El Zakzaky, The Coming Boko Haram, And The National Question

On November 27, 2015, members of the Nigerian Islamic Movement, the Shiites were on a procession from Kano to Zaria, Nigeria. During the procession at least 20 people were murdered. The procession was bombed. Boko Haram claimed responsibility for the bomb attack.

But the Shiite leader in Nigeria, Mr. El Zakzaky said the bomber was not a member of Boko Haram, which meant that El Zakzaky made a verifiable knowledge claim on the murder that took place and the identity of the bomber. This is significant. However, nothing has happened after the bomb attack. We do not have report that the police invited El Zakzaky to say what he knows about the identity of the bomber.

In an inclusive, morally-inclined, federal, modern liberal democratic Nigeria (which also protects the weakest and the most economically vulnerable among us), state governments would be responsible for policing our communities and not a distant and remote central government. In the recent scenario, there would be a Kano State police and a Kaduna State police.

And given the locations of the occurrences, and the residential status of the persons involved (including El Zakzaky) – Kano and Kaduna – the state police commands of the two States would have collaborated politically, culturally and security-wise to deal with the issue. And El Zakzaky would be talking to the joint operation of the Kano and Kaduna States police commands (not a central police, and not the military) on what he knows about the bombing.

Still on the scenario, if the Kano and Kaduna states police need cross-state assistance, they would have many options. First, they could approach states police in contiguous states, and states police with similar bombing experiences for help. Second, given the intersection of local policing with intelligence gathering and security, there would be a Department of State security-DSS-they can ask for such relevant federal assistance.

On El Zakzaky and the National Question: in a manner similar to the murder of Nigerians during the IPOB Biafra protest, the murder of Nigerian Shiites in Zaria by an arm of the Nigerian state-the army-has brought to the fore again the National Question, which many, including enlightened Nigerians, often miss and misunderstand.

In this scenario, legal, political and economic power would have been devolved to the people in the states, cities, villages, and the people from below will breathe into the system the elusive unity we so desire but which we do not know how to grow and nurture.

Unity from below would be a derived and consenting sense of active unity derived from concrete material foundations not an imposed unitarist, foundation-less, legislative “unity” we have always had.

In a modern liberal multi-national democracy where the National Question has been resolved along federalist lines, the case of El Zakzaky and his Shiite movement will be a local affair of the state they have chosen to reside. If the traffic of a local street was blocked by the Shiites when General Tukur Buratai, the Chief of Army Staff was passing by, then Buratai and other Zaria residents and road users must report to the city or state police if we are running a federal system, whereby each state, including local governments and cities must statutorily have their own police and policing duties.

But General Tukur Buratai and his troop were able to take the laws into their hands because of the abnormality and absurdity called “Nigerian Federalism” – a conceptual and empirical misnomer whereby you have central policing (which will naturally have the ears of the national army which Mr. Buratai heads) rather than state and city policing, which Buratai would have had to report to under the law if we were operating a truly federal system.

From the rationalisation of the murder of Nigerians by the Nigerian land army spokesperson Sani Usman, through the taking over of traffic duties, the Nigerian land army is following the old Boko Haram narrative by creating conditions for another Boko Haram in El Zakzaky through the military and the ugly consequences of “Nigerian federalism”.

Unitarism as we have it in Nigeria currently was pressed to an absurd level, a disturbing ugliness, when the Chief of Army Staff, Tukur Buratai’s murderous soldiers and assassins in military gear took the law into their hands on the streets to conduct traffic duties (a duty belonging to a city police) and “fight” civilians-Zaria residents-who, yes, wrongly committed a traffic infraction. Can anyone conceive of the presence of the American marine (the equivalent of the Nigerian land army) on the streets of New York city fighting Americans because of a traffic infraction – an infraction which is the duty of the City of New York police department to deal with?

Contrary to interpreters who take an emotional and subjectivist reading of the situation, the core of the matter is a more objective one. It is that of a unitary Nigeria, masquerading as a federation. Those who have personal knowledge of Buratai may know him as a “brutal” person; such psychoanalysis may be correct, but it reduces a major troubling historical problem in Nigeria to a subjective one. The issue is primarily not about the brutality of one person or the brutality of the military. It is about the ugly distortion in the “Nigerian Federalism” – a situation most of us see but quietly ignore until genocidal consequences of the Buratai’s troops’ type.

The wrong intervention of the Army spokesperson Sani Usman shed more light on the absurdity and crudity of “Nigerian Federalism.” The question is: What is the business of the military with traffic offences? It is only in “Nigerian Federalism” that will allow the military to get involved in traffic offences and pronounce on these! From his statement, we no longer know if Mr. Sani Usman, the spokesperson of Nigerian land army, is the governor of Kaduna state or the head of the traffic division of the Zaria police. This is the banal and ugly product of the crudity and absurdity called Nigerian “Federalism”.

Given what the Nigerian land army is doing to foist another Boko Haram on us, the question is: In future are we going to again repeat our questionable articulation of the problem as we did with Boko Haram by claiming that a El Zakzaky Shiites insurgency is solely a result of some “poverty” in the North or that it is strictly a religious affair, as if we do not have the same economic challenges in other parts of the country, and as if we do not have Muslims in other parts of the country?

El Zakzaky/Shiite Nigerian state clash may be another Boko Haram in the making. Let Nigeria resolve the National Question now in the public sphere, because the bell ticks and tolls away for Nigeria. The bell does not wait for anyone. It will not wait for Nigeria.

This counter-scenario calls for a restructuring of Nigeria along federalist lines with economically viable states, which do not depend on an all-knowing but remote and distant central government to survive, and with minimal involvement of the central government in the local affairs of the people, such as policing for example.

If this leads to a merging of states because they are unviable, so be it. States that cannot survive do not deserve to exist independently. Let contiguous states merge using the federalist rational principle of state creation, which is economic viability and sustainability. A state survives only if it is self-sustaining and can perform its constitutional duties to its residents-both porting and non-porting. Obafemi Awolowo, one of Nigeria’s most profound minds, who gave copious intellectual and practical attention to this aspect of the Nigerian problem, proved this conclusively. We only need to read him or re-read him on Nigerian Federalism, and learn from his thesis.

My scenario shows how local strifes that wrongly take on ethnic and religious colourations, such as those of Boko Haram, El Zakzaky, the Maitatsine, IPOB Biafra secession, the South-South agitation, Fulani herdsmen etc. depend on a clear understanding of the National Question for their resolution, as one where the Nigerian state must depend on the moral consent of the people for its existence before it can govern peacefully. These are no private, sectional ethnic issues. Rather, they form integral parts of the National Question which are resolved publicly in the public sphere and not through ethnic deal cutting behind back doors.

For interpreters of Nigerian affairs, scholars, members of the middle class-both progressive and conservative-who might have missed the point on Boko Haram, IPOB Biafra secession, the question is: is a Nigerian military which engages in local traffic duties in a local city, Zaria not sufficient illustration of the fact that what we have is a unitary system and that the permanent solution which will not tie the fate of the country to an individual is a complete restructuring of the country along truly federalist lines?

Adeolu Ademoyo, [email protected], is of the Africana Studies and Research Center, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY.

Culled from opinionnigeria.com