Though the security situation across the country has become  alarming following lingering ethnic clashes, the Presidency says concrete efforts have been made to arrest the situation, especially in Southern Kaduna. Senior Special Assistant, SSA, to President Muhammadu Buhari on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu, in this interview, first wired on Channels Tv, explains that the outcome of  the investigations, including the  accidental air strikes on a civilian community in Borno State would be made public to forestall future occurrence.The interview was conducted before the President’s vacation controversy.

By Levinus Nwabughiogu

Do we have assurance from the Federal Government that the people who have fled their homes from Southern Kaduna can safely return?

Government has intensified a lot of activities. As we speak now, there are ongoing efforts to establish two military battalions: one in Karsha and one in Zango-Kataf, and there is military surveillance undertaken by the air force. The army has moved and Mobile Police squadrons have been put in place. So, a lot of effort is being made. The humanitarian situation is also being looked at. The Federal Government, through NEMA, is working with Kaduna State Emergency Management Agency in order to bring relief to displaced persons.

What was reported was that groups and public spirited individuals are the ones that give victims support in  primary schools,  there is no mention of NEMA.

I can assure you that NEMA is doing quite a lot but that isn’t to say that people should not help. This is Nigeria and this is how we have cared for one another in all crisis situations if you compare what is going in Southern Kaduna with what is going on in the North-East. A lot of humanitarian effort is being driven by communities. As a matter of fact, 80 percent of displaced persons are found in communities and are being accommodated by members of communities not in IDP camps. So, we have a way of caring for one another but I can assure that it was on the directive of the President that NEMA went to Southern Kaduna.

It is unclear whether or not the battalion has helped in getting those that perpetrate this evil. Once in a week now, we have had sporadic attacks even after security men had been deployed.

Things are calming down. It would be an assumption to think that the crisis will just go away with the wave of the hand. It will take  some time to get those  that perpetrate the criminality but, by and large,  the things put in place by the Federal Government are having an effect.

Many people wanted  security agents to go into the bush because they felt that was where the murderers were and they also felt it was difficult for them to go to their farm and they were saying that the bulk of the security men were always staying in town and on the road which wasn’t where the attacks were.

Well, again, we often make mistakes which is that we leave matters of security to the police and the army and there is enormous responsibility on us as members of our communities.  Let me give an example, information just coming out of Borno is that the chairman of a certain local government has been found complicit in Boko Haram attacks and he is being shielded by community members. This is not how it should be because we as members of the community have our own duty; if we leave these things to the police, army, we don’t have enough police men to put everywhere in this country. Yes, I believe there is a lot to be done but communities mustn’t push their own responsibility to the police in this crisis.

These people have already been traumatized, most of the attacks have been on their farmers. In some instances, villages are entered and ransacked and people are killed or maimed as   the case maybe. They rely on  security agencies knowing that they are unarmed and most of the attackers come in fully armed and prepared to create maximum damage and  the security agents aren’t looking in the areas they want them to look. Do you still say that they are shying from their responsibility?

To be honest with you, we must begin to look beyond the police and the army in solving a crisis like the one in Southern Kaduna. See the communities where lives have been destroyed. Look at the interesting thing that has evolved out of Plateau State. Plateau was the epicenter of crisis for some time and the community seized these elements with both hands. Southern Kaduna hasn’t been like this; a story was told of one Fulani man living in Southern Kaduna and was so trustful of his neighbour. The Fulani, being a Muslim and his neighbour, a Christian, left behind his child with this neighbour. The neighbour looked for a Muslim school for the child to be taught because his children don’t go to that school. In fact, the Fulani man went and never really came back to that community but this Southern Kaduna man raised this child as a Muslim in the choice of his own parents until the young man graduated from the university before he reunited with his family. These are communities that have lived with one another for a long time. A lot has happened. So, many of the things that are going on there is a lot of criminality. There is a lot of injustice that needs to be corrected, politics is also coming in and, when politics and security mix, you have problems.

What precisely is going on in Kaduna?

