An the Nigerian Armed Forces continue to win the war against insurgency in the country, the Director General of National Task Force Dr. Osita Okereke, (NATFORCE), in an interview with John Oba speaks on further strategies that should be adopted to totally rid the country of Boko Haram and other terrorist acts in the country.
Considering success recorded in the fight against insurgency in the country, what other things do you thing government need to do to achieve more result in wiping out insurgency?
Fighting Boko Haram and other form of insurgency is not a fight that ends in a day. Boko Haram insurgents are faceless, as we don’t know them. We don’t even know where they are or live. Although they live among us, but they will not come to you and say ‘I am a member of Boko Haram’.
They are everywhere. We pass them on the street and we don’t know them.
Recently, our staff arrested some boys in Mararaba who was confirmed to be a member of Boko Haram sect. They were trying to persuade a girl. Infact they had already charmed the girl. After they had succeeded with their charm, they told the girl to go and bring more girls to join their club, which they did not disclose her. This is to tell you that members of Boko Haram sect are everywhere in the country.
Before President Muhammadu Buhari was elected, we all knew what the level of the fight against Boko Haram was.
Within eight months of his administration, I can say that the he has achieved 80 percent success in the fight against insurgency in the country.
Insurgency is not something that can be overcome in a day. If Nigeria, for instance, is fighting a country like Ghana, there are some preliminary information about Nigeria already know about Ghana. It also knows others things it will consider before going into the war. First, it can identify the country it is going to war with. Second, it knows the population of Ghana as well as its land mass.
It also knows how the country’s population is scattered. It knows when and where to attack in Ghana. This information can be gathered within a short period of time.
But, in the case of Boko Haram insurgents, we don’t know where or who they are. Yet they could be attending the same market or buying food from us, but we can’t easily identify them. So fighting such people is not something we can win overnight.
Our Armed Forces cannot end the war against Boko Haram within two years; it is a war that they will continue to fight until the insurgents surrender. Boko Haram insurgents are terrorists. They are people we don’t know. As the army is planning, they are also planning for they know that it is either life or death.
How do you think of Boko haram can be completely wiped out?
Before we completely wipe out insurgency in this country, we must focus on grassroots policing. Our security agencies must go into the grassroots, where they would identify who is who in each community. They should monitor people; what they do; who and who come into the community; who are the inhabitants and who are the strangers.
By so doing they will be able to know people of questionable characters and quickly arrest them before they influence others.
The war against insurgency is far from being over even after the army had finished defeating Boko Haram in the Sambisa and other forests they are hiding. That is when the real battle against the sect will begin, because that is when we will need to secure our communities and the youth against Boko Haram ideologies. After the defeat in the forest we will need to defeat them in our towns and villages. As I said earlier, the members of the sect are everywhere trying to persuade innocent youth to join them. They will keep expanding as they get more and more people to join them.
And after sometimes they will start explosions like the ones we witnessed in the past. They will start to launch attacks again.
The only way we can stop this from happening is when we start grassroots surveillance. We must go after members of Boko Haram that are already scattered among us and fish them and their new converts out. I believe that only through grassroots policing that we can conquer Boko haram. Though, it is not something that can be achieved overnight.
That is why our organisation is engaging 300 people in each of the 774 local government areas in the country. These people, after we had trained them, will go into the grassroots, monitor the people in every local government, and fish out members of Boko Haram. I can tell you this is one of the ways that will help us conquer Boko Haram in the country.
If you leave Boko haram to the Police, there is little they can do. The army only understands the war front. They cannot enter places like Abuja and start shooting. We need grassroots surveillance through such organisation like ours to do the job.
Another most important thing for the federal government to do now is to create more jobs for the teeming youth. Job creation should be top on the agenda of the present administration. When the youth are unemployed, they would be angry. A hungry man, it is said, is an angry man. Where someone is hungry, he can do anything. Where someone is hungry, he can join any group and won’t care to die.
What are the impacts of the President’s anti-corruption crusade and the trial of former National Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki, on the war on terrorism?
When President Muhammadu Buhari was sworn, the first thing he said he would do is to fight corruption. I think he is doing what he said he is going to do. Like fighting terrorism, corruption is not going to end in a day. Let me tell you, the greatest problem we have in Nigeria today is corruption, and if we continue like this, I can tell you that Nigeria will collapse; Infact Nigeria has already collapsed. If Buhari has not come to power and achieved what we have achieved in terms of bringing corrupt people to book, things would have been worse.
The Dasukigate is an example of corruption of the highest order. It is disappointing that people that were entrusted with public money to purchase arms to fight insurgency went about sharing the money among their friends and cronies, while our soldiers continue to die every day in the battle field.
Thousands of people have died and many communities destroyed due to insurgency. If the people that were given the money to buy arms for our soldiers use the money for their personal purposes, it means they are also part of the Boko Haram terrorist, because their actions aided terrorism.
Dasuki still has more cases to answer. I believe that former President Goodluck Jonathan would not release money for arms purchase and later told them to use it for electioneering campaign, when he knew the problem of insurgency. Money was separately budgeted for the election, thus there is no way the money meant for arms purchase could be used for elections. While Dasuki is being probed for the arms deal fund, people given money for the elections should also face similar probe.