Emir Sanusi reveals how Boko Haram, other terrorist activities started in Nigeria

The Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II, has revealed what aided the persistence of insecurity in the country.

Sanusi stated this while elucidating the underlying causes of Boko Haram insurgency, banditry, and other criminal activities throughout the nation, especially in the North, asserting that citizens must fundamentally reassess their values and direction.

The monarch contended that the nation’s security crisis did not originate with violence, banditry, Boko Haram, or terrorism itself, but rather from inflammatory rhetoric disseminated through newspapers by political figures who began categorising citizens not as Nigerians, but as Northerners and Southerners, Christians and Muslims, and along tribal lines.

Addressing attendees in Abuja on Wednesday at the launch of a biographical work documenting the era of Lieutenant General Tukur Yusufu Buratai (retired) as the Chief of Army Staff, Sanusi emphasised that this divisive categorisation fostered an environment conducive to the proliferation of violent and criminal organisations.

“The fundamental point I wish to emphasise is that the security crisis in this nation did not commence with violence as we currently witness it, nor did it commence with banditry. It did not commence with Boko Haram and terrorism. It originated with the violence inherent in language that appeared in newspapers and emanated from political discourse, wherein we commenced categorising ourselves not as Nigerians, but as Northerners and Southerners, Muslims and Christians, Yoruba and Igbo and Hausa, thereby establishing an environment that facilitated the emergence of these movements,” stated the former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria.

Sanusi concluded that unless Nigerian elites commence a deliberate retreat from the politicisation of ethnicity and religion, and liberate political discourse from these foundational considerations, the current circumstances will persist or deteriorate further.

“We are only laying the foundation for a new round of violence. We have to go back to seeing ourselves as Nigerians, as people committed to this country, and focus on what is important, which is the development of our people. It is not the responsibility of politicians to give us religion. They are there to give us education, to give us healthcare, to give us an economy and allow the religion to be in the hands of those who are religious leaders.

“It is also not the duty of religious leaders to get into politics. Right now, there is no distinction between imams and bishops and senators and how everybody is a politician. We’ve got to start tracing ourselves. Otherwise, we create these interests that feed and benefit from insecurity.

“The moment we all get absorbed into the projects of politicians, we cannot hold political society in check. We cannot have a country that we want because we need to have those institutions who are not there on elections, the army cannot think in four-year cycles. The police cannot think in four-year cycles. The central bank cannot think in four-year cycles. We have to think 20 years, 30 years, 50 years, whereas elected officers are thinking in four-year cycles.”

Also speaking, Lt Gen Domenico Giani (Ret.), the Inspector General of the Corpo della Gendarmeria, the police and security force of Vatican City, noted that the enduring legacy is not a monument beyond scrutiny, but experience open to examination, adding that accountability is not the enemy of command but among its highest disciplines.

“Transformation is measured by institutions strengthened, civilians protected, trust earned.

“Boko Haram was not born in 2015. Its roots lie in the poverty and distrust of the early 2000s North-East. After Yusuf’s death in 2009, it hardened under Shekau. Chibok in 2014 revealed what Borno, Yobe and Adamawa had endured. By 2016, it had split into JAS and ISWAP, fragmented, mobile, adaptive.

“A terrorist organisation that changes form must be met by a state that learns faster than its enemy. Intelligence and regional cooperation are essential, but so are schools, justice and opportunity. If the state arrives with weapons but not services, the vacuum returns.”