Opinion: He was British, what changed him?

He was British

The Manchester bombing suspect has been named as a 22-year old British-born son of Libyan refugees. His parents were refugees from Muammar Gaddafi and they had recently returned to Libya.

Obviously, many questions arise and flags raised about how a person born in England, having attended local schools, was a Manchester United fan and was at one time a student at the University of Salford before he dropped out, became more religiously devout and outwardly hostile to his community before he took on a suicide terrorism quest against innocent people in Manchester.

In some of the news stories I have read, there are words and phrases that worry me, they show tectonic plates of acculturation that stand at the nexus of integration, assimilation, indifference or abnegation within the societies in which we exist.

How do we relate?

Wherever we were born, we have many roads to travel to some sort of self-ideation and completeness of personality and life within the communities and societies in which we live. I was born in England, I was exposed to significant culture norms of my parents but at the same time, I was raised in a culturally diverse community.

There are areas where certain animist activities of my father or the religious extremism of my mother could have impacted negatively on my outlook and worldview, for some reason, there was a part of my education and observation that meant that there was a more independent streak in me, as I have not so fully imbibed any culture, I am more of a world citizen with hopefully a healthy respect for our diverse humanity.

However, we cannot entirely ignore the influence of what the media terms ‘closely-knit’ communities, ethnic minority groups that cluster in areas for social, religious, cultural, economic and traditional validation and affirmation. To say I am suspicious of settings that attempt to create for offspring in host culture the semblance of home cultures long departed by forebears creates serious psychological problems for the children.

Dangers of little-stans

The tendency to create uprooted little-stans and ghettoes to ensure the children do not become alien to the culture of their parents, whilst laudable can be quite damaging too. Culture has become a fluid existence that is an amalgamation of many influences garnered from all the many places in which we interact, that to limit interaction to close-knit communities bereft of accommodation of the wider setting in which they exist is dangerous.

One such significant indication of this is where a cultural predilection to consanguineous marriages amongst certain communities in the UK is the leading cause of child mortality or congenital deformities in the newly born in the UK. The science is clear, but a deference to fatalism seems to reinforce the need to keep the traditional despite the avoidable heartache that comes with it.

The same goes for beliefs and teachings that appear to reject or criticise the norms and values of host communities. I remember whilst looking for a church to attend in the Netherlands walking into two services in different churches in two major cities one Sunday and thinking these were literally slum churches transplanted from Nigeria to the Netherlands.

The language was alien, the teaching was fundamentalist, the views were ultra-conservative that I left with the decision to seek out a church representative of the city in which I live, accepting of the broadest spectrum of humanity from all walks of life with an international and yet integrated cultural viewpoint. I found such in the Christian City Church which was consequently renamed to C3 Church. I felt I not only belonged but I could also contribute without the imposition of some Pharisaic authority over me.

We must attend to it

The process of acculturation is both slow and demanding, yet it is necessary for everyone who departs a home culture for a host culture to have discernment and make the best of every influence to be a net contributor to the fabric of society in which they exist. It means there is less stress on affirming who you are and reduces the necessity to adopt imported practices inimical to a proper and fulfilled life in host communities.

It should cut a swathe through demands of tradition that forbids intermarriage, that requires religious affinity or the person risks ostracism, that supports Female Genital Mutilation which is by terms an evil practice of butchering girls for some deluded idea of tempering sexual expression and worst of the lot, the murders termed honour-killing.

We must be careful what we project on our offspring as culture and traditions that they do not begin to rebel and revolt against sense, sensibility, reason, reasonableness and accommodations of diversity despite our innate beliefs.

What made the young man give up his life to such an atrocious terrorist cause? We may never know, but the signs were there and through the normal cause of minding our own businesses, he in plain sight became the mass murderer whose memory would attract eternal ignominy not only to himself, but maybe unremittingly and unfairly to his family and his close-knit community, when we should all gather together in our shared humanity to mourn the lost, comfort the wounded and strengthen the bonds that celebrate the best of who we are.

Manchester: Our humanity is our strength

21 years ago

On Saturday, the 15th of June 1996, I was visiting Manchester for the second time when just after 11:00 AM, I heard a very loud bang. I said to the man not far from me as I was on the towpath of the canal running through the centre of Manchester, “that sounds like a bomb”, he agreed.

Meanwhile, before the explosion, there were helicopters overhead and unbeknownst to me, there was already a warning about the bomb as the police had begun evacuating the town centre, but things did not seem to have an urgency around the situation.

Further on, a man had shards of glass fall on him, but he was not wounded, just shaken. There was no need to call the emergency services to his aid.

The revival

I left the canal towpath and walked into town and at Piccadilly Gardens I found a café where I decided to have a full English breakfast, it was open and serving meals even though the pavement outside was strewn with glass and debris.

It was almost an hour after that the police moved in to ask us to evacuate the place, we were moved out of the town centre and kept out for almost 10 hours before I could return to my hotel, late that night.

Whilst there were no fatalities there were 212 casualties, the centre of Manchester was rebuilt after that bombing that wreaked such great devastation on buildings and businesses.

Having been a resident of Manchester for over three years now, it is my home even if I don’t do much socially in the city apart from when I have guests. It is both a friendly and a hostile city, the latter is more evident in the somewhat parochial and insular native of the LGBTI community, it is easy to be unaffected and hence not belong, yet, and it does appear to have a thriving and bustling gay community.

