Lesson from Nigeria: Why Coast leaders must never cosy up to terror groupings

What you need to know:

  • At its inchoate stage, Boko Haram enjoyed the ideological and financial patronage of some of the leading northern Nigeria political and religious leaders.
  • The brutality and sheer brazenness of this group has forced the closure of educational institutions and economic activities are reeling under the weight of the groups’ incendiary escapades.

A Gothic tale in Mary Shelley’s work, Frankenstein, rings deep apropos security situation at Kenya’s Coast, and captures the disposition displayed by its leadership.

Shelley describes an eccentric and overzealous innovator, Victor Frankenstein, whose unremittingly scientific exploits result in a supernatural being: the Frankenstein monster.

Contending with its superhuman capacity, the monster makes demands and reads the riot act to its creator. And perhaps to prove that it is no longer tied to the apron strings of its maker and that it has acquired a life of his own, the monster becomes uncontrollable and turns against its creator, exterminating his kith and kin, including his wife.

This tale captures the disposition of a section of the coastal leadership in the wake of terror attacks in the region. Their response to the debacle cuts an image of a leadership that is either ignorant of the damage being done or is simply complicit.

Whether this posturing is meant to hit cheap scores, or is sheer lack of judgment is a question for another day. This posturing and apparent complicity are reminiscent of Boko Haram’s formative days in northern Nigeria.

At its inchoate stage, Boko Haram enjoyed the ideological and financial patronage of some of the leading northern Nigeria political and religious leaders.

It was supposed to be an establishment teaser and a muscle flexing stunt on the part of the sponsors, but the outfit quickly slipped out of control, taking a life of its own.

Today, Boko Haram is the quintessential northern Nigeria’s ‘Frankenstein’s monster’. It has morphed into an efficient terror machine. Sections of northern Nigeria are practically in a state of paralysis as a result.

The brutality and sheer brazenness of this group has forced the closure of educational institutions and economic activities are reeling under the weight of the groups’ incendiary escapades.

PROTECTING TERROR GANGS

What initially was schemed to be a cat’s paw has transmogrified and taken a life of its own. It has tragically become a vicious predator, preying on its creator. The religious and political leaders that sponsored the terror gang have been rendered servile subjects of Boko Haram.

In fear of being consumed by the conflagration, some of the sponsors have practically relocated their families to southern cities.

Indications are that Boko Haram is likely to dictate the political direction in northern Nigeria states, including the determination of those who should hold legislative and executive offices.

This, by itself, will amount to legitimising and ‘laundering’ terrorism. Be not surprised, therefore, that the incumbent northern leadership will be routed and replaced with Boko Haram’s projects.

In Kenya, a section of the coastal religious and political leadership seems to have made it their forte to protect prowling terror gangs. Their utterances and rejection of directives by law enforcers sums it all up. They stand warned.

If a member of the terror gang were to gain a foothold, the entire current Coast leadership will rue their incaciltrance.

FLEETING CONCEITS

The penny must drop. Any pretender to the leadership that appeases a crocodile with a perverted notion that it will consume him last or at least spare him is trapped in a Utopian bubble. Causeless terror groups are inexorably blind to appeasement cards.

Apologists and bankrollers of these gangs should learn from history: it does not pay to appease evil. It took the near-conquest of the Soviet Union by Hitler in 1941 for Joseph Stalin to drop his appeasement policy. He had entertained an evil man for far too long, hoping he would be spared Hitler’s march on the Kremlin.

He was wrong.

It is thus asinine and suicidal for some Coast leaders to grant patronage to criminal gangs hoping they will benefit. The ramifications of a Boko Haram-type outfit are unfathomable.

First the entire leadership will be supplanted out of power, lives will be lost, the region will have to endure a pernicious economic morass and the country stands to lose.

Don’t create a ‘‘Frankenstein monster’’ that will ultimately scatter you to the four winds. Be not trapped in fleeting conceits that don’t lend to the aggregate good of Kenya.

Mr Magutt teaches politics and international studies at Kenyatta University ([email protected])