Last month, Senator Ali Ndume, granted an interview to the Daily Trust. The interview, published on October 4, 2011, dwelt on his role in the Presidential Committee on the Security Challenges in the North-East. He also spoke about his closeness to the Boko Haram sect. Part of the interview is reproduced here.Your committee has just completed its assignment and made some recommendations to the government. How did you interact with the Boko Haram group' Well, there was no formal interaction because the terms of reference of the committee initially included the issue of dialogue. But later on, at the inauguration stage, it was made clear that we were not supposed to go into dialogue and negotiation. But, as a member of the committee and as a senator from Borno State where the centre of the controversy is, we established contact with members of the so-called Boko Haram, and they expressed their willingness to dialogue, although most of them were not very keen or desperate about it. I, personally established contacts with some of them. That was the beginning. Let me say that so many members of the Boko Haram come from my local government. One of the local governments that is worst affected is my own, Gwoza Local Government Area of Borno State. And even in Maiduguri, the area they had conflict with the military is called Kalari, Gozari, London Ciki. The majority of the people there are my people. And this is something that affects me, to some extent, directly or indirectly. So, we tried to reach out to them and the room for dialogue is there. They are not even talking about negotiation. We are talking about dialogue first, to know what the problem is and how we can get to the second stage of negotiation.When they talk about dialogue, do they want to choose who to talk with'No. What informed the committee's recommendation is based on the information that we received from them. They want our committee to be expanded or another committee should entirely be constituted on the issue of dialogue and that it should include these respected traditional and religious leaders.But they said they don't want traditional and religious leaders...' I don't think that is true. Let me tell you what is happening. This issue of insecurity in the country or the issue of Boko Haram is more complicated than you think. There are now three aspects to Boko Haram issues. There is the original Boko Haram. There is the political Boko Haram. There is the criminal Boko Haram.How do you distinguish between the three'Those who engage in criminality are the criminal Boko Haram. Those who issue political statements are the political Boko Haram. Those who are the original Boko Haram are those are the followers of Muhammad Yusuf, headed now by Abubakar Shikkau. He was the second in command.Did you meet him'I didn't meet him directly. When the situation in Borno escalated, we tried to reach out to some of their known members, to say that there was a need for dialogue. And that was when he issued a tape. And the complete transcript of that tape was published in a newspaper. I have the tape with me. They sent the tape to me.What is their demand now'We have not got to the issue of demand now. The problem is this issue has been interrupted; the process of trying to solve this problem has severally been interrupted by everybody claiming one way or the other to be able to tackle it, and people dabbling into the issue or politicizing it.Now when you talk about politicising the issue, how is it being politicised' These are the religious extremists, as you will recall. But then, some people are trying to take advantage of it, and then comes the political undertone. The killing of Babakura, for instance, how would you tag it' Political' That is one thing I can't understand because when the incident happened, some Boko Haram members called to say that they were not responsible and they came in public. But the truth about it is that whatever group has claimed responsibility has remained faceless. They use mobile phones. You don't know who is calling and you are not sure of the source of the information. But those that we talked about are the true Boko Haram; they are people that we talked (with) physically.But, do they (the people you met physically) feel that they are under threat' Yea, they are conscious of their own security situation. They don't just talk to people anyhow. I think they have confidence in me. That is why some of them showed up. And we talked.You did talk about dialogue and negotiation; to them, what is the difference between these two' The difference is, when you say you are in a dialogue, you say there is a problem. How do we solve this problem' Then somebody will open up to say, look, this is the injustice that has been done to me. That is why I am doing this. And in order to stop this, I want something done. This is dialogue. Then, you look at the situation and say this is what the law allows for this or I cannot do this. Then, you go to the negotiation. If you are going to do this, how far are you going to do it' Like the compensation which the committee recommended. It is not going to be blanket. It is going to be on certain negotiated basis or there must be some basis for the negotiation. But the biggest problem is the will and the zeal to get the problem solved. I am still skeptical about it.But the president says he's ready' The president has good intentions. Let me say here that I met the president before on this issue. And I could see how serious or desperate he was to get this issue of insurgency solved. And he knows a bit of it because he is from the Niger Delta. He has an experience. It is only that the issue of the Niger Delta is an economic and environmental struggle. But this one now is an issue of belief, religion. Religion is more serious than the other