A tragedy

Last night on the 22nd of May 2017, Ariana Grande whose music and career I have no inkling of was in town for a performance attended by kids, teenagers and some parents at the Manchester Arena, a venue that can host thousands. I know where the venue is, but I have never attended an event there before.

After her show, as her fans made to leave the venue, an explosive device was set off in the foyer, apparently triggered by a suicide bomber and between the danger caused by the bomb itself and the panic that ensued, 22 souls perished.

It is a very sad day for Manchester, I was not in town, but I caught wind of the tragedy on the news and through the night followed the developments as they unfolded.

It’s evil beyond words

There is only one to blame, the perpetrator who having lost the will to live had decided under the guise of a warped and misguided religious persuasion to commit such evil atrocity of dispatching himself from this mortal coil with the massacre of 22 innocent ones.

The sheer audacity and arrogance of a belief system that can constitute itself into judge and jury to determine in the stead of a deity who needs to live and who must die for the reward of paradise to the actor is plumbing the depths of inconceivable delusion, the fantasy of which there is no parallel.

To think that in killing the innocent anyone can appear before the courts of eternity and find vindication and exoneration just beggars belief. Yet, the instigators of this rotten criminality who set off brigands in jihadist and crusading fanfare would never subject themselves to the slightest privations as they sacrifice the gullible to manifestly evil exploits.

There is no cause that can justify murder, the murder of innocents is even more heinous and reprehensible, done in the name of religion, it must be so repulsive and repugnant to thought or concept, it is unmitigated cowardice by gutless cretins.

We will stand and memorialise

If there be an afterlife and a hell, the perdition that awaits them would be welcoming in its blaze, unrelenting in its torment and ruthless in its torture of every semblance of consciousness they might have. They will cry without respite and their bitterness will blacken them into darkness thick to the feeling and untrammelled foreboding, they will die continuously in pain and sorrow and yet not expire.

However, as we remain, they will not be remembered for our memory is for those who without fault were harmed needlessly and innocently. We will memorialise them and commemorate them as we unite in the celebration of our diverse humanity to comfort the survivors, bind the wounds of the wounded and unite in solidarity that none of the wickedness perpetrated on us would take root.

For Manchester, we would rise and stand for good and for life, we will not give up who we are, our freedom

Opinion: We are not Khalid Masood

The surfeit of names

His name was Khalid Masood at the time of his death, aged 52 and meeting his end having mowed down innocent people on Westminster Bridge and then running into the grounds of the Palace of Westminster where he stabbed an unarmed police officer to death before he was shot by an armed policeman and there he died, whilst receiving first aid from someone more human than he had ever been.

Khalid was born someone else, he was born Adrian Elms to a mother who was 17 at the time, when he was 4 years old she married Philip Ajao who became Khalid’s stepfather and the Adrian Elms became Adrian Russell Ajao. [Telegraph]

None of this would have been significant apart from the fact that a religious extremist had taken on a form of religion that in his mind gave him licence to commit senseless murder on the streets of London towards a goal that leaves one begging about the suicidal exploits of these mentally deranged people who think they get nearer to some deity by unmitigated evil, nothing could be further from the truth, if they and their handlers are visited by the truth.

The complex of identity

Janet Ajao, Khalid Masood’s mother lives a quiet and idyllic life in a Welsh-speaking village of Trelech, making bespoke cushions and until this terrorist attack perpetrated by her son upset the balance of her life with Philip Ajao, her husband being ill in hospital. They have been married since 1966 and have two boys who seem to be doing well. [Telegraph]

It was the Ajao surname that immersed me into this narrative because it is of Yoruba origin from South-West Nigeria and I am of Nigerian heritage.

Within the complex of identity and community, it is very easy as a minority to find issues to relate to and identify with. As a black man, I would celebrate the successes of other black people just because they are like me, and there is no link between us apart from that. It is a subconscious response schooled into our sense of identity and being that we should be ambassadorial and representative, we carry a mantle for the identity that we have.

Of subliminal identification

Breaking it down, you begin to find affinities with race, with nationality, with tribe, with clan and any element of diversity that differentiates you from the majority in the quest to retain some form of identity even when you find that you need to integrate with other cultures, communities and societies to be of relevance.

Therein lies the conundrum, we live in societies predicated on individuality and separateness, responsibility is rarely imputed on broader communities of the majority, but once the majority finds a collective by which you can be identified, it is easier for the majority to address the collective and individual and vice versa.

Stereotypes are the Shibboleths that we inadvertently lend ourselves to, that in celebrating the good amongst us, they are seen is individual but the criminals amongst us give licence to label all of us the same.

Of individual responsibility

Khalid Masood, Adrian Elms and Adrian Russell Ajao were one and the same person, in various stages of his life that was completely and essentially British. That he had a Nigeria stepfather did not make him Nigerian by any stretch of the imagination, he was not radicalised by a Nigerian construct, he charted his own path and must be held responsible for his own crimes.

Khalid Masood was a home-grown British-born terrorist, radicalised by anything from disaffection to persuasion within a frame of reference that is entirely British. His stint as an English teacher in Saudi Arabia was a projection of his Britishness, maybe not of British values, but that is debatable.

