Even the most implacable critic of President Buhari would have to
concede that Boko Haram’s capacity to “shoot, slaughter and kill”—as its
avowed means of establishing Allah’s loving and peaceful caliphate in
North-east Nigeria—has been significantly degraded. The terrorist
organisation whose crimes against God and humanity were adjudged to have
surpassed those of its parent, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria
(ISIS), and siblings in Somalia (Al Shabab) and Afghanistan (the
Taliban), thus earning it the rank of the most vicious gang in the
world, has now broken into two factions. Division and confusion in the
enemy’s camp is always a welcome boost to any war plan. While it might
be too early to admit it in evidence as proof of the technical defeat
the government claimed—to much derision—it indicates nevertheless a deep
crack in Boko Haram’s seemingly impregnable ideological shield. Yet,
even total annihilation would still be a pyrrhic victory, marked by an
indelible stain on the nation, if the Chibok girls never regain freedom.
When there is life there is hope, but the latest proof of life
contained in Abubakar Shekau’s hostage-negotiation video offer to the
federal government reopens the fraught question of dialogue with a
mentally deranged band of murderers, arsonists, kidnappers, rapists and
more. Still, it should be music to all ears that a war of words has
broken out between Shekau and his newly installed rival
terrorist-in-chief, Abu Musab Al-Barnawi, over who is the true and sole
custodian of Allah’s purported instructions on how to establish his
kingdom on earth. According to the one, this earth was not created by
Allah to accommodate believers and non-believers.
Therefore, all
non-believers, also branded infidels, are to be eliminated—by sword and
by fire and by any other means most horrendous. And it matters not
whether said infidels are fellow Muslims or infants, have caused no harm
to believers, nor hindered them from their chosen path to holiness and
Jannah or paradise. According to the other, Islam forbids gratuitous
evil, especially the killing of women and children and of non-infidels.
Either self-proclaimed direct representative of God claims the other is
being misled by a personal and flawed interpretation of the Koran.
Al-Barnawi, now leading an open revolt against Shekau’s “false
ideology,” has even gone on to draw a line in the sand. “Shekau,” he
warns (and this according to the translation provided by
SaharaReporters), “we did not touch you, don’t touch us. If you touch us
we will touch you and we are many against you. We have people in your
house and even your present hideout. You don’t know us enough; we are
ready for anyone to kill us, even if it is infidels, for so long as we
will make heaven and be before Allah. That is why we are countering the
false ideology you are spreading. We don’t know [your] brand of Jihad;
you kill children, women and bomb people.”
There is, of course, nothing to choose between two murderous fanatics
who forget that every believer, strictly speaking, is also an
“infidel.” In other words, that Shekau and Al-Barnawi are, by the logic
of their rigid and self-righteous claims, infidels judged by the claims
of other revealed (by which I mean monotheistic, dogmatic, proselytising
and imperialist) “religions” as by the secular creeds of non-believers.
What forests, coasts, mountains, plateaus, plains or even deserts might
Shekau and Al-Barnawi find for their self-aggrandising caliphates if
the rest of humanity were to claim a divine mandate not to cohabit this
world with them, and that they are mandated to kill and eliminate all
and every non-believer in their creed? Had Allah wished only one faith
by his creatures, might he not have caused that to be? Or having failed
in that regard, killed off all of his infidel children himself? Why, it
must be asked again and again, does an all-powerful God need his frail
creatures to fight for him?
Now that Shekau, in his desperation to reassert supremacy over his
disintegrating terrorist gang, is asking the federal government to
release all detained Boko Haram terrorists as a condition for freeing
the Chibok girls, the question is whether or not to succumb to
blackmail. I have previously argued against negotiations with Boko Haram
who, having placed themselves outside any human frame of reference,
make negotiation impossible (“Against Dialogue with Boko Haram,”
SaharaReporters, 11 March 2014,
http://saharareporters.com/2014/03/11/against-dialogue-
boko-haram-ogaga-ifowodo).
I was, and remain, partly persuaded by the need to discourage future
hostage-taking as a tactic of extracting concessions, absolution even—a
consideration that informs the American government’s strict policy of
not paying ransom for the release of its citizens. Yet, in order not to
be seen as insensitive to the unspeakable ordeal of the girls (and their
parents, not to mention all who grieve with them), President Buhari
must explore all avenues for their safe return, including negotiations.
After all, there is no guarantee of what might happen were the girls’
exact location to be discovered and a rescue operation launched—the grim
prospects of which Shekau has gleefully exploited by displaying the
alleged bodies of some of the girls purportedly killed in airstrikes
targeted at his camps in Sambisa forest. Any prisoner swap deal, if at
all, must, however, be subsequent to Boko Haram’s unconditional
surrender and renunciation of the delusional dream of a caliphate.
Additionally, Shekau and his army of murderers must be willing, as even
Al-Barnawi insists, to repent. They must also submit to tempered justice
for their crimes against humanity and God.
Email: omoliho@gmail.com
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