State of Emergency or SOE is not a new environment to me. I was part of the emergency administration which former President Obasanjo rammed down the throats of Plateau people in 2004 and put the former Chief of Army Staff, Major Gen. Chris Alli, in charge. I was sucked into the fray as a consultant speech writer to the administrator.
In the wisdom of Obasanjo, the emergency rule became imperative in view of the deteriorating security situation precipitated by the 2001 ethno-religious upheaval that engulfed the entire state by 2004.
The state governor, Chief Joshua Dariye, did not help matters. He was just a year into his second term when the madness started over the appointment of a non-indigene as the coordinator of the Federal Government’s Poverty Alleviation Programme for Jos North Local Government Area, on the recommendation of the state government. The appointment of a “settler” into the sensitive position of alleviating poverty poverty did not go down well with the natives.
When the crisis first broke out, Dariye was not at his duty post. He was said to have ignored the security reports against the choice of the person he recommended for the position. And then he took off to Egypt. Although he had to rush back when his domain was on fire, the harm had already been done. At one time when he returned from one of his numerous foreign trips even as the catastrophe was festering, he stopped over in Abuja to cheer up the state contingent to the National Sports Festival holding in the Federal Capital Territory.
That was the last straw that broke the camel’s back. Obasanjo was pissed off. How could a state governor be junketing around the globe when his domain was on fire? So, he had to suspend Dariye and put a military man in charge. It was obvious that Dariye’s executive truancy earned him the suspension. While the emergency rule was running its course, Dariye got impeached. By then, he had fled to the United Kingdom for safety. His aides and lawyers took up the gauntlet and challenged the impeachment up to the Supreme Court. By the time the apex court ordered his reinstatement, Dariye had barely one month to complete his tenure which expired on May 29, 2007.
What started like an isolated protestation against perceived injustice soon spread across the state and the warring parties fought the battle so cruelly as though they had sworn to an oath of self-annihilation.
For six months, the emergency administration battled with the crisis. All manner of measures were adopted to contain the upheaval. The Federal Government was committed to ending the wanton killings and destruction of properties. Heavy budget was forwarded to the National Assembly and it was promptly approved for the prosecution of the operation. A gun-for-cash strategy was put in place. Several camps for internally displaced people were set up across the state where they received succour. Relief materials were procured and distributed to victims to cushion their pain. Building materials were also made available to those whose houses were destroyed. Then, there was a peace conference organised to bring all the aggrieved parties to the roundtable… to jaw-jaw rather than war-war.
However, despite all the great efforts put in by the federal authorities during the six months that the SOE lasted, the crisis was not completely put down. An attempt was even made to extend the rule but the move was shot down by the elders of the state led by the late elder statesman, Chief Solomon Lar, because, in their assessment, the exercise was a futility.
Only last Tuesday, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Alhaji Aminu Tambuwal, declared on the floor of the hallowed chamber that the state of emergency operating since May, last year, in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states has failed to achieve the desired results. That was a damning verdict on the government. In fact, if anything, it has worsened the situation. The SOE challenged the insurgents and they responded ruthlessly, intensifying killing and destruction of properties across the entire North-east axis. And what has the Jonathan administration done to ameliorate the plight of the victims of the insurgents? Nothing!
Tambuwal noted that the government including the legislature has run out of excuses for failing to provide security and welfare of the people “in line with Section 14 of the Constitution”. His umbrage was fueled particularly by the recent mass murder of close to 50 helpless students of the Federal Government College, Buni Yadi, Yobe, in one night. He also echoed some fundamental questions being raised in some quarters regarding the welfare of our military and retooling them with appropriate war chest to execute their hazardous assignment.
The SOE was doomed to fail from the outset. This was because the president had no plans to execute the exercise with federal funds and it was done in haste. And then he was hamstrung by the National Assembly from cornering the states’ allocations for the purpose. There was also the rubbishing of the dialogue and “amnesty” committees set up by him to explore the non-military options. The two bodies had hardly submitted their reports and recommendations when Jonathan sucked the three beleaguered states into the SOE. So, the emergency exercise was conceived in bad faith.
The second phase of the SOE will expire in a matter of weeks. And it had to take the exasperation and frustration of the Governor of Borno state, Alhaji Kashim Shettima, to get the Federal Government to wake up from its reverie and step up the counter-insurgency operations across the axis as evidenced by the fall of the insurgents’ stronghold in Sambisa Forest. The Federal Government has boxed itself into a tight corner. It has to bring the insurgency down to its knees by the end of next month when the emergency ends, and save itself the embarrassment of going to the National Assembly to make an impossible demand for another extension.
