Tony Uranta, a Niger Delta activist, was a member of the Presidential Committee  on National Dialogue. In this interview, he bared his mind on the nefarious activities of the Boko Haram sect in some Northern part of the country. Excerpts:

By Dapo Akinrefon

WHAT is your reaction to the continuous terrorists’ bombardment of Nigeria?

I am very happy that you used the word ‘terrorists’ rather than insurgents as it is being wrongly used by even army officers. You can understand from their expressions that they don’t understand the difference between insurgency and war and terrorism.

*Tony Uranta

An insurgent is someone who takes up arms to prove a point within a state, staying within a state, through his being discontent. You could now say that the Niger Delta situation could aptly be termed an insurgency. The Boko Haram are not insurgents. They are terrorists, terrorists who are part of a global terrorism circle that is being controlled as well by ISIL, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. You will notice that Boko Haram, just as Al-Shabab, Al-Qaeda in the Maghreb, fly the same flag. They all talk about the Islamic caliphate. An insurgency is not foreign controlled. But far beyond that, an insurgency does not try to obtain land. Boko Haram, ISIL, AL-Shabab’s intention right now, is to take over space, territories, and declare those territories, non-border Islamic Caliphate.

The only thing that binds them is ideology. Their ideology that says for example that, slavery is proper, the enslavement of women. ISIL has come out to make a very categorical statement about that. This is to emphasize the fact that there is a totally new global phenomenon at play. And nowhere else in the world is that phenomenon called insurgency. What we have is not insurgency. It is simply a mass murderous invasion of our space, by local and foreign terrorists, with intent on capturing territories, intent on massacring and depleting population that they believe is not in any way related to their belief.

You see, The Sultan of Sokoto, correctly said in his last statement, that the war must now be intensified. I wish he had said that a year or two years ago, when more Christians were being killed. In that statement, he said it’s because more Muslims are being killed now. This is not a war between Islam and the rest of the world or the rest of Nigeria. It is a war between certain radical fundamentalist that have Islam as their basis, and other parts of Nigeria. Therefore, like you see in Iran, Sunnis are killing Shiites in Iran; Shiites are killing Sunnis in Syria.

It is not therefore strange, and nobody should hide under the cover that Muslims are being killed to try to fool us. It is going on everywhere in the world. Mosques are being bombed by Muslims. The Sunni mosques are bombed by the Shiites. The Shiites mosques are bombed by the Sunnis. They are all Muslims.

The common derivative is that they are all fundamentalist s who are committed to killing. Having established that, there is no insurgency ongoing in Nigeria. I will like that fact to be drummed into people’s ears, hearts and brains. It is your mindset that prepares you for what you are facing. You have to know your enemy.

Murderous terrorism

If you think your enemy is an insurgent, then your military is already incapacitated. That will make you believe that what President Goodluck Jonathan said in the beginning when he too was being misled    into thinking that what we have was an insurgency and that we cannot go and start killing our brothers. For me, no member of Boko Haram is my brother. Some Christians came to my birthday reception a few days ago; they said love your brother. That is Okay but I repeat that no Boko Haram person is my brother. Nobody that will put a baby down and stamp on the baby’s head can be my brother. Nobody that will slaughter babies and children can be my brother.

So, I will; not love that person or people as I love myself. I will resist the person because the person is a devil and is from the devil. That is the way each of us must see Boko Haram. There is no insurgency in Nigeria rather there is terrorism.