Well, so many things have gone wrong including, as I said, the breakdown of society and that really has to be rebuilt. Security has been intensive there but, as I said earlier, that alone isn’t going to solve the problem. Beyond this, I think there is also a lot to worry about, concerning politics and religiousity and even media coverage of the crisis in Southern Kaduna. I think it needs to be more enlightened, balanced and evenly handled. It is a crisis where communities are fighting one another and when you read media reports, it is just one side of the story of the victims that is being told. There are Muslims, there are Christians and they kill each other but people report like there is only one part of the community suffering all of this and that is the misinterpretation of the facts. Politics, like I said, has a role in all of these things. Don’t forget that Southern Kaduna is the only PDP senatorial district in the entire North-West and that has implications for the way politics is run. There is a lot of interest; the PDP is interested and is assuming someone wants to use force to capture this place. The PDP, the media and everyone is throwing things into this thing. So, we have to de-escalate by ensuring balanced media reports, depoliticise the situation and sermornization of some of the religious leaders. We have seen lately, for instance, there have been this video going viral all over the country that people should be killed.

Who is saying that?

Unfortunately the video isn’t branded, the name isn’t there but it is very clear it is  someone who kept asking for the killing and the be-heading. This country doesn’t deserve this and I have the sense that this person has a lot of explanation to do.

On the point made by the Kaduna governor that the people were taking a revenge on 2011 elections crisis/compensation of victims …

People talk about Fulani settlers, I don’t know why anybody is called a settler in his own country but I just illustrated a story of a Fulani man who left his son with his neighbour. These are people who have lived in these places for generations herding their cattle and the so-called natives who believe they are the oldest in there as long history can remember call them settlers. I think the point the governor of Kaduna has tried to make all along is that this crisis is a long standing one and he mentioned that more than 10,000 lives have been lost and that the problem has continued to perpetuate itself because people are not being punished for their roles in previous crisis. We have had investigation upon investigation, report upon report to successive administrations in Kaduna. What can anybody do about it? Well, he says this time that it would be different, that people would be brought to trial and they are already making arrest and we hope that will help to stop the crisis.

But people believe that even if the crisis between communities, how come some communities seem better armed than others? Some people feel there is more to this than meets the eye and some people are alleging conspiracy theory and  Southern Kaduna isn’t the only ones having crisis. From Taraba to Yobe, you have pockets of  crisis, even at some point, Nassarawa had to contend with a crisis of this nature. Do we have security intelligence mapping that says precisely what is going on and affecting these communities and this is the solution they are proposing?

I can say that there is this massive conspiracy that you are leading to whether it is from home or abroad or whatever. One thing I know is that we have a problem because we have cattle herders who, by tradition, follow the green grass and, when they drive their cattle around looking for green grass, the cattle enter farmlands and  eat  crops and, when that happens,  farmers fight back and, on the other hand also, you have cattle rustling which also has assumed a big dimension. Until recently nothing was done about it. So, when you snatch the cattle and you kill and eat up they will come back to take.

Are you suggesting that farmers are also taking cattle?

Number of communities do this otherwise if there is no cattle rustling people won’t be talking about it. This is why ongoing efforts seem to be like what you have in Benue coming out of Agatu last week, you have Nassarawa and Benue states coming together to carve out a terrain for cattle rearing.

The communities  were resisting that move by the state government because they felt the wounds were just too fresh for them to forget in a hurry.

Well, it isn’t easy to suppress all of that but certainly that is the way to go. Even Anambra and Enugu and a number of states have seen solutions that are very bright that whenever a community steals cattle and they are able to trace, they are made to pay the cattle herders because they have stolen and, if the cattle rearers drive their cattle over their crops, they are also charged. So, there is a balance in the way it is done.

But in terms of the lives that have been lost…

Well, lives have been lost and, like I said earlier, there is a conflict and these lives are lost on both sides and I think that media reports ought to be such that they reflect the losses on both sides otherwise we are not helping the crisis situation.

Information on the Southern Kaduna crisis the Catholic church has released indicates that over 808 lives have been lost as of the time they wrote their statement  which the IG disputed  but then we never got any figure from the authorities even though the governor of the state came out to say that since the crisis begin in Southern Kaduna over 20,000 lives have been lost. It is a huge number of people that lost their lives to this conflict that would have been resolved before now this something the federal government is giving serious thought to?

It is tragic and unfortunate that this happened. But I must say that people don’t help situations like this when they become inflamed and people argue about figures they can hardly justify.

On the number of deaths

Well, I can’t account for all the bodies. But I think  the escalation of the crisis in Southern Kaduna reached the highest point around Christmas. I am not talking about the recent Christmas and this is where all these numbers are coming from.  You will recall that the president instructed the Inspector General of Police to go to the place and the IG asked his men on ground to give him the number of those that they could see were killed and they gave him 16 names. So, we have to be careful with numbers and if you ask me who do I believe, I would rather believe the IG than believe someone whose numbers are not structured and accounted for in full in the sense that we can see names and all of that. Of course no one is pleased about the losses.

