Sometime in the early eighties, an interesting cartoon appeared in one of Nigeria's leading newspapers lampooning Nigeria's penchant for setting up committees to look into issues instead of dealing with them as they arise. In this instance, water hyacinth had taken over the inland water ways such that navigation by boat had become a near impossible task. Lagos state was worse affected as scores of their ferries could not operate and that predictably affected transport badly in the mega city. So this cartoon showed a building where the committee set up to look into the issue was debating ad-infinitum. A professor was there "blowing big, big grammar", a civil servant was there cautioning the professor that what he was saying was not in tandem with "civil service General Orders (GO)", the consultant was there with his long slides making a presentation that sent majority of the committee members to sleep - they did not have the faintest idea where he got his figures from! While the debate lasted, another part of the cartoon showed the water hyacinth multiplying in increasing numbers and advancing until the entire building where the committee sat was enveloped in water hyacinth! This sad commentary on the Nigerian situation has remained unchanged unfortunately. Water hyacinth as a plant is raw material for the paper industry. As at the time this problem became serious, Nigeria still had a functioning news paper manufacturing company at Oku Iboku near Calabar. All the government needed to do was to contract people to go harvest the water hyacinths to supply the paper mill or provide the needed technology to do that if need be. It could have been a mere executive decision that would even provide jobs for people! But rather, they found it convenient to hide their heads in the sand (in this case a nebulous committee) as per the ostrich. The rest is history. The water hyacinths are still there and the paper mill had since folded up.
We are back full force to the era of committees and some eminent Nigerians (who are they?) are touting the presidential amnesty committee for Boko Haram as the be all and end all solution to the serious acts of mass killings taking place in certain areas of the north courtesy of the sect. Like cancer, what started in a local government area in Borno State had spread to take over the entire state, grown beyond to Yobe, Adamawa and even made a detour to Abuja and Nassarawa. While the government dithered to give peace a chance, the insurgents got bolder and more vicious and now have added kidnappings to the menu. They are extorting millions of naira from kidnap victims ostensibly to fund their operations. The hue and cry over the impunity of the insurgents and the seeming helplessness of security agencies made everyone to doubt the capacity of government to contain the crisis. Looking for an easy way out, some respected elites from the north latched on to the Amnesty bogey. The reasoning was simple: if it worked in the South, it must work in the North no matter that the circumstances of the rebellion in the south are different from the north. You know in this country, in keeping with national character and sharing formula, whatever is shared to the south, must be shared to the north. After all, If amnesty has been "shared" to the south, why not the north also? This is inspite of the fact that the reason for the militant action in the south had nothing to do with religion, had nothing to do with branding education as sin, had nothing to do with killing people senselessly. It had everything to do with resource control. While no right thinking Nigerian from the south including this writer supported the uprising, the fact remains that the leaders of the militant groups were known people, their camps were known and they were people the amnesty committee could approach and discuss with. After negotiations Nigerians witnessed how the militants came out in the open to surrender and lay down their arms after accepting the terms of the amnesty. Can the same be said of Boko Haram? Is there a place the committee members can go to meet with their leader? How do you negotiate with a leader you don't know? How do you negotiate with a person whose intent at first sight is to bomb you to smithereens? How? Have we so soon forgotten the Boko Haram member who was killed for daring to hold peace meetings with OBJ? Now, those opposed to emergency rule are saying the government ought to fold its hands and wait for the committee to come out with their "white paper". While we wait for this all important committee report, the government should do nothing while its citizens are being butchered by the same insurgents who are supposed to be meeting (or hope to meet) with the committee! How preposterous! Such a government would lose its legitimacy in no time. But I am told some Nigerian elites like playing politics with human lives as long as it is not theirs or those of their family members involved. None of those people criticising the current military effort have lost loved ones or suffered irreparable business losses due to this crisis. It is unpardonable wickedness to play politics like that. It is a shame, a disgrace and most of all, ungodly.
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