The association of his terrorist criminality with Philip Ajao is at best tenuous and even though there is some affinity with Philip as possibly of Nigerian heritage, he has spent a good deal of his lifetime in the United Kingdom, so it begs the question why we allow the mischief of depicting Khalid Masood as having anything to do with Nigeria.

On the crisis of identity

It is very likely that Khalid Masood’s conversion to Islam was related to a crisis of identity in a society that can be institutionally racist. Some disaffection about who and what he represents in the British society might have given impetus to his decision to murder people in broad daylight, that it was done in the name of religion is completely beside the point, a criminal is a criminal and a terrorist is just that, a terrorist.

However, within the forming of our core identity which is heightened in a different cultural setting and host society, as we celebrate successes we find ourselves conflicted and afflicted by the failings of some amongst us, we coalesce in trying to understand what has gone wrong in our communities rather than with the individual, because in our home cultures, we are brought up within a village construct of family, extended relations and society at large. To be individual is to go rogue.

We are not Khalid Masood

Yet, we need that essential individuality linked with purpose to thrive in societies outside our native ones, in that, we must conserve identity more to the individual and resist the temptation to identify easily with groups such that when the majority is looking for someone to blame, we get lumped together, blameless as we are.

Our identity is significant and must be constantly refreshed with wholesome community activity, but we must cultivate how we identify before we are consumed in a guilt complex brought on by no other association that the remotest tenuous links.

No, we are not Khalid Masood, he alone must answer for his crimes, not the black community, not the Muslim community, not Nigerians, not the Yoruba, not his stepfather, not his mother, not his half-brothers, not his wife, nor his children, except where they as named individuals have been co-conspirators or accomplices to his crimes.

Nigeria: A view on #DasukiGate

Talk of the day

Nothing has elicited as much comment on social media in Nigeria recently as the interestingly discussed #DasukiGate.

Sambo Dasuki was Nigeria’s National Security Adviser from June 2012 to July 2015. Considering the security challenges Nigeria has had with the Niger Delta unrest and the Boko Haram insurgency in Northeast, particularly the terrorist activities that made Boko Haram the most dangerous terrorist brigandage in the world, by reason of the high number of fatalities, an adviser to the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria will be in the position of confidante and counsellor to arrest what had become a deteriorating situation.

Plunder and blunder

The PBS NewsHour show turned the spotlight on Nigeria at the end of November into the beginning of December with a series of programmes under the title Nigeria: Pain and Promise which dealt with a range of socio-economic and political issues.

One of the shows contained the revelation that a demand for $47 million was made by Dasuki’s office from the Central Bank of Nigeria which was delivered in cash in the dead of the night. Another document apparently implicating the former Minister of Petroleum Resources facilitated the payment of $289 million to the National Intelligence Agency, where the budgetary allocation for the agency was only $160 million.

Whatever the case, either by urgency or unction, the said moneys were supposed to obtain military hardware to prosecute the battle against the Boko Haram insurgency which was increasingly troublesome with raids, bombings, massacres and other heinous activity.

Snouts in innocent blood

It transpired that the money obtained never went to the procurement of hardware, but Sambo Dasuki became the bag man of either the President, the Presidency or the ruling party organisation to use the money to buy, seduce, suborn, acquire or frustrate in the quest for favours and allegiance from whoever did not have the moral rectitude to resist the temptation to be lured with filthy lucre.

The fact that seemingly once respectable elders or statesmen of Nigeria never questioned the provenance of the good fortunes that brought this largesse into their bosoms is a moral indictment of a religious country where adherents have neither conscience nor virtue.

However, one cannot fail to notice how the spectre of President Muhammadu Buhari’s pall of stoicism and integrity has influenced events. With the arrest of Sambo Dasuki and though yet to be arraigned before the courts, everyone who appears to have dipped their snouts in the blood of soldiers sent to battle with staves against a well-equipped guerrilla outfit is now singing like a canary about how much came their way by the hand of Dasuki or through his network.

Now, I say ‘dipped their snouts in the blood of soldiers sent to battle’ because the money collected under false pretences to give a well-regulated militia the upper hand against Boko Haram was frittered away in currying favour and gaining support for the re-election of Goodluck Jonathan.

Before we idealise

It should therefore not surprise any right-thinking person if personnel of the Nigerian armed forces at times refused to go into battle or at other times had their bases sacked by Boko Haram because they were ill-equipped to fight or defend their positions, going from the fact that their hardware budget was being dispensed for pecuniary and political aims without any care or concern for the duty to which we had called men to defend the honour and integrity of Nigeria.

We may argue the legalese around the arraignment of Sambo Dasuki and genuflect with the idealism about the protection of human rights regarding this case, but what Sambo Dasuki was involved in is unforgivable.

Unforgivable with regards to the many lives lost to his atrocious activities and with regards to the high privilege to service to which he as a military man was called to and how he let men and people down by his conduct.

Such disgraceful behaviour calls for the stiffest sanctions and considering how money in the wrong hands in Nigeria is used to gum up the works of justice and accountability, the mere allowance of any freedom will almost make him as elusive as the constantly disappearing El Chapo Guzmán of Mexico. That is something, I am afraid we cannot risk in the face of the gravity of the alleged crimes of Sambo Dasuki.

