operatives and others, but these people are killing in Katsina, Sokoto, Niger. Let the Federal Government send troops and viable intelligence gathering mechanism to those areas, if we can do this definitely Nigeria will win this battle. But if we continue to treat them with kid gloves, we will still remain on the same spot. I make bold to say that the efforts they put in before now, where we required 100 per cent, they only put in five per cent.
By way of comparison, do you consider the task of containing the activities of bandits more or less tasking compared to that of Boko Haram considering their terrains of operation now that they have been declared as terrorists?
It is much easier dealing with bandits because Boko Haram, as you have noted, have restricted their activities to the border territories between Nigeria and Chad and Niger. That is to say they might come to Nigeria to strike and go back to their base in Niger or Chad and return again. These people have very sensitive intelligence that we can call eavesdroppers more than we have in the military and paramilitary in this country. The insurgents have eavesdroppers among our military and para-military operatives. If not, how will they know the movement of our troops and go ahead to lay ambush for them? Some people must have given them information. Their own eavesdroppers are very smart and efficient. We need to get a few of them arrested, re-indoctrinate them, re-sensitize them and use them as our agents of information. When you kill every insurgent you arrest you are killing your source of information. Before you begin to show the superiority of your weapons, you should be able to show the supremacy of you intelligence. The government needs to bug the phones of our military and para-military officers to be able to get those who are giving information to these criminals among them. Have you been able to probe people that have religious, emotional and ethnic sympathy for these terrorists? That is why people like us have asked the government to call for a discreet security summit, not the one that will be called where National Assembly members and kings will attend and be granted audience to speak. Do you know how many of them in the National Assembly are sponsoring terrorists? In this case you must not trust anybody in power because any of these people can be saboteur.
Recently, there was a report where some repentant Boko Haram members were alleged to have protested and escaped from where they were camped on the argument that the government did not have any serious plan for them. What is your reaction to this considering your suggestion on the need for the government to deploy them as tools for intelligence gathering?
At times your enemies can use your family member to spy on you because those people know your movement. In this case, that is why I said the government is reluctant in prosecuting the war against insecurity in this country. Again, there are people who are benefiting immensely from the insecurity in Nigeria and do not want an end to it. These are the people the government is relying on. How on earth will Boko Haram insurgents that have killed thousands of people, that have destroyed lives and property; that have been terrorizing this country and they will suddenly come out to tell you that they have repented. How on earth will you quickly embrace such people, camp them somewhere and begin to feed them? Is it not possible that these people were sent back to the society for the sole purpose of gathering information they will use to wreak more havoc in the country? Personally, I will suggest that 90 per cent of the so-called repentant Boko Haram members should be killed because of the magnitude of atrocities they have committed in this country. Because if you don’t do that, how do you want those whose family members have been killed or kidnapped by Boko Haram to interpret such treatments given to the so-called repentant Boko Haram? You can’t compare these terrorists to Niger Delta militants, who are purely agitators fighting for their rights. There is no part in the world where terrorists are granted amnesty. To me, the Nigerian government has no reason to grant them amnesty.
Since the report about the emergence of a Third Force which was touted to challenge the dominance of the All Progressives Congress and the People’s Democratic Party in 2023, not much has been heard about it. As one of its proponents, what is the current state of the Third Force now?
I am a chieftain of APC, but the Third Force is very tactical. The kind of politics being played in this country now has shown that a lot of politicians are not tacticians. Tactical politicians don’t talk or act carelessly. Members of this Third Force are monitoring the activities of PDP and APC. They are waiting for their missteps. In one way or the other, the PDP has succeeded in escaping the trap of the enemy.
Can you expatiate on what you mean by PDP escaping the trap of the enemy?
I said PDP has escaped the trap of the enemy because a lot of people had thought that immediately the party concluded its national congress the party would be mutilated and polarized. Surprisingly, however, the party has remained intact, but can that be said of APC? APC conducted congresses in 36 states, rather than have 36 state chairmen, about 96 state chairmen emerged. Is there anything united in such party. That is the power of multiple multiplications in their division. It is highly complicated. Only yesterday, some people came out and claimed they have come out to form their own National Working Committee and that they have sacked the Buni-led NWC. They also claimed that they had the endorsement of Mr. President. These people are from the youth wing of the party. You and I know that the youths constitute 70 per cent of the electorate during elections. So the youth wing of APC has now formed the NWC to take over from Mala Buni. What do you think will happen next? They will definitely need to get the matter resolved in the court. It is obvious that there are people sponsoring these youths. Those are the people that want the party scattered after which they will go to the Third Force. Also there are people like that in PDP now who can’t come to APC. But immediately their like minds move they will also follow. So, the Third Force, I think is silently gathering momentum; its final outing will be so decisive on the two dominant parties in the country.
What form will the Third Force take? Is it going to take the form of a political party?
The Third Force may not come out s a political party, but there could be what they call protest votes when 70 per cent of APC and 70 per cent of PDP will pull out and give their support to another political party. It happened in the days of NRC and SDP in Lagos. NRC was not popular at all in that state, but when there was a serious problem in SDP as a result of the imposition of the wrong candidate, the majority of the people in SDP protested against the party by supporting NRC at the election while they remained members of SDP. It also happened in Ondo State with Olusegun Mimiko. So, the Third Force may not form a new party. Don’t be surprised that one of these mushroom parties may end as the major beneficiary of the protest vote. So, let no one believe that the Third Force is sleeping, no, the Third Force is busy strategizing.