By Jideofor Adibe
Email: pcjadibe@yahoo.com Twitter: @JideoforAdibe
As with everything that touches on our primordial identities, the story that the government has relocated 47 Boko Haram prisoners to Ekwulobia prison, said to be located in the heart of a sprawling town of about 500,000 people, in Anambra State, has become steeped in emotionalism and controversies. The umbrella Igbo socio-political organisation, Ohaneze, as well as the Southeast Governors Forum and the Anambra State chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) have all weighed in on the matter, and as expected, condemned the move. The government, characteristic of its style of governance so far, maintains a deafening silence.
I will start with what I believe should be two precedent questions in the whole brouhaha before discussing the possible implications of that relocation for the president and by extension the cause of nation-building
The first of the precedent questions is whether the Ekwulobia prison is a federal institution and whether there is a practice of moving prisoners across the prison facilities. Not much information is available about the Ekwulobia prison in the public domain. However I was told by one of my PhD students who works in the prison system and is also writing his PhD thesis on the prison service that Ekwulobia prison is a medium security, single cell prison built according to United Nations guidelines with all the modern correctional facilities. It is obvious that the federal government is at liberty to move prisoners within its facilities scattered across the country. What is not clear is whether the Boko Haram prisoners allegedly relocated to Ekwulobia have been convicted or are awaiting trial and whether, short of sentiments, Ekwulobia prison is built to handle such class of prisoners.
The second precedent question is the government’s rationale for moving such calibre of prisoners around the country and whether Boko Haram prisoners have been relocated before to other facilities across the country. This piece of information will be crucial in shaping the raging controversy. Unfortunately such information is not available in the public domain and the government’s silence does not help matters. In fact the government’s silence has given room to all sorts of conspiracy theories, which was not helped by the contradictory stories on the matter by those who claimed to be in a position to know – first the Prison Service denied the story as did Osita Okechukwu, a chieftain of APC. What appeared to corroborate the relocation story is the news that soldiers, rather than prison guards had taken over guarding the Ekwulobia prison. That news was never denied – to the best of my knowledge.
While I can understand the hysteria and panic occasioned by the relocation of the Boko Haram prisoners to Anambra State, the danger posed by the relocated terrorists appears, in my opinion, to be exaggerated. I was told that Ekwulobia prison is a well-fortified single-cell prison built according to United Nations guidelines and that it will be almost impossible, given the facilities in it, for a jailbreak to happen – unless with a high-level insider connivance.
The other fear of the locals – that having Boko Haram prisoners in Anambra State would make it easier for Boko Haram to export its brand of terrorism to Igboland – also appears exaggerated. The truth is that terrorists (just like insurgents) need certain key infrastructure to flourish in any environment: they need expert knowledge of the local terrains, a certain support (or turning of the other eye) from the local population and the ability to live a double life undetected. In Anambra state, such infrastructure will not be there for would-be terrorists. In fact the danger posed by the relocated Boko Haram prisoners is no more than the danger posed by the possibility that a Boko Haram activist could embed himself or herself among Fulani herdsmen and cause mayhem as the herdsmen traverse the length and breadth of the country. It is also no more than the danger posed by the possibility that a man dressed as an Ohaneze chieftain in Onitstha could turn out to be a disguised female suicide bomber. The point is that in the dire times we live, danger could come from any unexpected quarter. But it is no excuse for people to be paranoid.
I believe that one of the ways to douse the tensions is a requirement that residents of each town – both indigenes and non-indigenes – should be required to register with their community associations, town unions, trades and other associations. Political correctness should not prevent state and federal governments from asking individuals they suspect their movements to be identified by their relevant communities, religious or trade associations. In the UK, if you move from one area to another, you will need to notify the local authorities, and without such notification, you will not be assigned a GP or be able to access local services. Insisting that new arrivals in any community should be registered with both the authorities in the community and with relevant community groups or associations will help to curb the danger of infiltration by undesirable elements. I have absolutely nothing against being asked to register where I live or to be asked that my workplace should identify me whenever the need arises. Already people who want to access certain services are asked to go to their state liaison offices to be identified. So what is the big deal in it?
Implications
Though I believe that the danger posed by the relocated Boko Haram prisoners is exaggerated, the relocation itself will have several implications for President Muhammadu Buhari and by extension the nation-building process:
One is that after his successful rebranding as a statesman during the presidential campaign, the conspiracy theories making the round in Anambra State as a result of this relocation is re-defining Buhari to his pre-2015 perception in some parts of the country as a parochial person. It should be recalled that one of the fear factors exploited by politicians in Igboland during the presidential campaigns was that Buhari would forcefully Islamise the country. Some are now interpreting the relocation of Boko Haram prisoners as part of that alleged plan to Islamise Igboland or to punish the Igbo for not voting for him.
Two, is that with a section of the southwest loyal to Bola Tinubu feeling already alienated from the Buhari regime, and with murmurings in the social media of a ‘northernisation’ plot in appointments made so far, the government has to consider whether further alienating other groups is good politics, especially when it has not made any effort to explain itself on the matter. It should be borne in mind that in politics perception always trumps intentions. In essence while the government may mean well by the relocation, it should realise that the road to hell was also paved with good intentions. It needs to explain itself and carry people along. In the absence of this, the people will believe whatever fits into the markers through which they filter realities.
Three, is that such relocation, and the conspiracy theories that it has spurned, could end up militarising the insurgency group, MASSOB, and other insurgent groups in different parts of the country – this time with support of the local population who may be looking upon such groups to defend them against an imagined plan to export terrorism to their area. And once one insurgency group militarises, the others follow suit in a sort of arms race. The government’s silence on this relocation feeds these conspiracy theories which I regard as dangerous.
Four, the relocation also mocks and diminishes the few leaders of the APC in the south-east, especially Rochas Okorocha, the lone Governor of APC in the region as well as Senator Chris Ngige and Dr Ogbonna Onu who are prominent members of two of the legacy parties that merged to become the APC. The local argument is that if these figures are unable to influence the relocation, it means that the party does not take them serious because of their ethnic background. In essence, though APC is still struggling to transform itself from being a multipurpose vehicle for defeating Goodluck Jonathan into a proper political party, it will need friends and members. The relocation, especially given the government’s silence on the matter, is a big campaign against the APC in the area.
Five, is the danger of the relocation inciting anti-Northern sentiments in the Southeast- and a tit-for-tat in the North against the Igbo. In the end, at a time most Nigerians are looking for a reconciler in the mould of Nelson Mandela to help re-establish faith in the Nigeria project, the government should really consider how its moves, no matter how well intentioned, aids or undermines the nation-building process. In all these, it will be borne in mind that for ordinary people, perception rather than intentions is all that counts. It is a crucial role of the government to help shape the citizens’ perception. And you cannot do this if the citizens do not understand the reasons or the vision that informs your policy choices.