Pay back with interest

It is interesting that some of the people who shared in this ill-gotten wealth distribution enterprise of wickedness are offering to return what they got, most likely in the hope that they will be forgiven and they can live to exploit the system and peddle influence again. I do not think this is excusable.

If anyone got money and lacked the gumption to ask where the money came from, they should not only return the money with interest, they should face justice as handlers of stolen goods either in the know or out of ignorance.

Never an exemplary leader

It would not be surprising if Goodluck Jonathan in ceding power having lost the Presidential election in March 2015, had smartly negotiated an immunity deal from being implicated in any of the outrageous raids on the Nigerian commonwealth perpetrated in his name or with his consent.

As leader, he never really was an example of morality or integrity having adopted a parseltongue of sophistry by suggesting stealing was not corruption, to me that was as epic making as splitting the atom, to separate stealing from corruption and in view of that, not give a damn about the need for good conduct in public office. His advisers and ministers simply followed his leadership.

However, the culmination of the #DasukiGate must be to get all that money back and make a cautionary example of everyone who shared in the loot, high and low, that the blood of the innocent would not have been shed in vain and that when you are called to serve, it is to serve the fatherland not to serve ourselves and our greed. It goes without saying that in a place like Nigeria, Sambo Dasuki is probably the tip of the iceberg in relation to the brutal and unconscionable rape of Nigeria under the 'saintly' Goodluck Jonathan.

Opinion: We are up against a menacing kind of religious puritanism

“This is the terrifying paradox of zealotry: no one hates humanity more than those who believe they know what's best for it." Howard Jacobson

Before us

Reading this in the Wit & Wisdom column of The Week magazine simply crystallised my thoughts about activities of religious extremists around the world.

In terms, we can all agree that the Islamic State has eclipsed both the Taliban and Al Qaeda in their utterly hubristic quest to somewhat purify their world and rid it of any person, view, thought, opinion or act that dares question their premise.

They have arrogated to themselves an omnipotent and untrammelled control of everything, having the power over life and death, killing off people like cattle with impunity and sadly, it seems without any consequence.

Religious puritanism

For how much longer we can continue to tolerate this rotten menace in our 21^st Century world, I cannot tell, but the more we allow it to fester, the more this cancer will metastasise into an incurable blight on our humanity.

What we are up against is a brand of religious puritanism that imposes itself relentlessly on our humanity, grabbing headlines with more daringly desperate and reprehensible acts that threatens to condemn our civilisation to a mediaeval existence.

Like someone offered in a tweet to me a few weeks ago, he defined puritanism as the fear that someone somewhere appears to be having fun or enjoying themselves.

Human expression curtailed

You them ask why life is not here to be enjoyed? Why should we not be happy? Why should we not appreciate beauty in nature and in things, in art, in music, in sport, in theatre, in dancing, or in every form of human expression?

Why should anyone think they can impose their beliefs and their extreme interpretations of religion on others where it is clear we are neither uniform in our devotion or allegiances?

These are people, flesh and blood like you and I, yet they act like there has never been any like their kind that walked the face of this earth. Tombstones all around the world mark the graves of those who thought they will live forever, some never even had a sign for posterity where they returned to dust. History stands as a forever indicting judge over those whose heinous acts against our human coexistence brought pain, death, suffering, war and worse to their fellow human-beings.

Where is the outrage?

The height of this hubris was first demonstrated when the Taliban destroyed the Bamiyan Buddhas, a treasure of human antiquity about 15 centuries old that some misguided religionists suddenly thought did not fit with their religious world-view.

Since then, there religious puritans and megalomaniacs have ravaged and vandalised, treasures, cities, records and histories, convinced that they serve a cause too great for any other to comprehend. They terrorise with violence and atrocity, purveying their absurdities with more alarming rhetoric, this needs to be stopped once and for all.

What we can lose

As we watch these people and let them thrive, with satellites in Africa, Asia and beyond; just imagine if this plague sweeps into Egypt and razes The Great Pyramid of Giza to the ground, because the Pharaohs were not of a particular religious persuasion, or see how Damascus reputed to be one of the longest inhabited cities in human history being torn down in our time.

It is unacceptable and the longer these people are allowed to exist our very existence is not only threatened, we become lulled into a form of acquiescence that history will never ever forgive our generation for.

If there is no leadership to arrest this nonsense like Nazism was arrested and defeated just 70 years ago, then what a pitiable existence our once resilient humanity has come to.

#JeSuisCharlie: Time to go after the extremists completely

No excuses

It was with utter shock at lunchtime that I saw the news on the canteen television set that 12 people had been murdered on the premises of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris.

Nothing in my view could excuse the blood-letting carnage meted out by murderous brigands in the name of some belief system or religion.

Satire is a wonderful tool and sophisticated medium of expression to carry interesting, difficult, complex or controversial thought to a reading or listening public, it is to make people think and reflect, never is it to inspire barbarity and atrocious behaviour leading to murder.

Undermining their cause

The three cowardly and masked criminals who shot up the place and left as they were heard shouting "we have avenged the Prophet Muhammad" and "God is Great" in Arabic ("Allahu Akbar"), have done a great damage to any cause they portend to represent.

