Chamba Simeh
When top flight leaders of Africa’s largest economy condescend to the level of motor park touts or political thugs, the smear on the nation’s image in the eyes of the comity of nations is better imagined. It is in this vein that last week’s verbal umbrage between Governor Murtala Nyako of Adamawa state and the Minister of Information, Mr Labaran Maku, should be perceived.
The agent provocateur is the memo written on April 16, 2014 by Nyako to northern governors. The memo had raised grave allegations against the Jonathan administration bordering on the fact that the federal government was carrying out genocide against the North and that President Jonathan had no exit strategy to the problem of insurgency, being complicit in the attack by various armed groups on various communities in the North.
The embattled governor, whose state, alongside Borno and Yobe, has been under emergency rule in the last one year, stated poignantly: “Virtually all the soldiers of Northern Nigerian origin recently recruited to fight Boko Haram have been deceived in that aspect. They are being poorly trained, totally ill-equipped, given only uniform and are killed by their trainers in Nigerian army training centres as soon as they arrive in the Nigerian Army camps being used by so-called Boko Haram insurgents.”
Nyako threatened to drag the federal government to the International Criminal Court (ICJ) in The Hague for genocide against northerners.
Understandably, Nyako’s outburst drew the ire of many Nigerians. Some key cabinet members of the Jonathan government condemned the memo, describing it as being capable of exciting and inciting public unrest. Consequently, Nyako’s critics, who saw the memo as treasonable, called for his impeachment in order to strip him of his immunity and pave the way for his arrest and criminal prosecution. This call is normal and within the ambit of civilized behaviour.
Unfortunately, however, the minister of information veered off the bounds of decorum and civility. He insulted Nyako, saying the governor is irresponsible. Maku said, “To hear the kind of things being said by the governor of Adamawa state at this period is very unfortunate. Nyako is the former Chief of Naval Staff. He is someone that has worn uniform before. To publicly incite the people against the security forces of this country is the height of irresponsibility.”
Maku’s vituperation failed the decency test for the fundamental reason that, in a typical African society, Northern Nigeria inclusive, respect for elders is the norm. Any deference to this norm attracts stiff sanction by the community. This accounts for why it is very rare to find a typical northerner openly engaged in an altercation with an elder, more so a septuagenarian. Maku, as a northerner, knows this too well.
It is also trite to state that, being one of the main victims whose eight-year tenure at the Government House in Yola has been marred by the cataclysmic activities of Boko Haram, Nyako’s lamentations deserve consolation rather than condemnation. Furthermore, as a former Chief of Naval Staff and a retired Admiral, Nyako is not alien to security issues and apparatchik. He is, therefore, on a balance of probability, not one to cry wolf where is there is none, thus justifying the call by the Northern Elders’ Forum (NEF) on the federal government to address the issues raised in Nyako’s memo.
NEF Chairman, Professor Ango Abdullahi, said: “To me, as a Governor of Adamawa State, Nyako is in a position to have some privileged information that could have made him to make such statement. Rather than people addressing the serious allegations that the governor has raised, they have resorted to abusing and condemning him. And this goes to show that maybe they have something to hide”.
To buttress NEF’s point, Nyako said he has nothing against President Goodluck Jonathan. According to him, “We as a people must remain loyal to the President and always pray for him to succeed as our leader. He is my friend and brother and I’m his Special Adviser on Agriculture and he also appointed me as a member of the National Economic Council”.
Nevertheless, Nyako, who did not suffer Maku’s criticism, lashed back at the information minister, saying he represents the tragedy that has befallen Nigeria as a nation. He said Maku’s views on governance and manifest actions clearly prove the gutter level public policy has descended to in today’s Nigeria. Nyako wondered why a minister of information would ask anybody to keep quiet in the face of the unmitigated killings going on in the North-east, vowing that, “We shall only keep quiet if those who danced while we mourned provide answers to the questions we asked.”
In all this, it is Nigeria and Nigerians that lose. Our leaders should sheathe their swords and face the common enemy – Boko Haram. This is the surest way we can record success in the anti-terror war.
