Imagine going to a physician and telling him that you just mistakenly ingested a certain substance and that you wondered whether it would hurt you or not. And the physician sends you home with the instruction that the substance may make you healthier or kill you.
You probably will question the competence, even sanity, of the physician. Yet, the attempted assassination of Muhammadu Buhari presents Nigeria with a parallel paradox. On the one hand, it can galvanise a much more unified approach to the Boko Haram challenge or it could portend an unimaginable horror.
It all depends on whether the assassination attempt is seen for what it evidently is, or whether it becomes another fodder for political jousting. And judging from the reactions so far, both outcomes are possible. The instinctive and logical assumption has to be that Boko Haram is responsible. But predictably, fingers are also pointing at Buhari’s political rivals, specifically supporters of President Goodluck Jonathan.
The insanity of Nigeria’s politics confers a measure of credibility on even the weirdest of allegations. Even then, the ease with which chieftains of the All Progressives Party (APC) have discarded even the possibility of a Boko Haram operation is dismaying.
I will return to this point, but first some insights from the Hamas-Israel battle in Gaza. When the Israelis decided to invade Gaza one more time, the goal again was to emasculate Hamas by destroying their weaponry and the tunnels that facilitated their operations and resilience.
What the Israelis have found though is that Hamas’s capability is much more sophisticated and the tunnels immensely more extensive than they ever imagined. The tunnels have expanded not just under Gaza but right into Israel itself.
This sobering realisation has galvanised Israeli public opinion in favour of continued massive attack on Gaza, regardless of the enormous toll in Palestinian lives and the higher than usual deaths of Israeli soldiers.
Moreover, as David Grossman,the noted Israeli author and peace activist has argued, the Israelis’ unity against Hamas may also lead to a unity of purpose in finding a solution to the enduring problem.
“Beyond the pugnacity of a few politicians fanning the flames of war, behind the great show of ‘unity’ — in part authentic, mostly manipulative — something about this war is managing, I think, to direct many Israelis’ attention toward the mechanism that lies at the foundation of the vain and deadly repetitive ‘situation,” Grossman wrote in an essay in the New York Times.
“Many Israelis who have refused to acknowledge the state of affairs are now looking into the futile cycle of violence, revenge and counter-revenge, and they are seeing our reflection: a clear, unadorned image of Israel as a brilliantly creative, inventive, audacious state that for over a century has been circling the grindstone of a conflict that could have been resolved years ago.”
Though the situation and solutions of both conflicts are not the same, there is something quite instructive about Grossman’s arguments in the Nigerian context.
As Grossman argues, a major reason the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has festered is the refusal by right-wing Israelis to acknowledge that Palestinians are just like any other people: they deserve to live normal lives. In Nigeria, a major reason Boko Haram are so potent is the refusal by some notables to acknowledge that the group’s objective is to deny all Nigerians a normal life.
Just as the Israelis’ uncovering of Hamas’ potency could be an eye-opener for redress, Boko Haram’s attempt to assassinate Buhari could knock the group’s activities off the platform of partisan politics. But that’s hardly been the case.
The attempted killings of Buhari and Sheikh Dahiru Usman Bauchi have all the markings of al Qaeda, Boko Haram’s mentor and operational inspiration. And only crass partisanship would inspire an alternative interpretation.
Al Qaeda savours horrific spectacles. They stage attacks in grandly bloody style. Their destruction of the twin towers of the U.S. World Trade Centre on September 11, 2001 remains the most notable example. Before that there were the simultaneous bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. And after “September 11,” there were several similarly coordinated attacks in Afghanistan and Iraq, respectively.
The coordination of the attacks on Buhari and Sheikh Bauchi was clearly of such al-Qaedaish style. If Jonathan supporters wanted to kill Buhari it is improbable that they would have found it necessary to coordinate it with the killing of the moderate Islamic cleric.
The reality seems to be that besides bloody spectacles, Boko Haram seems intent on intimidating Northern leaders into silence, if not active support.
In 2012, they murdered General Muhammad Shuwa (retd) at his home in Maiduguri. Shuwa was not only a civil war hero; he also put his life on the line to try to prevent the pogrom in the North, a major event in the descent into the war. Before his killing, he had told the international press that he was targeted by Boko Haram. His crime had to be his patriotic commitment to the Nigerian enterprise.
Similarly, several Islamic clerics who condemn Boko Haram have been killed.That they would target Buhari is certainly consistent with these attacks. After remaining coy or tepid in his statements about Boko Haram, Buhari called them “mindless bigots” amid the furore over the abduction of the Chibok girls.
That and subsequent similarly stern comments must have stung Boko Haram. To them, it had to be a betrayal. And, like the mafia, such groups don’t brook betrayal.
The real danger facing Nigeria from Boko Haram’s assassinations then is not the tragic loss of lives per se. It is that they will kill a Northern leader with rabid followers who are then deluded into believing that a political death squad did it.
This apparently is the reason for President Goodluck Jonathan’s statement that the country would have been in turmoil had Buhari been killed. As, I suggested in a fictional Punchwise essay in February 2012, Nigeria may similarly descend into chaos if Boko Haram succeeds in killing a pro
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