To suggest they were avenging the prophet is to promote the view that beyond the mystique, the mystery and sometimes the myth, the so-called prophet is weak, powerless, fitful and ineffectual. This can never be the case if the teachings of the prophet have thrived for over 14 centuries.

God is no doubt great, but this is not how to project the greatness of God, by spilling blood on the streets in the quest for their own personal sense of justice.

Lawless brigands

It makes you wonder, who appointed these butchering criminals judge and jury to run riot with weapons taking any life they see fit because they were seemingly offended?

In this day and age, we cannot allow people to overrun civil society bringing carnage amongst us and then running into some hiding place seeking refuge from justice. Cowards!

What damage these people have wrought in the name of Islam is beyond reckoning, and much as they are not representative of Islam per se, this act of unmitigated violence will give the movement that appreciates Islamophobia more fuel and support.

Damage to religion

Suffice it to say that the people who do the most damage to religion are those who through their actions in support of their beliefs are both unreasonable and extremist.

People whose perspective of life strips humanity of any expression beyond one of subservience to a deity that is cruel, merciless and humourless, yet, if we are to lose the richness of satire and humour to the feeble religious sensibilities of fanatics, we deserve no liberty nor freedom.

We must protect our liberty, our freedom, our expression and our wonderful humanity from these sort of people by chasing them and their sponsors; the acquiescent, the committed and those who give succour to the ends of the earth, bringing them to face the full wrath of the law.

Much as we have civilised ourselves beyond the routine shedding of blood, we must deprive these people of their liberty that no one else comes to harm by their words, thoughts or deeds.

Snakes in the backyard

We can no more pussyfoot around religious extremism, it has to be tackled head on and brought to heel, as every terrorist does not belong on our streets for more than an overly generous second.

It is like what Hillary Clinton said about tolerating terrorism in whatever form, “It's like that old story - you can't keep snakes in your backyard and expect them only to bite your neighbours. Eventually those snakes are going to turn on whoever has them in the backyard.”

That is what we do when those with a tendency to terrorist activity are allowed to remain free because of our fear of engaging them and eradicating whatever the radicalisation or philosophy is.

Whose picture is it, really?

Then we need to deal with the issue of depictions, nobody knows what any of the original religious leaders looks like, it is quite beyond belief that anyone would then think a depiction is a representation. Like every picture of a white man with blonde long hair wearing a white robe is Jesus Christ, or every picture of a man with dark hair, a big beard and a wearing a turban is Mohammed.

How we can be so convinced of what we do not know to so act as if it were a personal living experience makes the hold of religion on some people feel more cultist than devotional. This is where people not so grounded in the richness of their faith and belief systems get so easily offended by completely innocuous things.

Can we have come through centuries of repression, persecution, wars and emancipating to then end up in the 21^st Century looking like the Dark Ages? It ought not be so.

Protecting our expression

No one can so suddenly be so religious to begin to personify the original prophets and instigators of the belief systems we now hold dear, from whatever persuasions and anything that attempts to create and nurture people with that kind of mind-set needs to be nipped in bud.

Back to Charlie Hebdo, I am saddened and perturbed by this tragedy, but for the victims of this tragedy not to have died in vain, we must continue the discourse in the richness of satire and humour, whilst condemning those who have decided to forfeit this wonderful gift of human expression for murderous instincts.

Justice will prevail, peace will rein and may the beauty of human expression on any topic we so desire to reflect upon never wane.

May all those who lost their lives in this unfortunate tragedy, rest in peace.

#JeSuisCharlie

#WhatDoesBHWant Discussion with @ContactSalkida

Ahmad Salkida, a knowledge expert on Boko Haram shared his insights on the Boko Haram ideology, activities, financing and recruiting effort on a Twitter discussion forum with the hashtag #WhatDoesBHWant on Saturday the 1^st of November 2014 for 2 hours.

The session was moderated by Dr. Jibrin Ibrahim and Akin Akintayo, the full timeline of what Ahmad Salkida said appears below and I have added some notes to highlight some of the points he made.

#WhatDoesBHWant? A Q&A with @ContactSalkida about #BokoHaram - 01/11/14 at 8:00PM

#WhatDoesBHWant?

8:00PM on Saturday 1^st November 2014 – Nigerian time.

The plan

Dr. Jibrin Ibrahim and Akin Akintayo have been invited to moderate a Q&A session with Ahmad Salkida about Boko Haram, its ideology, its operations, the violent onslaught and other difficult to understand activities of the sect.

Boko Haram is crudely translated to ‘Western Education is forbidden’ and officially known as Jama'atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda'Awati Wal-Jihad (People Committed to the Prophet's Teachings for Propagation and Jihad).

To many of us, what Boko Haram does is just purely unfathomable madness, yet, I would suggest that for centuries we never understood what madness was, what caused it, why people were affected and what impact it had on people society would suggest are mad.

Explaining the madness

With the development of psychiatry and psychology, we have a better understanding of madness, or rather mental illness and in some cases medicine and therapy has provided the means to manage it and probably suppress the very lunatic episodes.

With that thinking borne in mind, I want to opine that Ahmad Salkida who has written extensively about Boko Haram is like our psychiatrist, the expert who can explain the madness that appears to drive Boko Haram and bring some understanding to the issues that hopefully would help us contain and probably neutralise the menacing and marauding activities of Boko Haram.

