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Professor Isaac Olawale Albert is a senior lecturer of African History, Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Ibadan. The former member of the Presidential Committee on the Review of Defence Policy in 2014/2015 speaks to DARE ADEKANMBI on the issues generated by the security threat issued by the United States government and other foreign governments to their citizens, implications for 2023 elections, what the Federal Government should do, among others.
Were you surprised to hear about the security alert issued by the United States government on the likelihood of terror attacks in some parts of the country, particularly Abuja?
I was not surprised at all. Terrorism does not leave a society the way a dentist will remove a bad tooth and either replace it or leave the gap open. You don’t deal with terrorism like that and that is why some of us were worried when the Federal Government said terrorism would end in the country by December this year. That is what we were told. Terrorism does not leave that easily and this is because those behind it are individuals that will always want to create confusion in the society. I have always believed that these people could spring surprises. When the DSS announced a few weeks ago that they had credible intelligence that terrorists were lurking around Abuja, I said to myself that this is not new because we expect that kind of information from security people. But now that two or three foreign embassies have issued travel advisories on it, I think what we are simply witnessing is a confirmation of what the DSS had earlier said.
So, I am surprised some Nigerians are abusing those embassies for issuing the travel advisories. Our DSS also warned us. When such warnings are issued, it is just to guide members of the public to be careful about where they visit, who they interact with and how they conduct themselves and also to alert the public as to its responsibility to provide information to security agencies as and when due. That is what security advisories and alerts are all about. There is nothing strange about what the US government has done. There is something unique about what we are witnessing now. America did not issue this security alert to Nigeria as such. The alert was issued for their citizens in Nigeria. I don’t actually see anything wrong in America that takes protection of human lives, especially those of its citizens, very seriously, warning its citizens in Nigeria to be careful. If you don’t protect your own citizens in Nigeria, the American government has a responsibility to protect its own citizens. The US has simply warned its own citizens to be careful where they will visit at this moment. The US has not stopped at that. It has scaled down activities at its embassy and other embassies have followed suit. Some of the non-essential staffers of the US embassy have started leaving Nigeria. This tells you they have seen something that is concrete and serious, something that Nigerians should also take seriously and give due consideration to. Yesterday [Thursday], I was called by a colleague in Abuja who told me he noticed heavy movement of foreigners outside Abuja at the airport.
It will be foolhardy for us as Nigerians to begin to say the US is talking nonsense, as the Information Minister appears to be saying. What Nigeria should be doing is to begin to put in place safety measures for actually sizing up to the level of insecurity around us. I was not surprised that the Jabi Mall in Abuja was shut down and a number of other commercial ventures are also shutting down. But the questions we need to ask ourselves are: how long will these commercial ventures be shutdown? How do we generate information as to when to re-open them? To me, rather than shutting down Jabi Mall, what we should do is post more security personnel around critical national security assets. Any building that we know could be targeted by terrorists or any public place we know could be a soft target to them should be given better protection rather than shutting them down. This is my attitude to it.
What interpretations do you have on the alert that was issued in the first place?
I have two interpretations. One, when the leader of ISIL, [Ayman] al-Zawahiri was killed recently by the US military, members of ISIL said they would attack American assets in all parts of the world. So, the question I asked myself is: Are the terrorists planning to attack Nigeria because of America or they are members of the local Boko Haram now known as ISWAP? So, we have two questions. Is the security threat coming from Boko Haram related networks or coming from those who said in August they were going to attack American interests across the globe? These are the questions our security agencies must carefully answer before they can properly frame their interventions. Are we fighting an enemy within or any enemy that is coming to Nigeria from outside?
What do you make of the reactions that have come from the Federal Government to the threat alert?
The Minister said Nigeria would not be stampeded. What did he mean by that? He said Nigeria would not be stampeded and then Jabi Mall was shut down. We are not managing public communication very well in this country. Counter-terrorism has two aspects. We have the military aspect and the communication aspect that is called strategic communication. We are very poor in the latter. We say things that are not true, not right and not just. Of what value is the statement from the Information Minister that we would not be stampeded and then they are reacting in a way that shows they have been stampeded? That means the Minister did not know what he was saying in the first place.
Would you have expected that the Federal Government would have contacted the American government to ask them to share the intelligence it has on the planned attack?
Issuing the travel advisory in the first place suggests lack of trust between Nigeria and some of these foreign embassies. It is most likely that the embassies have warned Nigeria and they see that the country is not taking the right steps; probably that is what might have happened. Now, the embassies have smartly taken the step of warning their own citizens. They are not warning Nigerians. So, I would have expected the Federal Government is to build on what the DSS said. Immediately the travel advisory was issued, the DSS said it was aware of the threat and has put in place a number of measures for dealing with the situation. The Federal Government should have said it is acting on the warning and is consulting with the embassies with a view to having access to more information and strengthening the security measures in the country. There is no need to abuse anybody or the embassies. The ambassadors know what they are doing. When an American was kidnapped in Niger Republic a few years ago and was brought to Nigeria by the abductors, the America military men stormed Nigeria and killed the abductors and freed their citizen and took him away to the US. It is only in Nigeria that people will be abducted and those who are supposed to release them will be giving excuses that they are afraid of collateral damage. The US military men came and released the American because they don’t joke with the safety of Americans. It is in Nigeria that people are abducted and you don’t see any state response. So, should now blame the American government for asking its citizens to be more careful about where they go in Abuja and other places? The US has the right to warn its citizens.
