Boko Haram: Confidentiality of news sources

Also published in Daily Trust 

The recently released Boko Haram propaganda video shows many of the more than two hundred abducted Chibok girls along with an armed masked man offering the federal government a swap deal to release the girls in exchange for the release of their captured fellow terrorists by the Nigerian military and other security agencies. However, though he defiantly reiterated the group’s determination to carry on their terror attacks, he nonetheless betrayed exhaustion-induced despair the group is apparently groaning under due to the sustained military pressure on them since the beginning of this administration.

Following the release of the video, the Nigerian Army declared Hajia Aisha Wakil, a member of the now dormant Committee on Dialogue and Peaceful Resolution of Security Challenges in the North, Ahmed Salkida, a journalist and Ahmed Bolori, an activist, for alleged link with the terror group. By the way, though the administration of President Buhari has considerably weakened Boko Haram terrorist group, which consequently faces imminent defeat, the failure of the military and intelligence agencies to locate the whereabouts of the abducted girls, let alone rescue them remains a huge source of embarrassment to it, considering how their abduction attracted the interest of the international community and influential non-governmental organizations around the world.

Army-Shiite clashes: JCI report at a glance

Also published in Daily Trust

In the aftermath of the late last year’s Army-Shiite bloody clashes in Zaria, and amid the ensuing heated controversy over the justifiability or otherwise of the amount of force used by the Army against the Shiites, I wrote a two-part article titled ‘The external dynamics of Zaria incident’ on December 18and 25, 2015 respectively, in which I avoided speculation over the party responsible for sparking the clashes pending the outcome of the official inquiry into the incident. I, instead, dwelt on the underlying external dynamics behind it, which, among other dynamics, represent the context in which the circumstances of the incident are properly understood.

Now that the Judicial Commission of Inquiry commissioned by Kaduna state government in the wake of the incident to conduct a thorough public inquiry into the immediate and remote causes of the clashes, and give recommendations on the ways to forestall its recurrence in the future has submitted its report, a mere glance at the report shows how much effort the commission members had put into making the report as exhaustive and objective as possible, notwithstanding the decision by the Zakzaky-led Shiite group to boycott its proceedings. After all, whatever they would have said, had actually been said by their fellow Shiites and other apologists who made presentations in the course of the proceedings. 

Foiling a revolt: Tale of two approaches

Also published in Daily Trust

This piece is inspired by an anonymous short Arabic Facebook post on the recent foiled military coup in Turkey as quoted by the Turkish-based exiled former Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi on his Facebook page I translated it into English as hereby quoted “Al-Assad (the embattled Syrian President) and Al-Maliky (former Iraqi Prime Minister) confronted protesting masses with military tanks in their respective countries, whereas Erdogan (Turkish President) confronted the tanks of revolting army with the masses. Erdogan triumphed whereas Al-Assad and Al-Maliky failed”. Notwithstanding the leaders mentioned in this comparison, I found it very interesting indeed, for it highlights two conflicting approaches to foil a revolt, with, of course, two different outcomes accordingly.

Though even before the beginning of the series of the mass protests that swept across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, starting from 2011, there had been mass protests in a few countries in the region, which were brutally suppressed e.g. the 1982 Hama protest in Syria, which the then Syrian President Hafez Al-Assad ruthlessly quelled by massacring forty thousand people according to Syrian Human Rights Committee, the 2011 mass protest phenomenon in the region would remain particularly historic due to its extensive geographical reach and its fundamental, albeit largely counterproductive, socio-political outcomes across the region.

The treachery of the century

Also published in Daily Trust

The British government’s decision to participate in the United States-led military invasion of Iraq in 2003 was obviously unpopular with the British public who adamantly kicked against it despite the passionate insistence of the then British Prime Minister Tony Blair that the war was necessary in order to disarm the then Iraqi President Saddam Hussein of weapons of mass destruction. Besides, when, after the invasion, it turned out that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction after all, and that the so-called intelligence on the bases of which the US-led military coalition invaded it was a hoax, the criticism grew further raising serious questions about the credibility of the then UK government.

It became clear that the invasion was basically orchestrated by a notoriously megalomaniac clique in the White House, the Pentagon, US Department of State and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which included, but not limited to, the then President George W. Bush, his deputy Dick Cheney, former Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld, his deputy Paul Wolfowitz, Paul Bremer and George J. Tenet who as the then Director of the CIA oversaw the fabrication of an elaborate concoction of layers of lies to justify the impending US-led military invasion of Iraq.

Hypocritical criticism of shady recruitment

Also published in Daily Trust

Over the past few months there have been scandalous revelations of shady public recruitment exercises in the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) and perhaps a few other government agencies. Though each of the three scandals was widely condemned, the revelations weren’t surprising, after all, for they simply re-highlighted how federal government institutions systematically flout due process in staff recruitment exercises, which is equally rampant at the state and local government levels as well.

I, for one, actually found the avalanche of criticism against the government officials involved more surprising instead, as it sounded too passionate as though the scandals had unfolded in Norway, for instance, not Nigeria. In any case, no one denies the fact that public recruitment exercise in Nigeria is most of the time, if not always, shady due to the deep-rooted culture of nepotism in the country. This is especially in recruitment exercises into major revenue generating government agencies, departments and other major government bodies e.g. the aforementioned three and, of course, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and its subsidiaries, Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) and the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) and its subsidiaries etc.