By Ochereome Nnanna

WHEN some groups and individuals from Northern Nigeria suggested amnesty for the Boko Haram Islamic terrorist group ravaging the North East, it seemed like just another copycat idea that no serious person would pay attention to. You know, the Nigerian elite, especially those championing sectional interests, are often so lazy.

Ideas are copied without evaluating whether or not they make sense or apply congruently. Just because it was used to solve a problem in one part of the country they want it for themselves. It becomes another “national cake”.

The Borno State government was first to officially extend an amnesty offer to this sect, which has killed many innocent Nigerians, including security agents, Christians, Muslims and even members of the El Kanemi royal family. Police stations and churches have been bombed by rag-tag bands of hit-and-run terrorists on motorcycles.

Our own terrorists are such cowards. They love life, unlike their mates in the Middle East who blow themselves up in the process of attacking their enemies. They don’t want to die but they want to kill. Their main grouse? They don’t want Western education. They want to establish a “genuine” Islamic state in a country where Muslims are hardly in the majority and majority of the Muslims are civilised and as eager to help build a modern, united strong, democratic and prosperous nation as any other good Nigerian.

I was petrified by the news that the Federal Government under President Goodluck Jonathan and his Deputy, Namadi Sambo, have decided to use a “stick and carrot” approach to solve the problem. They have not exactly told us what the “stick” is, and why they have failed to apply it decisively as a General Sani Abacha or Major General Muhammadu Buhari would have done. It was the “stick” that was deployed to stamp out Boko Haram’s “ancestor”, the Maitatsine terrorist group in 1980 by the President Shehu Shagari regime. And it is the “stick” that every sane and strong nation applies to bludgeon terrorists to pulp.

The “carrot”, we hear, is a possible offer of amnesty to members of the sect who are ready to lay down their arms. What is the basis for this offer? Some may say it was a measure that the late President Umaru Yar’ Adua applied to bring the Niger Delta militancy to a peaceful end.

We will get back to this shortly. How would an offer of amnesty dissuade terrorists intent on imposing their own warped style of Islamic rule on Nigeria (just as Maitatsine had dreamed before he was crushed) from continuing in his schizophrenic pursuit? How would it convince a sect that says it does not want Western education to now want it?

How would amnesty persuade a sect that has hectored both the federal and state governments to submission to now drop their arms just when “victory” appears to be going their way? This is the first time in my life that I am hearing any government in the world offering a “pardon” to a group linked to Al Qaeda. Boko Haram is no different from the Al Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) that is operating in northern Mali. AQIM is being actively contained by security forces from surrounding countries, including Mauritania. AQIM has not been offered amnesty because terrorists are implacably committed to their delirious mission.

The amnesty offered the Niger Delta militants had a sound rhyme and reason to it. The Joint Military Task Force, JTF, had perfected a scorched earth end-game against these militants if they failed to surrender their arms and accept amnesty by October 4,  2009. There was going to be an all-out war to stamp them out. That would have had enormous humanitarian and economic implications for this country since our economic sustenance depends on the Niger Delta. The militants were fighting injustice meted out to their people in over 50 years of exploitation of their resources as if they were a conquered foreign territory. They were not implacable enemies of the Nigerian state. If they were, they would have defied the amnesty offer and settled for war.

This is exactly what is going to happen with Boko Haram. They will not accept the offer because there is no basis for it. They have tested their ability to successfully strike terror and force government to make unsolicited peace offerings. They will read the offer as a “surrender” of sorts, which will embolden their backers to reinforce the Borno sector with funds and fighters from around the globe. If care is not taken, Borno may become another Waziristan of Pakistan, where the late Osama bin Laden hid until he was smoked out and eliminated.

Nigerian leaders should please come to the realisation that no country or government worth its name negotiates with criminals and terrorists. It is usually a zero-sum situation whereby you either defeat them or they overcome you. When the Abia State government offered amnesty to kidnappers after the Niger Delta amnesty model, I furiously kicked against it, with the same argument I have presented here. The overall leader of those gangsters, Osisikankwu, became emboldened enough to give an exclusive interview to Vanguard Newspapers spelling out political “conditions” before he would drop his arms.

Governor Theodore Orji finally decided to do the right thing: Bring out the full muscle of the Nigerian state with the deployment of soldiers. Today, Osisikankwu and kidnapping in Abia State are languishing in the dung heap of history.

There is no carrot for criminals and terrorists. There is no meeting them halfway. Even if it requires a state of emergency, let us put on the iron fist, move in and delete the Boko Haram louse from Borno. We did it before and we can do it again – even better.