BOKO HARAMISM: A Northern Agenda

When I was residing in Maiduguri, Borno State between 1987 and 1990, we used to pray against heavy rain falls, which thankfully were not regular, and especially on Friday eve, because at the Jumat prayers the next day talk would be about how the heavy rain storms were a consequence of increased wrong doing in the land, and from that riots would break out across the city as rioters targeted hotels, churches and the drinking joints some of them had patronised the night before. I always used to wonder then what was the connection between heavy rain storms, which had come to bring some relief from the scotching heat in Maiduguri and also water the patched earth, and wrong doing in the city , which was not the exclusive preserve of any ethnic group or religion, but by the time the mayhem was over, we always knew who was on the receiving end. This repeated recourse to violence against those perceived to be outsiders in Maiduguri and at the slightest provocation was one of the reasons I decided to relocate from Maiduguri and the North East, even though I found the local residents at the best of times to be warm, friendly and accommodating unless when incited into violence by the religious and political elite, and clearly I did not see any future for me in the city despite the best efforts of my then law boss, Shettima Liberty to keep me back. Looking back 26 years later to my time in Maiduguri, at the fickleness of mind which an elite had delibrately foisted on the local populace through under education and non education, the Boko Haram of today which has completely rejected education even while utilizing its benefits in pursuit of its terrorist agenda, are the offsprings of the young men who used to embark on violent demonstrations because of heavy rain storms that were blamed on wrongdoings caused by others. Today, whole cities, towns and villages in the North East lie wasted, economies shattered, education disrupted, community life frozen, religious practices dislodged, insecurity has become the norm, jail houses are overflowing, thousands have been slaughtered, thousands more maimed, burial grounds are overflowing, governments are on forced vacation, yet the people stubbornly refuse to exorcise terror from their midst, and now a whole civilisation faces its greatest threat ever! If nothing is done today and going forward about ensuring that the current generation of children in the North East, North West and parts of the North Central receive qualitative education, especially the offsprings of Boko Haram, the future harvest will be worse than the current atrocities being committed by Boko Haram, and it is in this light we must consider the request of Abubakar Shekau for the unconditional release of wives and children of Boko Haram members. Even Boko Haram know the importance of generational transfer, of why they are demanding for the release of their wives and children, of why their key demand for embracing amnesty is for the release of all their members in prison and for Boko Haram to be left alone to rebuild its spiritual headquarters in Maiduguri, and continue with its way of life even if they have to stop their violent struggle for now, they want to propagate their philosophical ideology in their offsprings. Going through a recent report by Renaissance Capital entitled "Nigeria Unveiled", it states that "Nigeria's southern states have higher secondary school attendance rates than the northern states. Lagos State leads, once again, with a net secondary attendance rate of 85%. Again, the northeastern states (Bauchi, Taraba, Yobe and Borno) fare poorly, with attendance rates of less than 10%." According to Renaissance Capital, "Borno State is where the conflict with militant jihadist group Boko Haram first erupted in 2009. (The group claims to want to implement sharia [Islamic law] in Nigeria, and has killed thousands of people in suicide bombings and commando-style raids.) and they believe the fact that a majority of the youth in Borno State is undereducated makes the area fertile hunting ground for terrorist groups like Boko Haram." Going further, Renaissance Capital report says that "the north-south divide in Nigeria's secondary school attendance rate highlights a glaring regional inequality in education attainment. Northern Nigeria's poor education indicators are a deterrent to investors seeking skilled labor and that a large number of undereducated youth poses a risk to social stability, as is already evident from Boko Haram's recruitment of uneducated, disenfranchised young people." Concluding, Renaissance Capital believe "the north-south divide in education explains calls to the federal government to invest more in education in Nigeria's northern states. Failing this, many fear the region will continue to fail to attract investment, which will exacerbate the northern states already high unemployment rates." It is therefore safe to conclude that with the long running low levels of primary and secondary attendance and completion rates in the North, especially in the North East, that successive governments at Local Governments and States level have for decades pursued Boko Haram ism as their official education policy, thereby foisting on the Nigeria nation social and human crisis of monumental proportions. Wickedness in high places is keeping a generation of young people undereducated and non educated so that their mental reasoning remains juvenile, and they easily become subject to manipulation and control by those who only see them as votes to win an election and as foot soldiers to be mobilized in the pursuit and execution of sinister plots and agendas usually resulting in mob action and mass murders. In the light of unfolding data about the parlous state of education in northern Nigeria is it okay that primary and secondary education be left only in the continued control of States and Local Governments, is it not better that the Federal Government takes the leading role in this critical sector of education and standardises policy and curriculum that is delivered to Nigerians between ages 6 - 17? Is it not time for there to be an education policy backed by law that requires compulsory primary and secondary education for all Nigerian children between the ages of 6 and 17 years, and that imposes criminal punishment on parents who prevent or stop their children from being educated, is it not time we sit down and define what type of Nigerian, in terms of values, skills, capabilities, orientations, mindsets, we want to have in Nigeria 20, 30, 40, 50 years from now, and then design the educational curriculum and produce the type of teachers that can deliver on our common expectations? In a 21st century world dominated by increased use of ICT, it is also time to end street hawking by children, girl-child marriage, use of children as domestic servants, use of children for herding cows and as cheap farm labor, and instead educate them with the requisite knowledge, skills and capabilities that will enable our children power Nigeria into an advanced and developed nation. Finally, an Ostrich approach to the under education and non education policy in the North, will be for the Federal Government and those of us in the South to say that is their problem, forgetting that as a country, Nigerians do not require visas to move within the country, so 26 years ago it was Maiduguri, today it is the North East and many parts of the North, tomorrow it will be the entire nation, a word it is said is enough for the wise.