Clues in Shekau’s monologue

Also published in Daily Trust 

The escalating succession of the bloody and indiscriminate attacks across the North is obviously becoming too overwhelming not only for the victims and the other vulnerable people, but also for those who follow its unfolding incidents, especially considering how some devastating incidents are quickly overshadowed by other incidents in terms of the number of fatalities and amount of devastation. After all, even the incident of the mass abduction of hundreds of teenage girls in Chibok, which has attracted unprecedented international attention, is gradually being overshadowed by other incidents.

Interestingly enough, even though it is so far the biggest single abduction committed by the insurgents, the amount of international outcry it has attracted continues to baffle many observers considering the fact that many massacres had been committed before the Chibok abduction and have indeed continued to take place across the region, yet the reaction (if any) of the same international community has always been inadequate and lacked sincere commitment to prevent its recurrence.

Moreover, what the international community and Nigerian government fail to realize is that, any attempt to address the Chibok girl’s abduction dilemma, either by force or otherwise, in isolation from the whole crisis would simply fail. For instance, there is no doubt that, any attempt to rescue them by using military force will certainly put their lives at risk, because once pressurized, their abductors may simply kill them in cold blood.

Likewise, even if government or any mediators manage to reach out to the abductors to negotiate the girls’ release without addressing the whole crisis, the concessions they (Boko Haram) will necessarily extract from the government in the process (e.g. the release of their detained fellow insurgents among other things) will certainly strengthen and encourage them to carry on their mass murder campaign and abduction.

Anyway, in either case, the situation would get worse and the already slim hope for ending the plight of the abducted girls and indeed the whole crisis would keep evaporating due to poor handling of the situation by the government.

Under these circumstances, even the ongoing intelligence gathering exercise by some of the world’s leading military powers is not likely to translate into the release of the abducted girls, since they are not willing to engage the insurgents in combat and the Nigerian troops are according to the US Air Force Chief of Staff General Mark Welsh III “quite frankly, becoming afraid to even engage” as he stated in his recent testimony before the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

After all, the US and its few allies purportedly providing support to Nigerian military in the ongoing search and rescue efforts, had reportedly initially declared that they would not share intelligence with Nigeria. And though a deal was later said to have been reached between them and Nigeria in this regard under which the US agreed to share some intelligence with Nigeria, it appeared that it would only share intelligence analyses, not the core intelligence details.

Nevertheless, amidst this gloomy atmosphere of uncertainty and growing despair, there appears to be a glimmer of hope ironically in the very first speech by Shekau after the girls’ abduction in which he also confirmed his responsibility for their abduction. This is despite the sheer absurdity that characterized his reasoning and his futile attempt to justify his extremism by misinterpreting and quoting some Qur’anic verses out of context.

For instance, according to him, the equation is only between two conflicting parties i.e. “Muslims” who subscribe to his delusions and “unbelievers” who don’t. And that it’s his “religious” duty to compel those “unbelievers” to accept “Islam” or be killed. This explains why he repeatedly warns of slaughtering whoever disagrees with him, as he also repeatedly alluded that he has actually enslaved the girls his group abducted, and that he reserves the right to sell them, hold them for ransom or simply release them.

By the way, looking into the context in which Shekau argues, it is obvious that he is not only fully convinced of his religious misconceptions, but he actually challenges Muslim scholars to prove him wrong. Government should therefore consider this and other vital clues in his speech to draw an effective strategy to reach out to the leadership of the insurgents, persuade them to enter into dialogue to discuss the core religious misconceptions that motivate them to pursue their course, in the first place.

This is the only effective framework and engagement strategy with the leadership of the insurgents that can end the insurgency and restore peace for good. However, its success depends on, among other things, the government’s willingness and ability to identify and delegate the suitable mediators who are adequately knowledgeable enough in the sciences of the only two sources of Islamic religion i.e. Qur’an and the authentic Sunnah, the necessary jurisprudential techniques for understanding and interpreting their texts and other relevant skills that qualify them to intellectually engage the insurgents.

Obviously, mere ‘yan boko i.e. western educated, politicians and opinion leaders, who are not qualified to engage in such a dialogue will not do and can’t achieve anything either. By the way, even the breakthrough once achieved by Dr Ibrahim Datti-Ahmed-led team in this regard who managed to establish contact with the leadership of the group was apparently exaggerated, because the whole initiative already lacked such necessary bases of engagement with the insurgents, which was actually the main reason behind the team’s eventual failure.

Therefore while the need for using crushing military force against the insurgents, particularly the diehard bigots among them, remains indispensable anyway, government should in the meantime consider this proposal as matter of urgency, because it is the only effective means to de-radicalise the sincerely truth-seeking but unfortunately misled and brainwashed members among them. Afterwards, the process of their rehabilitation can begin in order to eventually reintegrate them into the mainstream society.