Danjuma, BH & conspiracy theories

“This is the time for elders to be circumspect and temperate in their utterances; it is not in our character as northerners to talk too much… Battles are better fought and won through wisdom and strategy than through inflammable pronouncements and political tantrums?”

Those words were credited to General Theophilus Yakubu Danjuma, TY for short, when he was honoured with the traditional title of Jarmai Zazzau on June 22, 2013, by the Emir of Zaria.

However, Danjuma, a normally taciturn man with a deadpan look behind his thick lenses, did not heed his own advice the other day when he railed against the seeming impotence of the security forces to rein in killer herdsmen who had been decimating the population of Taraba State where he hails from.

As anyone who is in the public space in Nigeria knows only too well, we seldom engage in temperate intellectual intercourse when confronted with opposing views strongly expressed from whatever quarters. So, quite a number of predictable missiles were fired in Danjuma’s direction without addressing the cause of his angst.

The tragedy of the development is that Danjuma has always been seen as a poster boy of the Northern agenda (whatever that means) for he stood up to be counted in furtherance of his region’s interests at various crucial stages of Nigeria’s recent history.

He was there in 1966 at the bloody events that led to the assassination of the then Head of State, General Ironsi, and his host, Col. Adekunle Fajuyi. He went on to be the stabilising factor in the events that followed the assassination of another Head of State, General Murtala Mohammed, ten years later. As Chief of Army Staff at the time, he could easily have anointed himself head of state but he ceded the position to Mohammed’s deputy, Olusegun Obasanjo and even engineered the appointment of Lt. Col. Shehu Musa Yar’Adua as Chief of Staff Supreme Headquarters with the rank of a brigadier without bothering about conceding protocol primacy to a much junior officer in the pecking order.

Of late, his Danjuma Foundation has hugged the headlines for philanthropic activities. When somebody of Danjuma’s no-drama disposition cries foul in public, history has taught us not to ignore them. We may insult them, lampoon them, raise conspiracy theories about their motives, but the issues they raised, even if the language was considered intemperate, will not vaporise.

We all know that when you have a Danjuma in your community and outsiders embark on serial killings, the wailings of the people will get to his doorstep. And if he cannot be a voice for his otherwise voiceless people, he might as well not be alive. I would say the same of other community leaders who have stood up for their local communities.

Within the same time belt, other conspiracy theories developed around the negotiated release of the Dapchi schoolgirls who had been kidnapped by Boko Haram (BH) elements. Some opposition critics claimed it was all an ‘arrangee’, local parlance for a scam. How cynical can we get!

By far the most jaw-dropping of all the theories, conjectures and ‘revelations’ was the interview of By Ralitsa Bourchier with a security consultant, Dominique Boursicot, Intelicor Buro Chief for Françafrique who had served in different African countries and actually lived in Nigeria for many years.

According to Boursicot, “Boko Haram is a mercenary force of hired killers paid in dollars and armed by the billionaires. Having driven the farmers to internally displaced people (IDP) camps, they come in as international donors from the G7 countries and so-called development partners to donate the GMO seeds and food. The farmers come back to be resettled and plant these GMO crops which do not replicate and the seeds must be obtained every planting season from the Western biotechnology companies …

“On the Fulani Herdsmen, they rebranded the Boko Haram to Fulani Herdsmen to pursue and destroy natural cassava planted in other parts of Nigeria …. The herders clash with farmers and their armed mercenaries come to kill and destroy the farming communities. This puts the President of Nigeria Muhammadu Buhari in a dilemma, since he cannot easily order military response to ‘kill his people’, but the real Fulani herders are actually innocent of these crimes. However, the ignorance of the government, corruption in the system and non-patriotic individuals have sabotaged every effort of the Nigerian government to respond to this crisis”.

Is this a ploy to partnering us to end scourge?

During my Masters programme over 30 years ago, I took particular interest in the New World Information Order (NEWINFO) and how disinformation was a handmaiden of diplomatic offensives in a world of biotech warfare crawling with spies, double agents, assassins and countless shadowy figures.

Many of the case studies were mindbending. But none of them would compare with this conspiracy theory making the rounds. Right now, for the sake of my sanity, I can’t accept that the world has gone so far down the drain as to render those wild theories true. Our government had better discreetly investigate all leads, tame or wild.

In my bewilderment, I am reminded of the Turkish proverb, “The forest was shrinking but the trees kept voting for the axe as its handle was made of wood and they thought it was one of them”. demonise those the Boko Haram