Our frustrations

Going into the 7^th month, the Chibok Girls are still in captivity, the #BringBackOurGirls movement is unrelenting in their protests, carnage has destroyed life and property, states have been under a State of Emergency for over a year and yet, Boko Haram seems to run writ large on Nigerian sovereign territory.

With every engagement with the Nigerian armed forces, we are left us none the wiser about who is winning, who is losing, what agreements have been reached if a ceasefire exists and whether there is any justice or peace at the end of all this.

Ahmad Salkida will bring some insight and hopefully some enlightenment in this objective forum, and this is something we need within the turmoil of confusion and uncertainty about terrorism in Nigeria.

The discussion is embedded below, within the blog.

The Rules

In offering to moderate this Q&A session, these are the ground rules.

1.   The Q&A session will kick off at 20:00 hours on Saturday the 1^st of November 2014 – Nigerian time, which is 19:00 GMT.

2.   All questions should be in clear and plain English and must use the hashtag #WhatDoesBHWant

3.    Every enquirer must exercise the best of manners - be civil, be polite, be respectful and be friendly.

4.    Every Question must be in the context of learning and understanding #WhatDoesBHWant, we will not digress from that mandate to tackle distractions.

5.   Questions that attempt to excite passions and display personal animus will be ignored, the Q&A is NOT a forum to score points or settle scores.

6.   We all have every reason to direct our anger at Boko Haram, however, Ahmad Salkida is NOT a member of Boko Haram, he is a knowledge expert and he has offered to share his knowledge and insights with us out of good faith.

7.    No abuse or aggression will be tolerated during this Q&A session, all frustrations must be tempered with the utmost self-control.

8.   We would try to have as many questions answered as possible, there can be follow on questions, but we would not revisit questions that have already been answered. At the end of the Q&A session, the conversation will be Storified and published for people to review for posterity.

We hope that all well-meaning Nigerians would participate in this discussion in patriotic good faith and we can all come away wiser and more understanding of what we need to do to end the problems that Boko Haram exacerbates on Nigeria and its neighbours.

Thank you.

Further Reading

“I am not a member of Boko Haram” – Ahmed Salkida speaks on ‘Conversations with Abang Mercy’ [Mercy Abang – April 2013]

Nigerian reporter threatened over Boko Haram coverage [Committee to Protect Journalists – March 2012]

Another Look At The Boko Haram Philosophy- Ahmad Salkida [Peace and Collaborative Development Network – November 2012]

Boko Haram Ceasefire? Do Not Be Fooled, Nigerians By Ahmad Salkida [Sahara Reporters – February 2013]

Ahmad Salkida’s Articles about Boko Haram [Premium Times 2012 -2013]

THE DISPLACED - A Documentary About Nigerians Turned Into Refugees Inside Their Country By Boko Haram [SaharaTV on YouTube courtesy of P. D Braide – October 2014]

Nigeria: And when they were down

Oh, The grand old Duke of York,
He had ten thousand men;
He marched them up to the top of the hill,
And he marched them down again.

And when they were up, they were up,
And when they were down, they were down,
And when they were only half-way up,
They were neither up nor down.

The Grand Old Duke of York

Of trust and less

The Nigerian military has put itself in a rather difficult position of needing support whilst not being quite trustworthy. Too many times they have put a spin on stories that have turned out to be outright lies.

Their engagement with the Boko Haram militancy in north-eastern Nigeria has exposed fundamental rank and file deficiencies in the forces from low morale to not being adequately equipped to handle the insurgency.

The nursery rhyme at the start of this blog almost fully illustrates the almost futile exercise of winning anything until a radical reform of our whole military apparatus is put in place. Sadly, I do not think many well-meaning Nigerians are convinced that this regime has the will, mien or wherewithal to get this done as determined purposeful exercise, a stunt or a fluke.

An aimless march

When they were up, what we have read of is a scorched earth policy of pillage and massacre, extra-judicial killings and lawlessness, many of these highlighted by civil rights groups that there is very little to differentiate what they have done with war crimes.

When they were down, it has been barracks sacked, mutiny against generals, being under-equipped against the absurd but worryingly sophisticated tactics and weaponry of Boko Haram, soldiers let down by their generals, unnecessarily martyred as if sent into battle with their guns stopped or hands tied behind their back. The soldiers are brave because of who they are, not because of example and character exemplified by the military brass. It is a shame.

Recently, it was the wives of the soldiers who were protesting sending their husbands to war unfit for the task to which they were deployed. The real down that the military has passed off as a military manoeuvre depending on who you believe is that 480 soldiers have either fled into Cameroon in flight from Boko Haram or crossed into Cameroon in a military strategy to fight back, who knows? [BBC]

At the same time, Boko Haram declared an Islamic caliphate in Gwoza, the region where they have held sway, and even though the area is under a state of emergency, they act with impunity and writ large, the Nigerian authorities literally unable to project power and unchallenged sovereignty.

The Nigerian military have rejected the claim, but actions would matter much more than words. Ruefully, until we see something different, we have an alternative and illegal power in control in the north-eastern Nigeria.

