I Didn’t Tear My PDP Membership Card –Obasanjo – Part 1

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo was one of the speakers at the Global Education and Skills Forum (GESF) 2015 in Dubai last Sunday. Obasanjo, at an interactive session with journalists speaks on Boko Haram insurgency, the forthcoming general elections, President Goodluck Jonathan, among other issues. TEMITOPE OGUNBANKE, who was in Dubai, reports

Tope:     What is your take on various attacks on schools by terrorists?

Obj:     I am worried about attacks on schools, particular in areas where we have terrorists – Nigeria, Pakistan, Kenya and so other places.

We have to treat the disease rather than the symptoms. The action of the terrorists on schools is to actually bring about terrorism and until we deal with that, whatever else we do would amount to treating headache that emanates from high blood pressure. If you do not treat the high blood pressure itself, the headache would be on and off.

And the situation of course in the Countries where they have terrorist activities is slightly different from a situation in a country like the United States, where insecurity and attacks in schools is essentially due to how people have access to guns rather than the issue of terrorists.

So, I believe that the international community, international and national leaders will have to deal with the issue of cause of terrorism; real and perceived injustice that leads to terrorist activities. I believe the dealing must be within the local community before we talk about the international community.

Local communities where schools are located and whose students may be victims must be the one that would be at alert; they should be vigilant and take the security of their schools and children in their hands.

Tope:     What can you say about terrorism in some parts of the world, especially Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria?

Obj:     They don’t call themselves Boko Haram, they have a name that I cannot pronounce very well.

About three and half years ago, I went to their base. I went there because I wanted to know what the group was all about, who they are and their objectives.

Tope:     Did they have a leader and if they have leader, who are their leaders? Did they have any principle?

Obj:     The man who conducted the meeting by proxy because I could see them told me that the leader of Boko Haram, Mohammad Yusuf, who was killed in the cold blood by the police, had 27 children and part of the problem was how to give them good western education.

So, they don’t object to education but one of the things that Mohammad Yusuf did when he was alive was that he had a number of graduates following him.

One day, he asked his followers to bring out their certificates. Some had first degrees (first class), second class and some Master’s degrees. He asked them;

‘With your certificate, where is your job?’ They told him they had no job. He told them: “Of what use is your certificate? Tear it.” Some tore their certificates, some didn’t. That is actually where their name came from: Western education is good for nothing.

That is the point I have been making, that we have to know the root cause of Boko Haram and find out the way forward; so that if we are going to deal with it, it will be by stick and carrot. Stick will deal with the military aspect and carrot will deal with solving the fundamental or the root cause of the problem. The root cause of Boko Haram in the North-Eastern part of Nigeria is a big element of development. And that we have to look at.

Tope:     How would you rate the Nigerian government in the fight against insurgency?

Obj:     I believe that the current government did not do much.

When Boko Haram started about four and half years ago, the government, particularly the leadership of the country, saw it as a manifestation of the certain areas of the country that did not support the government, rather than seeing it as menace.

So, it took about three years before government came to the realisation that this is more than an anti-government or anti-regime group.

That was why when Chibok girls were abducted by Boko Haram, the government didn’t be-lieve that there was abduction of girls for quite sometime. Because if that had been realised and immediate action had been taken, maybe those girls would have been rescued early.

But now, the Boko Haram issue has festered like a bad sore and it is no longer in evident in the North-Eastern part of Nigeria alone, it has gone beyond that to other countries like Cameroun, Chad and Niger Republic.

Now it has become a regional issue and we have to deal with it regionally; and that is the combined military action that has been taking place. But we must not forget the underlying cause, which is development.

Tope:     You said the Federal Government didn’t believe that the Chibok girls were kidnapped. Why won’t the government believe the girls were kidnapped?

Obj:     It is because of government’s attitude to Boko Haram that Boko Haram caused insecurity right from the word ‘go.’

The government didn’t see it as an issue of insecurity and national menace but government saw it as an issue manufactured against the incumbent President so that he would not be able to get a second term. That was the way it was perceived and of course since it was perceived that way, the action and reaction was that way too.

So, when the news of the abduction of the girls came to the President the morning after it was done, the President’s reaction was that it cannot be true.

And if it cannot be true, then you don’t have to do anything about it. And for 18 days, the President didn’t even have any meaningful discussion with the governor of Borno State, which he ought to have done immediately. That was why the government’s reaction was lukewarm at first.

Continued in Part 2:

http://newtelegraphonline.com/i-didnt-tear-my-pdp-membership-card-obasanjo