Friday, August 19, 2016

“800 Boko Haram Terrorists Surrender in Nigeria” – tell that to the marines

 by Eze Eluchie,

The announcement by Nigeria’s Director of Defence Information, Brigadier General Rabe Abubakar, that over 800 Boko Haram terrorists have ‘voluntarily surrendered’ to government forces serve to  crystallizes the reality (even to the most optimistic) that the entire Boko Haram facade was a political charade.

800 Boko Haram terrorists voluntarily surrender to Nigeria Government forces? I guess the Muhammadu Buhari-led junta and our Defence authorities should share this unique experience with Western powers who are forever trying to contain ISIL, Al Qeida, Al Nusra, Hamas and other extremist Islamist terror organizations – one does not need to be a soothsayer to predict that both Barack Obama and his French counterpart and virtually all the leaders in the European Union states would give an arm and a leg for the trailblazing strategy which these characters ruling over the Nigerian contraption adopted to get their erstwhile extremist Islamist jihadist to ‘voluntarily surrender’.

Really? Is the world to applaud this remarkable feat and just wish away the fact that these terrorists were the same bunch who massacred so many, beheaded hundreds, bombed Christian places of worship killing and maiming several thousands in the process; bombed and destroyed the United Nations main office building in Abuja killing several UN personnel and guests in that dastardly attack; and committed other acts of mass attrocities including the Chibok ‘abductions’?

To sweeten the announcement, General Rabe Abubakar further pronounced that the ‘repentant terrorists’ were in a camp in Gombe waiting to be ‘deradicalized’! De-radicalization in Nigeria? Wow! Presumably, the ‘experts’ who were undertaking this ‘deradicalization’ process may have an inkling to what radicalized the repentant terrorists in the first instance.

Following from past treatment meted out to these ‘voluntarily surrendering terrorists’, it would be expected that these ‘ex-terrorists’ will be absorbed either into the Nigerian Military or relevant Government agencies where their terror experience will be adequately put to use – the ‘ex-terrorists’ will be absorbed into these government institutions at an appropriate rank befitting their experiences.

As beneficiaries of terror entrench themselves into governance in Nigeria, and coming soon after the charade of the Chibok ‘abductions’ gets further exposed, the world should ready itself for more absurdities. It is however pertinent that justice, at the international level, be ultimately served to avoid a repeat of this loathsome conduct elsewhere in the world. 

Clearly on the issue of justice for the victims, Nigerian authorities have by their pronouncements and actions shown a clear unwillingness and or inability to prosecute widespread systemic harms occasioned identifiable segments of its population– a veritable criteria for the immediate intervention of international adjudication mechanisms over the harms caused by the politicization of terrorism under the guises of 'Boko Haram'.



Picture: Some BH operatives probably moving to ‘voluntarily surrender'


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