We are not winning

Back to the nursery rhyme, it appears they’ve gone up the hill and down again, and now that they are only halfway up, they are neither up nor down. There does not seem to be plan, purpose, aim, strategy or any conceivable idea as to how the Boko Haram menace would be arrested and dealt with.

The Commander-in-Chief was ensconced in Germany on some personal retreat away from the chaos of Nigeria does not seem to be a general at war, rather he fiddles like Nero as Nigeria burns, proffering empty platitudes to the realities that Nigerians under the cosh of terror face, literally oblivious of things when buried in the cosy cocoon of Aso Rock – it is both a travesty and an atrocity.

The truth is we are shamefully and inadequately NOT winning this war against Boko Haram, no fanciful pronouncement would take away from the fact that the Nigerian forces are down and fearfully, maybe out too.

#BringBackOurGirls in Manchester - Rally for the #ChibokGirls

Online and offline

As we have kept our voices heard on Social Media, most especially on Twitter, we gathered this afternoon at the Piccadilly Gardens in Manchester to show our support for the #ChibokGirls.

Some people we engage with in Twitter would say not much happens for effective action on Twitter, but I can say that for the almost 100 people that made up the multinational crowd I saw today, none as far as I know were remotely connected to me on any Social Media platform that I use, yet we were there for one purpose.

To #BringBackOurGirls

We were united as Nigerians and citizens of the world, affected by a distant and remote event that could easily have been a sister, a daughter, a grandaughter, a niece, an aunt, a ward, a neighbour, a classmate or just another person, a participant in our common humanity who needs to be freed from that atrocities of terrorism by Boko Haram and the dereliction of duty by the government.

For every gathering of Nigerians and quite a few spoke, you could at least from my perspective expect the nostalgic sound of the Nigerian accent speaking English, then a moment of prayer and at 14:30, we all held hands in silence for 276 seconds, a second for each of the abducted #ChibokGirls.

Thank you

Then more speeches of exhortation, encouragement, politics and everything else that makes the atmosphere uniquely Nigerian.

We were resolved to keep the movement going, we need all those responsible and those with the responsibility to do, to #BringBackOurGirls.

That is the least we expect of our government and those who have the responsibility to keep our children safe.

Thank you to all who joined us in this moment of sadness and tragedy, it means a lot to all of us.

#BringBackOurGirls in Manchester Photo Album

Opinion: Save the children from these people - Part II - The Boko Haram Abduction of Girls

Abducted and enslaved

In Nigeria, two issues are conflated with a religious dimension to them but the worst of it is the pain of parents not knowing where their children are.

It just makes ones blood run cold that for over a week, about 230 girls were abducted from their boarding school by an extreme religious sect, Boko Haram.

What compounds the issue is that over 40 girls have managed to escape, some during prayers or when they were already pressed into slavery cooking for the terrorists.

We must note that none of the girls have been rescued by the authorities, they escaped and one cannot say if any in the process of escaping have been recaptured by Boko Haram and probably summarily executed for their daring-do, the thought just makes one shudder.

It is just unimaginable

Considering how many of these sorts of religionists have persuaded sexually repressed men to become suicide bombers with the promise of 72 virgins in heaven, one cannot begin to imagine the possibility that the girls are also used as sex slaves and forced into marriage completely against their will and without any justifiability apart from atrocious criminality.

For the principal to say not enough is being done to rescue the girls is not just a damning indictment of the security services, it beggars belief that for a region under a State of Emergency the Boko Haram brigandage literally has writ large to perpetrate unmitigated and untrammelled evil and criminality with fear that they even visited the federal capital with a bomb last week.

What are they doing?

One also asks how it is that the escapees do not seem to have been debriefed to pinpoint where they escaped from and have the encampment surrounded as they lay siege on this rotten escapade.

Yet, one understands that the Nigerian security services are more trigger-happy than considered to be sent into such a domain without it resulting in carnage. What we need is probably people able to contact and negotiate the release of the girls in some sort of quid pro quo arrangement leaving the fighting until another day when there are no hostages at risk.

That the parents had to hire vigilante groups to go after the Boko Haram registers on the scale of extremely unfortunate and beyond words.

Failed by the system

We as Nigerians are sadly constantly failed by a system of leadership and apparatchiks completely bereft of empathy and redolent of their responsibilities we have to do everything for ourselves including go after terrorists to obtain the release of our most precious offspring.

How have we been so accursed with a system that sees no urgency and necessity to be out there, working everything possible to get the girls back is beyond sadness, it is a tragedy.

It is not enough to pray for their release unharmed and unscarred, we need the authorities to assume responsibility and start acting responsibly so that no other lives are put in peril in the quest to get the girls back.

My heart goes out to the girls and their parents along with the staff under whose care they were but would have been helpless against a marauding atrocious and rabid religious mob that has no respect for anything either of humanity or of the deity they claim to worship.

Yet we must save the children from those who have no sense of responsibility in their quest for aims that debase our humanity.

Nigeria: We're Tired of the Lamentations of Jonathan

Two years of hopelessness

Yesterday marked the second anniversary of the ascension of Goodluck Jonathan to the position of the Executive President of Nigeria. Whilst it was only in the acting capacity until Umaru Yar’Adua died in May of 2010, he was effectively in control and evidently his boss was probably comatose and thereby too incapacitated to have a voice in government.

