The Baga Lesson

 I have read Facebook commentators drawing parallels between Nigerian security officers in Baga, Borno State, and American security in Boston, Massachusetts. This is silly .

 

All right-thinking people should deplore tragic loss of human life, especially when it results from willful acts of aggression or vendetta. Therefore, what was reported to have happened to the little town of Baga in Borno State, Nigeria, is condemnable. If the accounts turn out to be true, it should be a cause for sorrow, a reason to examine this union called Nigeria and another reason to examine the heads of those with responsibility to keep her united, peaceful and safe. According to the State governor, over 200 persons were allegedly killed and hundreds of houses razed by an enraged military force seeking to avenge the alleged killing of an officer by Boko Haram insurgents who are said to have been embedded with the civilian population in Baga.

Unlike those who are pillorying the military forces, permit me to offer a different perspective on the incident. Yes, the alleged carnage can be directly traced to military guns and arson and if true, the army stands condemned for use excessive force, and the world would be right to condemn. But, let us remember that the root cause is elsewhere other than the security forces. If we continue to bear down on the army, we shall lose our focus on where and how we are being beaten by the rain.

I shall illustrate with two recent incidents reported privately to me.

The first concerns my half-brother who, for some strange reason, has insisted that he will stay on in Maiduguri, the hotbed of Nigerian terrorism. Two months ago, his wife cried out to me from Enugu (he took the precaution of sending his wife and children “home”) because she was told that a group of business allies was setting out to kill him, using their Boko Haram (BH) connections. When I finally reached the young man on phone, I passionately pleaded with him to either get out of town or run to the Joint Tax Force (JTF) officers for protection. He immediately ruled out the JTF option because, according to him, anyone who is seen to be fraternizing with the military outfit is instantly hunted down and killed by the insurgents in Maiduguri. Apparently, the fear of BH, not JTF, is the beginning of life.

I have read a few media commentaries suggesting that northeast people shun the JTF because of what its officers mete out to civilians. This is certainly not the case; the reason why civilians shun JTF is because BH is acknowledged as the greater evil. It would explain why Baga residents “refused” to identify and hand over those who allegedly killed an army officer, thus inviting the alleged destruction of their town.

The second incident occurred two weeks ago. I phoned a good friend of mine who is a very senior police officer in one of the northeastern states. He apologized for not returning an earlier call and lamented that he was losing dozens of police officers from cowardly BH attacks. According to him, the terrorists would sneak into isolated police quarters at night and murder whoever they found there. On the day we spoke, he said he lost five officers the night before. His greatest regret was that policemen in the state do not sleep anymore and are therefore prone to mistakes – they finish their day job and return home to continue to guard their families all night long, or conversely. He mentioned something I had known:  ever since the leader of BH was killed in a Maiduguri police station, the insurgents have deliberately and relentlessly targeted police and military officers, in an open show of vendetta.

I have also read many Facebook commentators drawing parallels between Nigerian security officers in Baga, Borno State, and American security in Boston, Massachusetts. This is a silly contrast. The recent fight against terrorism in Boston, and by extension America, is a clear case of “we and them.” The enemy is known and the people are united in the effort to unmask and bring them to justice. Can we say the same about the situation in the northernmost parts of Nigeria? While America security forces are fighting terrorism with the support of her people, Nigerian security officials are enmeshed in a dirty political, socioeconomic and terrorist gamesmanship – without the support of the people.

We all know that there is an undeclared war raging in our country. The dramatis personae are the political leadership, the insurgents, the security forces and “we, the people.” There are no innocents among them. How many states in America have we seen sane people ambush 13 security men, kill and butcher their bodies, merely to serve a warning to those who are seeking to wrest political power from a section of their country? When we discuss Odi and Zaki Biam, we sometimes end up making what happened look like acts of military aggression, rather than the disproportionate reprisals that they were. Neither the imprudent civilians who join the fray in “combat zones” nor overzealous officers who use them for target practice are innocent. They have both deliberately chosen to operate outside the law. The tragedy is that they are both victims of the same forces that are holding the country down.

To return to Baga, both civilians and the security forces are victims of the tragedy unfolding in our country, cannon fodder impoverished by maladministration, killed by religious extremists and masticated and swallowed up by avaricious political leadership. Let’s face the fact: our security forces are not the root cause of poverty and high mortality in Nigeria. They do not train, arm and unleash thugs, Boko Haram or Egbesu Boys on our country. They do not kidnap innocent people and political opponents for political or economic gain. They are not those who scavenge for loot at federal, state and local government treasuries while snarling at other (opposition) animals sidling to their arenas of greed. The ogres are the unconcerned ogas in leadership, wearing agbada of religious and party colours in Nigeria.

