Information Minister raises the alarm: ‘Why they are after the President’

It is not every day that you meet the Information Minister, Mr.Labaran Maku, who also oversees the Defence Ministry. So when Maku met a team of editors in Abuja, last week, on the state of the nation, it was an opportunity to field questions on issues ranging from the economy to defence, power, agriculture, defence, politics, etc. Excerpts of interview:

When you were made the Supervising Minister of Defense, did it come with any new challenges; if that was the case, how have you been able to tackle those challenges?

Taking responsibility for Defense at this time is a major challenge for anyone because of the lingering problems of insecurity in our country, particularly in the last two to three years. So when I was asked to supervise Defense, pending the reorganization of the Federal Executive

Council by the President, I took up the challenge with all the seriousness it deserves, knowing fully well the times we are in, and,  so far, I must tell you I have been able to settle down in both places (Information and Defense Ministries), to do all the things that I need to do to keep the two ministries running. you know that information is also defense, you will eventually see that they are related in a sense. One is about defending with knowledge, enlightening citizens and getting them to know what is happening around them.

That is about giving them knowledge that will equip them to participate in governance, and to participate in the daily activities of society, and also to contribute their own quota to national security. In all of these, you need to have a lot to do with information. Defense is a different kettle of fish altogether because there, you are dealing with matters of physical enforcement of security across the country, and managing the security architecture, as well as the problems that have occurred in our society recently.

So since I have been there, we have done a great deal of work in the last four months to deal with  insurgency, manage it  and fight, while preparing and equipping the armed forces for better successes in the months, hopefully, to come. So far, we have been able to contain this insurgency to about two states, generally speaking. You would recollect that at about two years ago, the insurgency was almost spreading across the North-west as well as the North-east of Nigeria. We had strikes occurring all the way in Abuja here, where the police headquarters, the United Nations building, and the Thisday corporate head office  were hit. In Kaduna, there were fairly regular explosions; we had incidents in Zaria, Sokoto, Kebbi, and  Kano, it was almost a running battle a year and  a  half ago with insurgents striking in different places.

‘Hit and run’
Today, with consistent law enforcement, as well as intelligence gathering, we have been able to largely contain the insurgency to Borno and Yobe States. People may not really see the significance of this. If you take a look at a  country like Pakistan, that has been under this kind of environment for almost eight years, you take a look at Iraq and even Afghanistan that have been under this kind of situation…even to a certain extent, we can look at Russia, which is  more highly sophisticated than we are in terms of capacity, you will find that they are still having lingering problems. Only last week, there was a strike in Russia. But in the case of Nigeria, our armed forces have risen very rapidly to the occasion. We have increased intelligence capacity, as well as the deployment of forces across  the North, and, today, I can confidently say that by the cooperation of citizens and the hard work of our security agencies, insurgency today has been confined largely to Borno and Yobe States. Before the state of emergency, there were  regular strikes in Adamawa, particularly in Mubi, which is at the boundary between Adamawa and Borno.

In the specific case of the insurgency we are facing, unfortunately, we also have elements crossing international boundaries into Nigeria, particularly from Cameroun, Chad and Niger Republic. We also believe that some of those elements may be coming from some of those far flung territories beyond these nations. So because of the transnational nature of the insurgency, it makes things a bit more difficult in the sense that you could deal with a group, which is then replaced rapidly by another that would filter through the boundaries. So far, I must say that we are proud of what our armed forces have done, and would continue to work with them to give them leadership, direction and support to fight this insurgency.

For a very long time, when the nation was at peace, security was only provided for that zone from Jos, which is the Third Division of the Nigerian army. That was the headquarters that was looking after both the North-central and the north east. Today, with these challenges, we felt a need to establish a new division of the Nigerian Army in the North-east of Nigeria, which is the Seventh Division that has now been established. It is now unfolding its network across the states of the North-east; the idea is to ensure that we create the security infrastructure and architecture around the entire  region, to be able to put in place a permanent security structure that would be able to deal with any situation that would occur there, even beyond the present emergency.

Is it over?
No, in every guerilla warfare, you would have surprises, where you may think it is over, and then an element hides somewhere and strikes at you. So we are not underrating the danger posed, or the capacity of the insurgency because this insurgency is well supplied with sophisticated weapons, and also with what I consider to be fairly well trained fighters, who we believe don’t necessarily come from within the Nigerian territory alone.  There are elements that are Nigerians, there are those who we believe are foreign. And so given the sophistication in terms of their supplies, it is clear that they have an international network, so we are not taking it lightly and we are increasing our capacity.

The issue of the Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau, would have to come up here; do you now have concrete information on Shekau and the Boko Haram leadership? I ask because it is said that if you want to kill a snake, you must go for the head…How much does the government now know about the 

Boko Haram leadership?

When I see some newspaper headlines, it gives me the impression that they think that the insurgency should have been over. The mere fact that we have been able to clear much of Maiduguri does not mean that you cannot have a surprise attack because it takes just one person tying a bomb to his chest, and coming to the street to explode it.

You will find cases of suicide bombing in this insurgency, although it has largely been curtailed, you cannot rule out any surprise in a terror network of this nature. So it is not correct for the media to think that when we are making successes and progress, and something then happens, you now say “ah, maybe government or the armed forces is not doing enough.”   That is not the issue; compare what we are doing with every other country with similar countries. It is not an exclusively Nigerian development. It is a global phenomenon and I am saying that the armed forces of Nigeria have done much more better than those of other countries in dealing with this insurgency, in terms of how we have been able to largely contain the situation. This is tremendous work, but the way we report these things discourages the armed forces at times.

I honestly think that our attitude must change. All over the world, when you have this kind of situation, the media must align with the armed forces. I know that negative news is a good story any day for any media around the world, and that was how Osama bin Laden was advertised to us, and he became a role model for criminals around the world.

I think we should report them from the point of view of arousing national consciousness to confront them, not to make them look like some iconoclasts or great role models or fighters or impossible people that others need to look at with awe. These are criminals in networks that are determined to kill and maim. If you see some of  the videos we have had of these people killing and sucking the blood of people, you will know that we are dealing with serious monsters. They are not the kind of people that the media will want to treat lightly.

Do we have challenges, yes we do. The recent strikes at the air force base in Maiduguri and Bama remind you of the kind of surprises that could occur in war of this nature, so we need to be permanently alert, and not take anything for granted, even when we are succeeding. They nearly came back again to strike in another base around Maiduguri, and this time, they received a bloody nose. The people that came were virtually destroyed. It is a battle that the media needs to understand.