In the first few months, the man appeared to have promise and ability, if not the resolve to bring the change necessary to take Nigeria forward, however, since he received a mandate of his own from the people regardless of the documented irregularities, he has become a glaring disappointment leading Nigeria into even more perilous times.

There are times when many would prefer the President was struck dumb than to be found uttering words that belie a sense resignation and possibly cluelessness as to why he is in office.

We are tired indeed

In a speech given [1] at the commissioning of a cement plant belonging to Nigeria’s foremost billionaire, he once again made some statements that should leave many worried about the rudderless heading of the Nigerian ship of state.

“Story about commissioning is what Nigerians want to hear; Nigerians are tired of hearing that there is bomb explosion in Maiduguri or Kano or Bayelsa states. Yes, we have security challenges in the country. We have challenges in terms of infrastructure but we are totally committed individually and collectively to getting the country out of this situation. Our children want a better Nigeria than this.”

“Our greatest problem as a country is the rate of unemployment. If anybody can come up with policy and programmes that will create jobs, definitely, government will embrace that person and will continue to encourage that person.”

Indeed, the stories we want to hear are of great strides in industrial progress but we cannot just wish away the serious security issues that have engulfed the country over the last 18 months.

An enabling environment

We need to have confidence in the fact that the government is up to the task of providing not just security but an enabling environment for growth and development to deal with the as it were greatest problem that the President has identified.

In terms of the enabling environment for business, it would appear security has raced up to the top of the list with reports of Boko Haram attacks hurting business [2] and the business environment. This has to become a priority such that we cannot afford to have terrorist kingpins escaping police custody for weeks.

Down in the South after the manifestly atrocious amnesty programme that appeared to appease terrorism and militancy presaging a failed state and communities of anarchy, MEND returned to their skilled expertise of attacking oil infrastructure – for a President who is primarily from that area, it is shame that this menace has resurrected to wreak havoc again.

We also are fed up of government boasts of annihilating the terrorist threat or the extra-judicial process of killing suspects long before it has been proven that they are terrorists or where we have not begun to tackle the fundamental issues feeding the terrorist escalation.

Infrastructure issues

Beyond security, the government has to address the matters of basic infrastructure starting with electrical power which for business is a great recurrent expenditure because each business has to generate their own electricity and most depend on fuel. The power generation issue has consumed billions of dollars with nothing to show for it but more promises.

The national grid to support power generation needs to be ungraded and we need to exploit power generation sources beyond water and oil to gas, wind and solar options – w do not have enough food security to go the way of biofuels yet.

Then road and rail transport need to be developed, the gathering yesterday was intimated of the need to work on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and Sagamu-Benin-Ore Expressway, beyond that, the North is still the bread basket for Nigerian perishable foods – the links with those centres of agriculture need to be improved upon.

Local government

Next is the matter of education, health and local government development, most of the deprived areas in Nigeria are more the evidence of failings at state and local government levels of representation, things need to change.

There are many people with policies, programmes and ideas for job creation in Nigeria, in fact, the country is awash with talent and ability but lacking in opportunity.

Endemic corruption

The things that stifle opportunity in Nigeria are corruption and the lack of ease of doing business in Nigeria. Only today we learnt that the fuel subsidy issue might well be the fence for a massive fraud [3] coming to $12.6 billion in 2011 and this more by government agencies than by the faceless cabal that was the taking all the opprobrium until the Occupy Nigeria protests forced a probe into the scheme.

Nigerians are not confident heads will roll or the purveyors of this corrupt enterprise who seem to be in cahoots with the leadership that they are untouchable will ever be brought to book.

From 2010 to 2011 Nigeria fell in the Corruption Perceptions Index from 134 [4] to 143 [5], sadly, the government has not been seen to be ready, willing or able to tackle corruption. The escalation of the cost of fuel subsidy in 2011 has been attributed to funding of the electioneering campaign [6] of the ruling party in 2011 and it hardly paints the President in any good light but in the ranks of rotten plundering leaders of Nigeria who have gone before.

Hostile business environment

In the rankings of the ease of doing business [7] published by the World Bank Group, Nigeria stands at 133 out of 183 surveyed countries and ranks at 176 and 180 respectively for Getting Electricity and Registering Property – these, the President should already know these are the core impediments to business growth and consequently exacerbate the unemployment numbers – it is no rocket science at all.

No one is asking the President to create jobs but there is a lot he can do to create enabling environments for employment, development and growth with policies, laws and acts that address security, infrastructure, corruption and governance.

After two years in office, Nigerians are tired of the Lamentations of Jonathan; he should start acting like the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Sources

[1] allAfrica.com: Nigeria: We're Tired of Bombings - Jonathan

[2] Boko Haram attacks in Nigerian hurting business | The London Evening Post

[3] Nigeria Probes Possible Fraud Over $12.6 Billion Subsidies - Businessweek

[4] Corruption Perceptions Index 2010

[5] Corruption Perceptions Index 2011

[6] Nigeria: Power outage - FT.com

[7] Ranking of economies - Doing Business - World Bank Group

Other references

Nigeria: Why #OccupyNigeria should matter to all

BBC – A Nation Divided – The Health Demographic Map of Nigeria [Graphic]

BBC – A Nation Divided – The Literacy Demographic Map of Nigeria [Graphic]