Sept. 25
NIGERIA:
Guilty Boko Haram Members Deserve Death Penalty - Ekhomu
Interview----By Ifeoma Ononye
Chairman of Trans-World Security Systems Limited, Dr Ona Ekhomu, is an
international security expert. In this interview with Ifeoma Ononye, he
explains the advantages and disadvantages of President Buhari's 3 months
deadline to the military to end Boko Haram attacks.
President Buhari has already clocked 100 days in office. What is your opinion
about his ongoing fight against terrorism so far? I think the President's 100
days in office has been very eventful in terms of the war on terror. The
President has gone round the world building coalitions. This visits started
with the visit to the G7 and then to the United States, Chad, Cameroon, Niger
and Benin Republic. In fact, those where his immediate priorities; which was
visiting the local neighbours. This way, the President has forged a coalition
that perhaps was not there before. Before now, the relationship was more
adversarial with these immediate neighbours and those neighbours are very
important because they have been traditionally giving sanctuary to Boko Haram
fighters. And because of the new rapprochement, Boko Haram fighters are being
denied that sanctuary which has been giving them safe haven; after they attack
Nigeria they run across the border because the borders are very porous. That
has been a very good strategy. That has been a master stroke, but my problem
with that has been that BoKo Haram has taken roots in those countries too. When
Chad sentenced 10 BoKo Haram fighters to death, nine of them were from Chad,
only one was from Nigeria. That shows that the sect has taken roots in those
countries. When we say Boko Haram, it is an ideology. It's a group and it's no
longer a Nigerian thing anymore. Even as far back as December 2003, when
Muhammed Ali converted Mohammed Yusuf (the leader of Boko Haram) to radical
Islam. Back then, Yusuf used to be a regular Muslim cleric. But when he was
converted to Taliban style conservatism, they adopted the name Boko Haram. They
do not want anything to do with Western education because it is sinful and also
because westernisation did not lead to wholesale conversion to Islam. Not just
Islam but their own brand of Islam, i.e, the fanatical Islam. What I am saying
is that even as far back as when Muhammed Ali did his Hijra, i.e, a spiritual
movement from a bad place to a good place which is little Afghanistan. Little
Afghanistan is a town called Kanama in Yunusari Local Government Area of Yobe
State. It is called little Afghanistan because they saw themselves as offspring
of the Taliban in Afghanistan. Then they were called Nigerian Talibans or Yobe
Talibans. They separated from Boko Haram back then, because Yusuf said that he
was not going o fight. Muhammed Ali's Group went and became the Nigerian
Talibans and started fighting with the police. The then Governor of Yobe State,
Alhaji Bukar Abba Ibrahim, now Senator Abba Ibrahim called out the military and
police and fought them, and eventually they were subdued.
I was about asking why they were not crushed right from the beginning if this
started as far back as 2003?
Remember, I said that Yusuf's group which was the Boko Haram group separated
from Ali's group that became the Nigerian Talibans then. Boko Haram group
stayed back in Maiduguri at the railway quarters and was growing as an
organisation. They had their branches and emirs in Niger, Chad and in Cameroon.
And they had emirs in almost every state in Nigeria including some places in
the south. That is the point I am trying to make. The lesson here is that the
seed of fundamentalism has been sown deep a long time ago. Why I am saying all
these is that if we are expecting that because President Buhari have stayed 100
days in office and so should solve all the problems of Boko Haram, we are
expecting too much. But he has started by building that coalition with
neighbouring countries where BoKo Haram has members who are nationals in those
countries. My prediction is that this problem is going to continue for a while.
In terms of the battle on ground, the new government has sustained the fight
that was started by former President Jonathan and the new government has
intensified and also changed the fight. The military is getting back some
territories that have been taken over by the sect since handover to President
Buhari. The shooting war is still ongoing.
Why do you think we are still having these pure terror attacks?
It is because Boko Haram has gone back to its original method of attacking,
which is sneak attack. The reason we are still witnessing these attacks is
because we still need to develop a robust programme for counter terrorism. We
are still fighting the conventional way which is frontline. We are still
fighting the conventional battle whereas we have an asymmetric conflict. We
need to look at the nature of this asymmetric conflict. We need to find out the
nature of the beast and how we are going to slay it. Yes, we also need
intelligence but the next question we should be asking is 'how do we get the
intelligence?' How do you process the intelligence? And how do you capitalise
on the intelligence?
Some of our methods of handling suspects are wrong. Few weeks ago, we heard on
the news that some Boko Haram fighters who were caught were later let go. And I
ask, let go to where and for what? This is why we have to go back and tell
ourselves that we are not serious. Chad is sentencing them to death while we
are letting them go, so they would prefer to be where they can be let go. When
fighting terror, you have to be serious and single-track minded. The Chadian
treatment is a beautiful one. People should be hanged and shot for being Boko
Haram fighters. When you do this to a sufficient number and you discover that
there isn't a deterrent effect that is when you start looking at alternative
means.
