By Uchenna Nwankwo
I am not quite sold to the idea making the rounds that majority of Nigeria’s Northern Moslems or their leaders do not subscribe to the Boko Haram ideology of Sharia rule in Nigeria’s Muslim states in the North and the concomitant rejection of Western education for which the group is known.

Historically, the leaders of the North adopted an attitude similar to the Boko Haram philosophy when the British colonialists came knocking. They quickly made a pact with the British to keep the Christian missionaries and the Western education that went with them away from the North.

Of course, the Indirect Rule that was embraced by the Muslim North kept Sharia rule and Arabic education intact in the area. In his time though, Ahmadu Bello relegated Sharia and embraced Western education.However, under Obasanjo, a semblance of Sharia rule made a forceful come-back in most parts of the Muslim North even though the 1999 Constitution does not allow for theocratic rule in any part of the country.

It has to be noted also that two serving Northern Moslem governors and a former governor have apologised to Boko Haram. Kwakwanso, the Moslem governor of Kano State, has called for the release of arrested Boko Haram suspects. What does this coded language mean? It is naïve to say that the governors speak only for themselves and not for the teeming millions under them, none of whom has distanced him/herself from the governors’ stance.

I do not subscribe to the notion that it is wrong, criminal or sinful for the Moslems of Northern Nigeria to want Sharia rule or to reject Western education. I think they are entitled to their preferences. Nobody has the right to question their choice, their cultural and educational preferences. What may rightly be brought to question is the manner the Boko Haram sets about trying to establish Sharia rule and their preferred Arabic cultural traits in the Muslin North.

The resort to terrorism can hardly be justified. Throwing tantrums like a spoilt child is not the best way to make demands on the polity or to pursue any cause no matter how worthy it might be.

But it has to be conceded that generally speaking the struggle for self-actualization or self-determination often takes a violent route and might sometimes degenerate into terrorism, especially in environments in which the political authorities simply refuse to listen or hearken to the cry of the oppressed, the marginalized or those who for one reason or another crave for change!

Of course there are those who believe that the Boko Haram affront has little to do with religion, sharia rule or preferred cultural traits and Arabism, but is geared towards the destabilization of the Jonathan government that is seen in some quarters to be a usurpation of the ‘turn’ of the North to produce the Nigerian president.

Hmm! Perhaps!! There are others too who look at the Boko Haram insurgency as something externally induced or at least supported and aided by Terrorist International of the Al Qaeda hue. I think there may be some cogency to this claim.

While the proximate causes of extremism and terrorism on our shores are undeniably of internal provenance, we must note that the embers of domestic terrorism once ignited by incendiary local factors are also continuously stoked by external elements.

Linkages between Boko Haram and Al Qaeda in the Maghreb have already been established. However, I am inclined to thinking that the Jonathan administration’s response to the malady is somewhat below expectation if not downright short-sighted. The single-minded resort to militarism as a means of containing the Boko Haram insurgency is misplaced.

Perhaps, Jonathan is over-rating Yar’Adua’s so-called success in applying that strategy in quelling the Niger Delta insurrection, which I personally regard as a pyrrhic victory or indeed a tragedy postponed.

There are two things that the Jonathan government must do now to complement its military effort and speedily bring the Boko Haram threat and indeed other equally important burning issues in the land to rest.

The first is that it must seek a political solution to the problems, while the second is to bring the full weight of the Nigerian intelligence community to bear on these matters, for it is not only in the North East or the Muslin North that there is serious discontent of violent proportions in Nigeria.

There are grave issues in Jos (North Central) and the Niger Delta (South-South). In the other three zones, there are also serious murmurings and grievances.

All these point to the inadequacy of the military imposed 1999 Nigerian Constitution. It is therefore high time the six zones of the country are brought together to discuss the way forward for the country and to craft a new Constitution that will reflect that resolve.

The Moslem states may have the Sharia or theocratic rule. But we must iron out the terms of association between Moslems and non-Moslem residents within those states as well as those between the Moslem states and the non-Moslem states.