B/Haram cannot be defeated by force – Iwuanyanwu

Member, Board of Trustees of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu has said that the Boko Haram insurgency is a national calamity and an insurrection that cannot be defeated by use of force.

Iwuanyanwu called on the federal government to quickly constitute reconciliation committees that would involve stakeholders from across the country who would ascertain the actual demands of the Boko Haram group, insisting that dialogue would resolve the logjam rather than “shooting, bombing and killing.”

The elder statesman, who spoke to our correspondents at the weekend at his Owerri residence, likened the Boko Haram insurgency to the Nigerian/Biafran war, as ‘‘both were asymmetric wars involving citizens of the same country’’, stressing that such wars were only settled at the negotiation table rather than at the theatre of war.

He recalled that when the civil war broke out in 1967, the Nigerian government thought it could be ended by a military action, especially if Enugu, being the capital of the then Eastern region, could fall, adding that even with the fall of Enugu, the tempo and vigour of the war increased.

The elder statesmen said that allowing the Boko Haram insurgency to fester and linger has stretched the Nigerian Armed forces, restating that “the federal government should immediately set up a reconciliation committee at the town union in Borno and Yobe states, for example. ‘‘There should also be a reconciliation committee at the local government and state levels. The federal government should make no mistake because I think we also need reconciliation committee at the national level, which should comprise leaders from the thirty six states and Abuja and should cut across political divides. This is a national calamity, which the federal government cannot handle alone. Every time, we are pushing the army to do an impossible task.”

Although, the insurgency has lasted over ten years now, he expressed optimism that the federal government could still defeat Boko Haram, using diplomacy, negotiation and reconciliation.

Iwuanyanwu said: “Nigeria has failed to realise that Boko Haram insurgency is not different from the Biafran war because when they come to places, they put a flag, showing that they have established their own territory. That means they have the intention of territorial expansion.

“I think the problem the government has is that government has not been able to establish what these people want. They want their own territory and this type of war is very difficult to fight. Fighting people in their territory; if you remember when the civil war started, the Nigerian government thought that it was military operation that would take one week.

“But they found out that it wasn’t. Many people thought that the moment Enugu fell, the insurrection would have collapsed. But Enugu fell and the fight appeared as if it just started from the scratch. The truth about it is that the only way to fight this war is by negotiation and reconciliation. If your people are fighting in a country, the first thing is to find out what they want. You must use every skill available to find out what their problem is, why they are doing what they are doing. And since they are your citizens, it is your duty to do everything to reconcile them. I don’t think that bombing shooting, killing is the best approach. It never and will not work. If you try several methods for many years and they don’t work, why don’t you change?” Iwuanyanwu said fighting Boko Haram has been very expensive in terms of resources, loss in human lives, stressing that the country has lost a lot of bright soldiers and policemen in the insurrection.