But are you in support of death penalty for any Boko Haram fighter that is
caught?
Yes, very much. I have been calling for that for 5 years. They should go
through the judicial process. There must be an accusation, and defence but at
the end of the day, what they deserve is a death penalty, particularly if it
can be proved that they had killed people in the cause of their operations.
Boko Haram is evil. They have taken more than 25,000 lives in this country and
somebody should pay for that.
Do you think that the reshuffle of service chiefs has helped in any way, have
we started seeing the effect of the reshuffle?
There is always need to bring a new lease of life into any organisation. The
new lease is to reinvigorate the organisation because every new chief that
comes in feels that he needs to work hard so that the ball is not dropped
during his tenure in office. It is still too early to judge these service
chiefs. They have just been there for just a month, so it is too early. They
have just been confirmed and decorated. They have just assumed full duties.
There is ongoing operation on ground which they are inheriting. It's not like
they are going to come in and create new structures. They move around theirs
officers and appoint new principal officers to carry out their duties all in
line with Mr. President's vision. Also, I will say that where this battle
should be in the realm of intelligence, we have not seen much action. I say
this because, for instance, who do you call if you see suspected bomb makers?
It's a rhetorical question because we have not been given the numbers of people
to call. We need numbers to call to report suspected bombers. This is the real
threat that is facing us. Boko Haram taking territories is not the main threat
facing us anymore. Young girls are strapped with bombs and are remotely
detonated; even children have been used too. So suicide bombing is our biggest
threat now and we must find a way to tackle this.
What is your view about state police, do you think it can help in anyway?
I am always opposed to state police because it is a back door way of
introducing anarchy into our system. Some people want to control the elements
of coercive force. Right now, these same elements are in government, so why do
they still want state police. The federal police that we already have, we are
not able to fund them. We are not able to get it to work right and be
effective. We don't have data. We don't have adequate policing infrastructure.
We don't have patrol vehicles. When people are in distress and they call
police, they say they don't have tire, tube or even fuel. So why take the time
to start setting up new policing structures when we have not been able to use
the structures on ground effectively. We also have other agencies like EFCC,
Customs and ICPC carry out policing at their own levels. I think the best thing
to do is focus on the Nigerian Police Force and give it the needed equipment to
be successful. We have too much arms in circulation in this country and they
need to be controlled.
What do you think about President Buhari's time limit to end Boko Haram?
The presidential order to defeat of Boko Haram and end their attacks in 90 days
is praiseworthy. The issue of deadline is useful because it mandates someone to
hurry up and get the job done. I believe that this has got some military
commanders to put in more efforts. The apparent goal of the order is to give
target to the military commander something to work towards. If you do not set
targets, you will not know when you have reached or exceeded where you want to
be. It is very smart to say 'achieve this objective within this defined time
space. Having said that, the point is that the target can only be enforceable
with the activities related to recovering territories from Boko Haram because
the asymmetrical dimensions of the warfare, i.e the suicide bombings and
roadside bombing might continue in another few years. It is the approach, the
security programme that we put in place to tackle that is what is going to
bring that to an end. Not necessarily deadlines. If we do not map out a
programme that will help us catch the suicide bombers before they attack or
before they detonate, i.e. nipping them in the buds, the bombings will not just
go away like that. I don't think the 90 days time limit is realisable but I
understand the essence of it.
Do you think Nigerians will be disappointed if after three months, we still
hear of bombings?
Nigerians should not be disappointed because the nature of the beast we are
fighting is not a simple one. It's not a frontline war but asymmetric. It is a
situation where you do not know who the enemy is. It could be the person
sitting by you. That kind of enemy is hard to fight against. It is only when
the person carries out his evil act that you know that the person is a bad guy.
Generally, Nigerians are not security conscious and that does not help matters.
That means that there are many juicy targets. We need to create a culture of
security awareness of trusting the authorities so that intelligence can be
given to them and eventually strengthen the communities against surprise
attacks.
Do you think we can get any help from the West?
Seeking Western help is a very lame endeavour. We should not be asking for
anybody's help. We are resourced enough to solve our problems. What we require
is partnership with these Western countries because the problem that is
bedevilling us also bedevils the rest of the world. Even if the jihadists are
unable to attack them on their soil, they can attack their assets or their
personnel here in Nigeria. When you say help, it's like unmerited assistance.
We don't want any such help. We want partnership based on mutuality of needs,
congruence of needs. We are getting a lot of moral support. Like the
francophone countries, they have enduring military arrangements with their
metropolitan partner, France. Part o f the support that France is giving us is
that they have been speaking with our French-speaking West African neighbours.