Of course no one is pleased but if we were to start counting from August when we heard the first attacks in Godogodo  down to December, are you saying that the figures are  exaggerated and the IG only came back with 16 names?

The thing is maybe we ask the police to update their own number, go back to the period you just mentioned and then give us their own number and let’s see what it looks like. 808 is alarming and I hope it isn’t up to that and I am persuaded in my mind that the number could be much lower.

Or much higher?

I doubt that.

Why do you doubt that?

Because we need to have a sincere explanation to where are they coming from; all of them and when we have a situation like this, who buries the corpse? It is usually the local authority  and when they give numbers, we have no other person to believe. Dealing with Borno for instance you see conflicting numbers coming from the air force and the state.

The rising security situation nationwide and preparedness of security agencies to tackle it.

To be fair to our law enforcement, I am sorry that all these things are happening and you know the strategy the police has used for a while: when families whose members are kidnapped s say stay away, they stay away especially during the period of negotiation. The family is always given the priority but check the records; in more than 90 percent of kidnapping without payment of ransom and release of the victims, the police are able to  catch the kidnappers. As we speak now, I know that the police has in custody not less than 800 suspected kidnappers. So, the system is working perhaps. It isn’t like most people want it but are we able to apprehend them as they do these things? I think it is something that the police should be commended for doing.

On the air force accidental bombing in Rann, Borno State.

It is tragic as the president said and it is unfortunate and this shouldn’t have happened and I hope the investigation will uncover why this has happened so that we ensure in the future that it doesn’t happen. This is the first time we are having this kind of incident; it is tragic and unfortunate and we will live to regret it but  such accident also happens in war situations. In Iraq, in Syria, in Afghanistan; there have always been civilian causalities, collateral damages and again they may not be up to the number we just had in Borno which again is shocking. But we wait for the panel of investigation to conclude but I don’t think it is the norm in military history anywhere that compensations are paid to civilian causalities in war situations. I have my doubts.

If we feel sorry enough that these people were supposed to be receiving protection in their communities because it is an unofficial camp put together by the communities themselves and over 50 of them, I want to be very careful with figures, at the last time we heard, over 100 people lost their lives. As a matter of fact it is more than that as we speak.

What numbers do you have?

By Saturday they were talking about 236 people.

That is a lot of people.

Yes, as I said it is very tragic and unfortunate but it didn’t just happen because credible intelligence had been received. Boko Haram fighters had moved and had been picked by the system; satellite and all of that and they had gone to that community and when air raids were planned, the Boko Haram elements pulled out and you see that two days after that incident they came back again with the hope that they could hide and we deployed the military at the scene again.

The military said they are going to do an investigative hearing on this, do you think that it is going to be public?

I don’t know how they are going to do it but I know as many as 4 investigations are ongoing currently.

Will the findings be made public?

The government is an accountable government. It has no reason to keep it away from the public. Would there be public hearings like the ones in the parliament? Well, I don’t know that but  I think that this is so painful.

If you are talking about precedence in that regard, at least we have the precedence in Israel where there are public hearings in the military and this is because the military is funded by tax payers’ money. We are talking about an entire community, over 200 people which yourself have admitted, that is a lot of number which is something Nigerians should be concerned about and the military has to be open about.

We hope also that if there is blame,  punishment should be dished out. Would there be compensation? We hope that when they come up with their recommendations, you are asking for precedent to be set if they are able to persuade the Nigerian government.

If there is none at all in the world, then the Federal Government can set precedence?

Well, someone needs to make that suggestion first.

We don’t even know if we have heard that over 200 people have been killed in any story before in all of the situations we have heard outside the country

Why has it been difficult for instance for the president to pay a visit to any of the places that are having these crisis?: Southern Kaduna, Borno. Yes, he has visited many of the fronts but the communities themselves, we haven’t seen the president go there to pay sympathy visit.

It depends on what you want. If I come from any of these communities which have been given a battalion of the military or  a squadron of mobile policemen around me and the president comes in and goes out, I am not saying that the president don’t feel this, he is a father, he is a grandfather, he has family and he has his heart on all of this matter, what happens is that when he is represented by competent elements around him, they report to him about things that need to be done and I think that people should decide what they themselves want. We have had government that played on rhetorics most of the time and gave us that as substitute of action. The president will rather speak through his action than being sentimental about some of these things.