psychopaths and child abductors, taunting the
world, mocking the BRING BACK OUR GIRLS
campaign on internet, finally met its match in
Nigeria to inaugurate the week of September 11 –
most appropriately.
Shekau's dance macabre was surpassed by the
unfurling of a political campaign banner that
defiled an entry point into Nigeria's capital of
Abuja. That banner read: BRING BACK
JONATHAN 2015.
President Jonathan has since disowned all
knowledge or complicity in the outrage but, the
damage has been done, the rot in a nation's
collective soul bared to the world. The very
possibility of such a desecration took the Nigerian
nation several notches down in human regard. It
confirmed the very worst of what external
observers have concluded and despaired of - a
culture of civic callousness, a coarsening of
sensibilities and, a general human disregard.
It affirmed the acceptance, even domination of
lurid practices where children are often victims of
unconscionable abuses including ritual sacrifices,
sexual enslavement, and worse. Spurred by
electoral desperation, a bunch of self-seeking
morons and sycophants chose to plumb the abyss
of self-degradation and drag the nation down to
their level.
It took us to a hitherto unprecedented low in
ethical degeneration. The bets were placed on
whose turn would it be to take the next potshots
at innocent youths in captivity whose society and
governance have failed them and blighted their
existence?
Would the Chibok girls now provide standup
comic material for the latest staple of Nigerian
escapist diet? Would we now move to a new
export commodity in the entertainment industry
named perhaps "Taunt the Victims"?
As if to confirm all the such surmises, an ex-
governor, Sheriff, notorious throughout the
nation – including within security circles as
affirmed in their formal dossiers - as prime
suspect in the sponsorship league of the scourge
named Boko Haram, was presented to the world
as a presidential traveling companion. And the
speculation became: was the culture of impunity
finally receiving endorsement as a governance
yardstick?
Again, Goodluck Jonathan swung into a plausible
explanation: it was Mr. Sheriff who, as friend of
the host President Idris Deby, had traveled ahead
to Chad to receive Jonathan as part of President
Deby's welcome entourage. What, however does
this say of any president? How came it that a
suspected affiliate of a deadly criminal gang,
publicly under such ominous cloud, had the
confidence to smuggle himself into the welcoming
committee of another nation, and even appear in
audience, to all appearance a co-host with the
president of that nation?
Where does the confidence arise in him that
Jonathan would not snub him openly or, after the
initial shock, pull his counterpart, his official host
aside and say to him, "Listen, it's him, or me."? So
impunity now transcends boundaries, no matter
how heinous the alleged offence?
The Nigerian president however appeared totally
at ease. What the nation witnessed in the photo-
op was an affirmation of a governance principle,
the revelation of a decided frame of mind – with
precedents galore. Goodluck Jonathan has
brought back into limelight more political
reprobates - thus attested in criminal courts of
law and/or police investigations - than any other
Head of State since the nation's independence.
It has become a reflex. Those who stuck up the
obscene banner in Abuja had accurately read
Jonathan right as a Bring-back president. They
have deduced perhaps that he sees "bringing
back" as a virtue, even an ideology, as the corner
stone of governance, irrespective of what is being
brought back.
No one quarrels about bringing back whatever
the nation once had and now sorely needs – for
instance, electricity and other elusive items like
security, the rule of law etc. etc. The list is
interminable. The nature of what is being brought
back is thus what raises the disquieting questions.
It is time to ask the question: if Ebola were to be
eradicated tomorrow, would this government
attempt to bring it back?
Well, while awaiting the Chibok girls, and in that
very connection, there is at least an individual
whom the nation needs to bring back, and
urgently. His name is Stephen Davis, the erstwhile
negotiator in the oft aborted efforts to actually
bring back the girls. Nigeria needs him back – no,
not back to the physical nation space itself, but to
a Nigerian induced forum, convoked anywhere
that will guarantee his safety and can bring others
to join him.
I know Stephen Davis, I worked in the
background with him during efforts to resolve the
insurrection in the Delta region under President
Shehu Yar'Adua. I have not been involved in his
recent labours for a number of reasons. The most
basic is that my threshold for confronting evil
across a table is not as high as his - thanks,
perhaps, to his priestly calling.
From the very outset, in several lectures and other
public statements, I have advocated one response
and one response only to the earliest, still putative
depredations of Boko Haram and have decried
any proceeding that smacked of appeasement.
There was a time to act – several times when firm,
decisive action, was indicated.
There are certain steps which, when taken, place
an aggressor beyond the pale of humanity, when
we must learn to accept that not all who walk on
two legs belong to the community of humans – I
view Boko Haram in that light. It is no comfort to
watch events demonstrate again and again that
one is proved to be right.
Thus, it would be inaccurate to say that I have
been detached from the Boko Haram affliction –
very much the contrary. As I revealed in earlier
statements, I have interacted with the late
National Security Adviser, General Azazi, on
occasion – among others.
I am therefore compelled to warn that anything
that Stephen Davis claims to have uncovered
cannot be dismissed out of hand. It cannot be
wished away by foul-mouthed abuse and cheap
attempts to impugn his integrity – that is an
absolute waste of time and effort. Of the
complicity of ex-Governor Sheriff in the
parturition of Boko Haram, I have no doubt
whatsoever, and I believe that the evidence is
overwhelming. Femi Falana can safely assume
that he has my full backing – and that of a
number of civic organizations - if he is compelled
to go ahead and invoke the legal recourses
available to him to force Sheriff's prosecution.
The evidence in possession of Security Agencies -
plus a number of diplomats in Nigeria - is
overwhelming, and all that is left is to let the man
face criminal persecution. It is certain he will also
take many others down with him.
Finally, Stephen Davis also mentions a Boko
Haram financier within the Nigerian Central
Bank. Independently we are able to give backing
to that claim, even to the extent of naming the
individual. In the process of our enquiries, we
solicited the help of a foreign embassy whose
government, we learnt, was actually on the same
trail, thanks to its independent investigation into
some money laundering that involved the Central
Bank.
That name, we confidently learnt, has also been
passed on to President Jonathan. When he is
ready to abandon his accommodating policy
towards the implicated, even the criminalized, an
attitude that owes so much to re-election
desperation, when he moves from a passive
"letting the law to take its course" to galvanizing
the law to take its course, we shall gladly supply
that name.
In the meantime however, as we twiddle our
thumbs, wondering when and how this nightmare
will end, and time rapidly runs out, I have only
one admonition for the man to whom so much
has been given, but who is now caught in the
depressing spiral of diminishing returns: "Bring
Back Our Honour."
Wole SOYINKA.
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless handheld from Glo Mobile.