Former director of legal services of the Nigerian Army, Brigadier-General Abdulqadir Abubakar Gumi (retd), has said that for the Boko Haram sect to be crushed completely, the North must rise up in unison and adopt defence mechanisms peculiar and suitable to its brand of tradition.
Gumi, who is a son of the revered late Grand Khadi of Northern Nigeria, Sheik Abubakar Gumi, and brother of Kaduna-based Islamic scholar, Sheikh Mahmud Gumi, noted that apart from the ongoing effort by the federal government, the Muslim community in the country had the obligation to complement the fight against the insurgents.
In a position paper made available to LEADERSHIP yesterday, he noted that this edition of his paper on the topic is a little digression from the first edition published in this paper in February.
He said this edition, entitled ‘How To Break Boko Haram II’, was guided by democratic principles that seek “to reiterate the need for checks and balances without which projections and sharing of responsibilities may not be equitable.”
Gumi opined that beside the roles being played the executive, legislative and judiciary arms of government, the North and the Muslim community must brace up to the situation.
This, he said, is informed by the fact that “Muslims were hitherto designated as the main complainants/victims of the insurgency and, by extension, the entire Northern Nigeria which formed the battleground.”
He faulted the situation whereby the war against the insurgents was left for the federal government to contend with, saying it was “erroneous for the Northern establishments to rely fully on the government or the National Assembly for all initiatives needed to prosecute the BH (Boko Haram) insurgency.”
“They (North) should bear in mind that no federal body is structured to either project the North, faith, regional-based entity or targeted situations. The North, being directly devastated by the insurgency as ground zero, needs to design its peculiar defence mechanisms common or suitable to its heritage.
“This would fill in survival gaps or at the least improve its disposition as to compel the constituted federal structure to be alive to its responsibilities whenever its social fabrics are threatened.
“The attitude to wait for an election year before action would amount to accepting the kind of casualties and losses realized within the period for the democracy we have chosen for ourselves”.
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