You gave a lecture entitled Violent Extremism and 2023 Elections at the opening day of Oyo NUJ Press Week recently. What implications do you think this warning will have on the mood for the elections?
Nigerians are waiting earnestly to vote next year. My summary of that lecture is that the 2023 elections will take place in an atmosphere of insecurity across the country. In the North East, there is Boko Haram and in the North West, there is banditry. In the North Central, there is a combination of both and in the South East, threat of secession and in the South West, there is kidnapping and in the South South, there is post-amnesty violence. So, the elections will hold under this very difficult security environment. What I said at that lecture is that the Nigeria State should invest heavily in the protection of the candidates, voters and election materials and election officials. We need more security at this moment. I also called attention to the fact that we should anticipate spoilers coming up with all kinds of security threats that could frighten Nigerians from going out to exercise their franchise. I think all those comments still stand. We need to me more careful as of this period.
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Approaching the issue from the context of the 2023 elections, I have my own conspiracy theory about what is happening. The terrorists that are trying to target Nigeria as of this period probably want to mess up all the good arrangements we have made for electing a new leader in 2023. It is in the public space that the Federal Government is determined to ensure free and fair elections and the government knows that is what Nigerians are looking forward to. Probably the terrorists are doing what they are planning to do now because they are not happy we are approaching another election. What I see happening is that if Nigeria does not manage this kind of security threat very carefully, I think it will discourage many people from participating fully in the elections because the elections will require the congregation of several people and some Nigerians can get so frightened that they will begin to re-consider their participation in campaign rallies ad electioneering activities generally. So, the government needs to manage the situation more creatively. Denial will not solve the problem because Nigerians are not blind. They can see the situation around them. There is the need for government to be more creative in its public communication strategies.
Some Nigerians have even advised that campaign rallies should be suspended meantime. Do you think this is the right thing to do?
Well it may be necessary to do so. But then the question is: the campaign resume? In terrorism, there is no cut-off date. As long as the fear lingers, you will be unable to do anything. If we stop campaigns because of security threat, the question to ask is: when will the threat go away? The threat will not go away because terrorists are connoisseurs in surprise elements. They strike when you least expect and they strike in ways you will find difficult to understand and in magnitude that will shock the society. If you say you are suspending campaigns, they will wait for you till the day you will come out to resume campaign. That may be the period they will choose to strike.
Rather than stopping campaign, we should strengthen our security in public places, provide security at rallies whether the campaigners belong to the ruling government or to the opposition. The fact is that they will be campaigning before Nigerians and therefore every Nigeria deserves to be protected. So, protection rings should be formed around the candidates and those who attend the rallies. This is the way I see it.
Talking about safety rings around critical national assets, you will recall there was a similar warning that Kuje prisons in Abuja would be attacked. The attackers struck, despite the warning…
There were many of such alerts in the past and that is why I am not surprised these embassies are only advising their own citizens. They advised us before Kuje prison was broken into. They advised us before the Abuja-bound train was attacked in Kaduna in February this year. If you do a Google search on this topic, you will see several alerts that were issued by these embassies. But most of the times when the alerts are issued, what state officials do is to abuse those issuing the alerts. When I heard some people on TV saying the alert should have been given to government, the question we should ask such people is: what did the government do with similar alerts in the past? Are we even sure that before these embassies went public with the warning they had not advised the Nigerian government? It is not impossible that the same intelligence would have been given to the authorities in Nigeria.
The war against terrorism appears to be the longest war humanity has had to confront in the modern world. The World War I lasted four years, while the World War II last six years. This particular war has been on for more than 10 years and it appears there is no end in sight and we are still talking about war on terror…
I don’t want to say it will not come to an end, but in security studies, we differentiate between conventional and unconventional warfare with the latter also called asymmetric warfare. By unconventional is meant that the war itself is not in line with what you expect a warfare to look like. In conventional warfare, you have two military units shooting at each other. The military to the left is wearing green uniform and the one to the right is wearing red uniform. If you shoot in the direction of those wearing red uniform and one person dies, you will know you have reduced the population size by one and so it is easy to fight convention warfare. But is asymmetric warfare, you don’t know the enemy because the enemy is a civilian like you or like me. He is wearing agbada or suit like us. In this kind of warfare, everywhere is war front; whereas in conventional warfare, the warfare is geographically mapped. So, you don’t go near the boundary and if you do, you know you are crossing the red line. This is why it is difficult for you to talk about wining asymmetric warfare because terrorist don’t have anything to lose by making the society ungovernable so long as they exist. When you kill them, other people will join the group. So, it is difficult to call attention to when the war will end. That is why I scientifically disagree with the Information Minister, [Lai Mohammed] when he said by December, Boko Haram insurgency will have ended. It is a lie from the pit of hell. Terrorism does not end that way. As powerful as the US government is, it has been fighting terrorists since September 9, 2001. It is recruiting soldiers, still manufacturing more weapons and keeps building global coalition to fight its enemies and the enemies are expanding to all continents of the world. It does not end like that. When our state officials deceive us by saying it will end in December, people will carelessly walk into where they could be killed. Several people were killed in the North East when they were deceived that Boko Haram had been defeated. They returned to their communities only for them to be slaughtered. I expected the Minister to have contacted the security operatives and allow them to issue their own statement rather than this kind of political statement we have about terrorism all over the place in the country. A civilian cannot explain security threats coming from embassies on terrorism.
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