In Nigeria, unconcerned leadership begins from the wrongs of politicians and ends with the guns of religious insurgents. Let us not lose sight of the proper focus, after we have condemned the army.

Fashola's "Village" Habits

There's a good reason to admire Babatunde Fashola, the hardworking Governor of Lagos State; it’s so easy to see that the man wants to contribute a key chapter to, and not become another footnote in, the history of Lagos. All well-meaning folks should therefore support his ongoing efforts to make Lagos a better place for the coalition of tribes and tongues that reside in this former federal capital.

Regrettably, I have once again found cause to disagree with the Governor on another social message that he is trying to sell. I refer to his characterization of Nigerian city habits as “village” habit. Mr. Fashola was quoted by the media to have said that his government “will not fold its arms while some residents live in Lagos as if they are living in their villages.” His words: “You can’t continue to live like you are in your village here in Lagos. Life in Lagos is changing by the day. The government has spent a fortune to ensure good environment, drainages, roads and transportation system. It is unfortunate some people are still living as if they are in their village. Please, if you can’t obey our environmental and traffic laws, stay back in your village.”

On reading what His Excellency said, my mind went back to my village and I found myself violently disagreeing with the governor. In my village, we do not spend a fortune on public works but the village is better: the air is fresher; the roads, though un-tarred, are always weeded and kept clean through communal efforts; our pathways are adorned by natural green shrubbery; there are no traffic snarls occasioning mad and reckless driving; and no group of people goes into virgin village land to construct and live in shanties. My village evokes nostalgic feelings in me, and I am not alone; this is one reason why a certain ethnic group performs “mass return” every December - because village life provides an opportunity to escape from the madness of city life; they can breathe fresh air, free themselves from traffic wahala, and enjoy the sense of community that city life gradually drains from us all.

The point must be made that Nigerian city habits – which the governor incorrectly describes as village habits – is caused by bad governance. The masses are merely victims. Bad governance is reflected in poor urban planning, poor and compromised supervision of public works that lead to poorly constructed and maintained roads, poor waste and sewage disposal management, poor enforcement of building codes, and poor transportation systems. Poor governance puts pressure on low income urban dwellers, forcing them to react in ways that the governor describes as village habits. Governor Fashola is wrong. Nigerian city habits are symptoms of a terrible disease vended by bad governance; poor people’s reaction to this state of affairs is not and cannot be characterized as village habits.

I have been living in Abuja for 10 years now, and I lived in Lagos for 16. Thus, I have seen firsthand the devastation that poor planning has wrought on these two city-states when we forcibly converted them to federal territories. Poor city planning and poor supervision of environmental and building laws forced poor people to congregate in areas that would enable them have quick access to opportunities in choice locations that the rich appropriated to themselves; this is the only way they could catch the crumbs as they fell from their masters’ tables. In addition, lack of attention to the needs of original inhabitants compelled them to also flee to shanties akin to the abodes of the resident poor.

The worst parts of Abuja are areas inhabited by poor residents and original inhabitants. Yet, before Abuja was annexed and made a federal territory, it was known, among other things, as the place where great potters were produced. A certain Mr. Michael Cardew, a colonial officer and renowned porter, was given the task of choosing a site for a pottery center for Northern Nigeria. In April 1951, after an extensive tour, he recommended to Kaduna as follows: "We decided Abuja after all…; it is good and central for Northern Nigeria, wonderful local pots, a nice town where trainees can live…” This is not the description of Abuja where the original inhabitants live today. Fashola’s state is the same: Makoko and Mushin, the areas where original inhabitants live in Central Lagos, are the worst neighborhoods in Lagos.

It is instructive that when public officials wake up from their criminal slumber to rev their bulldozers of destruction, they bore into the sabon garis abodes and side-step the areas inhabited by the original settlers. For instance, on Saturday, 14 July 1990, rather than face north towards Makoko and Mushin, Gov. Raji Rasaki’s bulldozers turned south to crush Maroko; they have continued to growl at Ajegunle and Okomomaiko since then. In Abuja, Malam el Rufai’s bulldozers left the unsightly huts of original inhabitants and went after slums created by poor residents. The current FCT Minister is completing the devastation, beginning with Mpape.

Our bad city habits are not a Lagos phenomenon; every Nigerian city, including Abuja, is equally guilty. The point is that these city habits were not caused by poor residents but by bad governance that dehumanizes the poor. I commend Fashola because he is taking proactive measures to right the governance wrongs that give rise to bad city habits, but to suggest that this phenomenon is a “village” habit is to betray a state of mind of someone who was neither born nor grew up in a real village setting in Nigeria.