They have closed their borders and they monitor closely their borders. The Chad
Basin Commission has been helping us in frontline battles. The US and other
Western countries can help through moral persuasions for other neighbouring
countries to identify with our course.
(source: Daily Independent)
INDIA:
Supreme Court: If we end death penalty, shouldn't life term be till death?
Taking note of the high-pitched push for abolition of death penalty when Mumbai
serial blasts convict Yakub Memon desperately attempted to avoid the gallows,
the Supreme Court on Thursday asked whether life imprisonment could be
truncated through remission if death penalty was done away with.
The court was reacting to the demand from a section of legal experts for
abolition of death penalty while dealing with petitions by 5 men from
Chhattisgarh challenging their conviction for a murder. They were seeking bail
during pendency of their appeal on the ground that they had been in jail for
more than 5 years.
A bench of Justices T S Thakur and V Gopala Gowda said, "Today , there is a
movement against death penalty . They say that instead of hanging a condemned
prisoner, put him in jail for entire life." The Supreme Court on Thursday,
while raising the question whether abolition of death penalty and limiting life
term to 14 years could co-exist, said, "Most of the prisoners sentenced to life
imprisonment get out of jail after 14 years as government remits the rest of
the sentence. And general public thinks that life imprisonment is only for 14
years. If convicts are awarded life sentence even in brutal and heinous crimes,
they come to court and ask for bail during pendency of their appeal against
conviction if they have served 5 or more years in jail on the ground that life
sentence is only for 14 years. Is it not incongruous?" The bench was possibly
attempting to include an important point -if life sentence is to be awarded in
'rarest of rare' category of murder cases where death penalty is given at
present, would it mean these are at par with other life sentences spanning 14
years?
Over the years, the SC has been extremely reluctant to award death penalty and
has been finding some lacuna or the other in concurrent judgments of trial
court and high court awarding death penalty to commute it to life imprisonment.
But it has been reluctant to completely do away with award of death penalty,
saying there were certain cases where, as long as the extreme penalty was
stipulated by law, capital punishment was in sync with the gravity and
brutality of the crime and socie ty's cry for justice.
The attempt by the bench of Justices Thakur and Gowda will have a strong
bearing on future debates and could well be taken note of by another bench
which has reserved judgment on the crucial issue -whether life sentence means
imprisonment for entire life -in the case relating to convicts in Rajiv Gandhi
assassination case.
Immediately after the SC commuted the death penalty of four convicts in the
case to life imprisonment, the Tamil Nadu government used its constitutional
power to decide commutation of the rest of their sentence saying they had
already undergone 23 years imprisonment.
(source: The Economic Times)
******************
Prosecution seeks death for 8 convicts in 7/11 case
Describing them as "merchants of death", the prosecution in the 7/11 serial
train blasts on Wednesday sought capital punishment for 8 of the 12 convicts
who planted bombs in crowded Western Railways suburban locals in Mumbai.
The blasts claimed over 200 lives and injured over 1,000 people. For the
remaining four accused, the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS), the prosecuting agency
is demanding life imprisonment.
Additional Sessions Judge Y D Shinde, who presides over a special court set up
under Maharashtra Control for Organised Crime Act (MCOCA), reserved the next
hearing for September 30, when he would pronounce the quantum of sentence.
On September 11, Judge Shinde convicted 12 of the 13 accused in the case. The
blasts was planned by Bahawalpur-based Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) commander Azam
Cheema alias Babaji, who double up as an ISI operative. He and his close aides
took the help of homegrown activists of banned Students Islamic Movement of
India (SIMI), which over the years has taken shape as Indian Mujahideen (IM).
The lone accused to be acquitted is Abdul Wahid Din Mohammed Shaikh (38) and he
has been released from prison.
"Considering their role, 8 convicts deserve death penalty," Special Public
Prosecutor Raja Thakre said.
The convicts for whom death was sought are- Kamal Ahamed Ansari, Dr Tanvir
Ahmed Ansari, Mohammed Faisal Shaikh, Ehtesham Siddiqui, Shaikh Alam Shaikh,
Mohammed Sajid Ansari, Naved Hussain Khan and Asif Khan. For the remaining four
convicts - Mohamid Majid Shafi, Muzzammil Shaikh, Soheil Shaikh and Zamir Ahmed
Shaikh - life jail term was sought.
While giving reference to the recent Law Commission recommendation on death
penalty, Thakre said: "The Commission says that death penalty should be
gradually done away with, but in terror cases, it is there and everyone's
desire is that such offences call for no mercy. Law must respond to the
society's cry for justice."
(source: The Indian Panorama)
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