ones. I have been saying this: the government, not the president, is underrating the security threat these people pose.But the issue is that if the president is determined to do something, the government will follow' No, the president is handicapped. That is the way I look at it.How do you think he is handicapped' He is the president, Commander-in-chief' Yeah, that is it. He is not stretching out. That is the problem. Honestly, I think the president should take charge of the security situation. God gave him the leadership of this country. God will not give somebody a leadership responsibility without giving him the ability. But this president is not using it.But, you know, during the week, he said he is not going to be a lion' There are situations that would warrant you to become a lion. If he is talking about the biblical Goliath, I am of the view that he should be a David. God used David to conquer Goliath. It was not God who directly dealt with Goliath. God dealt with Goliath through David. Why doesn't he become a David' What are some of the major recommendations of your committee' The major cause of insecurity is unemployment. We have a high population of youth that are unemployed, skilled and unskilled. There are so many graduates in this country who are so frustrated, so desperate looking for jobs, but the government cannot provide the jobs. And sometimes, they get so frustrated that they lose hope in government. And these are people who can easily be used, easily be indoctrinated by extremist groups. Borno, Yobe, are parts of the Sudan, Ethiopia and Niger which, by United Nations Human Development indices, are the poorest region on earth. We have a high rate of illiteracy, high rate of unemployment, high number of youths out of school. If you don't engage these youths, they can be engaged some other ways. We discovered that in the majority of these areas, poverty is the number one problem. Unemployment is the second problem. Thirdly is the high rate of almajiri. They can be used by these extremists.Another scary thing is that the people, the masses, have started losing confidence in governance. Even on the streets of Abuja, you will see the loss of confidence in the government, and that is the most dangerous one. You will see a minister coming with his siren on the street and nobody will give him way. You know why' They don't respect him. This is loss of confidence. In the past, if you come into a place, people would stand up. These days, it is not. I went to the marriage ceremony of a very big personality recently. The First Lady was there. Many people didn't stand up. That is a signal.The most dangerous on, again, is that there is no collaboration among security agencies. We discovered that, instead, there is rivalry among them. That is the most dangerous one. They don't share information. And then they wash their dirty linen outside. You can see that the SSS came out to say that they alerted the other sister organizations that there were about to be bomb attacks somewhere in Abuja. The bombing happened.Let's go back to this issue of unemployment. The ANPP was in power in Borno State. Can we say that it did not tackle the issue of unemployment' In the eight years of the government of Ali Modu Sherrif, he did not employ anybody. I was in the government. Even if you go to the civil service, you will discover that it has been bastardised. We were trying to settle these boys, the so-called ECOMOG, the personal militia. These youths were following us during politics. I was insisting that we should find something for them. In Gombe, they took steps to address the issue of Kalare. In Bauchi, Yuguda took steps to take care of the issue of Sara Suka. In the East, too, there was this issue of Bakassi boys. They had to be taken care of.Is the ECOMOG in Borno the same thing as Boko Haram' What is the difference' No. The ECOMOG are the political thugs or boys. The Boko Haram is, I think, something jihad. These are the people pursuing the extreme view of Islam, living a complete way, the way they believe. And that is why they tagged them as Boko Haram. They are against the western culture. That is what the Boko Haram stands for. Their difference, they (Boko Haram) are religious. The ECOMOG are not religious, they're political.The argument is that it was the ANPP government that used and dumped them'That is not totally correct. As I told you, Boko Haram now has been divided into three. The real Boko Haram and they go out to launch attacks on government institutions and the security agencies. There are the criminals who are tagged Boko Haram. They go out robbing banks in the name of Boko Haram. And there are political Boko Harams. They go out killing people and settling political scores under the name of Boko Haram. So, these are three aspects.Like in Borno State, what excuses do the security agencies give your committee for not being able to contain these elements' Well, that is the approach. You don't tell people, the security agencies, how to do their work, but I have been insisting, for example, that insurgency has never been conquered or contained by the use of force. If you have an enemy who has guns, that has tanks, then you fight them. You have an identified enemy. But the insurgents are involved in a guerilla war. You don't even know who they are. You can't even identify them. Can you control this kind of insurgency' It is not possible. You use intelligence. You use dialogue. Even the intelligence you use cannot work without dialogue. That is why we emphasized dialogue in order to solve this problem. But then, unfortunately, some people have started politicising, tribalising it already. They are bringing in ethnic and religious sentiments because they don't know the value of peace.
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