Executive Secretary, National Summit Group (NSG) and General Secretary, United Niger-Delta Economic Development Security Strategy (UNDEDSS), TONY URANTA, in this interview with Assistant Politics Editor, DANIEL KANU, speaks on terrorist attacks, emergency rule as well as constitution conference report among other critical issues.
Continuous terrorists’ bombardment of Nigeria
I am very happy that you have used the word ‘terrorists’ rather than the word ‘insurgents’ as it is being very wrongly used by even some of our army officers, retired generals and this to me is worrisome. An insurgent is a man who takes up arms to prove a point within a state, staying within a state, through his being discontent. You could now say that the Niger Delta situation could aptly be termed an insurgency. Boko Haram are not insurgents. They are terrorists who are part of a global terrorism circle that is being controlled as well by ISIL, (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant). You will notice that Boko Haram, just as Al-Shabab, Al-Qaeda in the Maghreb, all fly the same flag. They all talk about the Islamic caliphate. Insurgency is not foreign controlled. But far beyond that, an insurgency does not try to obtain land. Boko Haram, ISIL, AL-Shabab’s intention right now, is to take over space, territories, and declare those territories, non-border Islamic Caliphate. The only border that keeps them all in their contiguous state is their ideology.
What we have today is not insurgency. It is simply a mass murderous invasion of our space, by local and foreign terrorists, with intent on capturing territories, intent on massacring and depleting population that they believe is not in any way related to their belief.
The common derivative is that they are all fundamentalist who are committed to killing.
They misled President Goodluck Jonathan into believing that what we had was insurgency. Boko Haram has a dangerous agenda and Nigerians must rise up against it.
Terrorists making inroads despite government’s commitment to stop the mess
That is a very good question and that means how come they haven’t been stopped by the military? First of all, let’s go into the issue of bombings. Bombings, especially suicide bombing is not a Nigerian characteristic. But, whether Nigerian or foreign, even in the most advanced clime, it is so difficult for you to control asymmetric war, war of unconventional means. It was easy to target the Niger Delta militants because they had camps. You knew where they were, and you could get your satellite to monitor them.
We can only use satellite to some extent. The Americans, French, British, et cetera that condemn Nigeria after Chibok girls were taken into hostage, said they were coming in to help. They all came in to Nigeria, flooded to Abuja and they refused, right from the on-set to share military intelligence with us. The satellite of each of these nations is constantly tracking movements. So, America know when Boko Haram is about to attack, but they will not warn us. Why have all the countries that trooped to Nigeria for assistance suddenly become silent?
Can we say there is a conspiracy?
I don’t know; I am beginning to think. As friendly as I am to the Americans; I am beginning to suspect America. America has a very notorious record of arming two sides of a conflict. I will not be surprised if it is part of a grand conspiracy to help destabilise or make sure Nigeria fails. Don’t forget that their prediction is around the corner – 2015, they said we will fail. America loves to be seen as intelligent. They hate you showing them as not having facts. They do not have the facts about our break-up. We won’t break up. But they will do all they can to see us break up.
Nigerian military lacking the capacity to stop Boko Haram
If we sit down here and every day we are telling the Private Soldiers that their Generals are stealing money, are we encouraging them or demoralising them? When they are Court marshalled for indiscipline lawyers are kicking and saying that you are abusing their civil rights. Under this situation, are you encouraging the next set of soldiers to imbibe discipline?
It is not only that we are being under armed, we are not getting enough support in terms of equipment from our so-called friends, global allies etc.
The Nigerian Military has proven over and over again that it has the heart, it has the basic underpinning of very powerful and effective Army. Unfortunately, a military does not live on history, it lives on today. Boko Haram is operating in a new season of social media where they are communicating unimpeded. The military does not appear to have superior capacity in the areas of communication. One of the things we need to do is to make sure that the morale of the military is high and not to mock them.We owe it as a duty to support the military. We cannot afford not to support the military. How can some groups for instance tell the President not to extend emergency rule?
So you are in support of emergency rule?
Remove emergency rule and you will see what this country will turn into. Emergency rule should be extended and for me it is in the best interest of the country.
National Conference report kept in the cooler
When I and a few other patriotic Nigerians decided to revive the dream of the yearnings of seeking for a national conference the first thing we wanted was to bring all parts of Nigeria together, to get all of us talking.
The conference itself succeeded a great deal because from the Southern point of view the only thing that we did not have written down as resolution was Regionalism but if you ask me it was also achieved through the back door.
The biggest opposition to the conference has always been the National Assembly which also created the danger of what we should do with the result of the conference and my advisory body which helped design the framework for the conference had been stumped when we came across that final point and we said 14 of us cannot decide for Nigeria rather let those who represent Nigeria decide how they want to go. They also threw it back to the President and said they wanted him to decide on certain things and that led Jonathan to now set up a committee. He has forwarded resolution to the National Assembly. He has advised that those resolutions that can be incorporated into the present review of the on-going constitution should so be done and special attention be given to other resolution that needs urgent attention.
National Assembly has not even started. As soon as the report was handed in, a special committee should have been set up by the National Assembly, both houses, to immediately start going through the report and they would now deliver their finding on the report to the committee of the whole and finally they would let us know what their position is on the issues. But as it is now, we don’t know the position of things.
Conference document going the way of others
We in the Nigerian Summit Group are going to hold a meeting and this time, we will ask the question: what next? And when we decide it, a powerful delegation will go forward and meet with both the President and the National Assembly. After that NSG will address the nation and certain things will be stated which I believe will bring about only good for Nigeria.