by Deji Adeyanju

 

Semi-Starvation”, “Exploitation of Wounds”, and use of “Filthy, Infested Surroundings” to make the prisoner “dependent on Interrogator”, to weaken “Mental and Physical Ability to Resist”, and to reduce the “Prisoner to ‘Animal Level” just to get to the root of this menace will ensure we get quicker results. Extraordinary measures are needed to overcome extraordinary circumstances.

 

I can assure you that no kingdom has ever had as many civil wars as the kingdom of Christ. -Montesquieu, The Persian Letters

My Dear President Goodluck Ebele Azikwe Mainasara Jonathan, (GCFR), Commander-in-Chief of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. I bring you respectful greetings from the Social Media Community in Nigeria and beyond. As I write you this epistle today the 1st of July, 2014, three (3) different bombs have gone off in three different states of our country.

The first went off at the Maiduguri market killing about fifty (50) people. Then another one in Ile Ife, Osun State while the finally one took place in Kaduna.

For sometime now, many Nigerians at home and in diaspora have been criticizing and maligning your administration especially on Social Media for the worsening security situation in the country. Many of them do not proffer any solution to this problem of insecurity except to daily insult your person and office. They are like the proverbial APC who daily insults the PDP, calling her all sorts of names thereby in the process forgetting to tell the people what better option(s) or services they can provide for the people which eventually, resulted in the good people of Ekiti sticking to the old devil they know than the angel that was preached about who could not perform a single miracle in four years.

It is on this note, I have decided to write you this day, on best possible ways I feel you can tackle the menace of #BokoHaram. This epistle is solution based and not a criticism inclined one; here are some of the ways I feel you can best tackle #BokoHaram with far reaching results:

1. Mr President should show more nerve & ruthlessness in tackling #BokoHaram. We urgently need our own Guantanamo Bay Detention Facility or Prison for both enemy combatants and non-combatants who aid the operation of #BokoHaram. Every nation facing war on terror needs this kind of facilities either classified or backed by a secret legislation from parliament. This is what is really called “the Doctrine of Necessity”. You will recall Mr. President that the United State in January 2002, under Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld established a similar facility.

Mr. President, I plead with you to as a matter of urgency establish such a facility now to detain extraordinarily dangerous #BokoHaram suspected financiers, sympathizers, foot-soldiers or any politician, religious or traditional ruler who seem to be fueling the crisis through their actions, in actions or conducts. Both enemy combatants and non-combatants captured in the War on Terror should all be transported to this facility and locked up permanently. The facility should be operated by a special Joint Task Force specifically trained for this purpose and, and it should be in an undisclosed location.

2. The detainees at this facility should not be entitled to or protected by any act of the Geneva Conventions or Bill of Human Rights because, in the past five years they have not respected any of such rights. We must confront terror and overcome it without fear. All activities and files at this facility should never be kept or published and no human right groups should be allowed access to such facilities. This strategy worked for the US and can also work for us. Aside from deploying troops to Afghanistan and Iraq, the US picked up ‘suspects’ and locked them up without trial.

Yes this Modus Operandi might be wrong but they got the necessary results. Mr President, all that matters now is keeping Nigerians safe and we will tolerate any painful decision you have to take to ensure we as citizens are safe. You will recall how the US broke all the Laws in the Book to ensure Americans were safe. They Water boarded their ass and the terrorists sang like canaries,they got the intelligence they needed and smoked out high profile thugs like Osama Bin Laden. Sir, We have to adopt a similar interrogation pattern for these high profile politicians or suspected financiers. The interrogation methodology used by the United States can also be explored to obtain confessional statements.

You should gather all our Senior Professors or Doctors in Sociology to work at this faculty so that information gathering will be more professional and quicker. The “coercive management techniques” for possible use on prisoners, which could include “sleep deprivation”, “prolonged constraint” (also known as “stress positions”), and “exposure” will be useful in this regard. The incarceration of their close family members like children or siblings can also make obtaining confessions faster especially when such loved ones are tortured in their presence.Most common interrogation method used by the US was to indirectly subject a prisoner to extended periods of what would initially be minor discomfort.

As an example, prisoners would be required to stand for extended periods, sometimes in a cold environment. Prolonged standing and exposure to cold are an accepted technique used by the American military and the CIA to interrogate prisoners who the United States classifies as “unlawful combatants” (spies and saboteurs in wartime, “terrorists” in unconventional conflicts) although it is classified as torture under the Geneva Conventions but we can understand and live with this as a nation if it will keep us safe and prevent thousands of innocent people from dying. Mr. President I plead with you to take drastic decisions such as this to prevent these killings as they are increasing by the day.

Semi-Starvation”, “Exploitation of Wounds”, and use of “Filthy, Infested Surroundings” to make the prisoner “dependent on Interrogator”, to weaken “Mental and Physical Ability to Resist”, and to reduce the “Prisoner to ‘Animal Level” just to get to the root of this menace will ensure we get quicker results. Extraordinary measures are needed to overcome extraordinary circumstances.

3. We will not easily stop these guys even if you send the whole Armed Forces to the North-West and North-East if we do not cut their source of funding and cripple their sponsors. Politicians are definitely the ones funding #BokoHaram. It is a waste of time Mr. President to continue to arrest their foot-soldiers like Kabiru Sokoto and co as they could easily recruit others from the pool of dejected hungry Almajiris in the region. Whoever has any link to the insurgents either directly or indirectly should be arrested and locked up in this facility with or without trial. We must get intelligence quickly immediately such arrests are made by all means necessary even if it means breaking all known laws in the book. It all started in Borno State and focus should be on politicians from that state. Borno State is their safe haven; it’s their spiritual & temporal headquarters; therefore, massive arrests must be effected there. Arresting all potential sympathizers to the cause of Boko Haram in Borno State will send a clear message to everyone in all the Local Government Areas that are collaborating or giving Boko Haram information.

A list of at least 20 Boko Haram sympathizers in all Local Government Areas in Borno State and other states where insurgency thrive should be compiled and they should all be arrested and locked up and their location unknown. Arresting all of them will send a clear message to other citizens collaborating with them. We still recall when Cameroonian authorities said clerics and village heads in border towns recruit for Boko Haram.

All these people should be locked up. Mr. President, never forget that terrorism only thrives in an area where they are supported and harboured. All those claiming to be negotiators or intermediaries with Boko Haram should also be locked up either they be women or children, religious or traditional rulers. You must address the issue from its root-cause. The government should stop giving the impression that it is ready to negotiate with Boko Haram. Boko Haram is terrorism and terrorism is Boko Haram. All other politicians who have made provocative utterances in the past too should be invited for questioning, interrogation and locked-up. We must pick up all such politicians, the clerics who have sympathy for Boko Haram, those evil traditional rulers in those areas should also be locked up without trial. Even if a sitting Governor is identified as sponsoring or having sympathy for Boko Haram, he should be arrested and locked up. That is enough to declare a full State of Emergency then strip him of his immunity and lock him up. Nobody should be above the law because Nigerians are dying in thousands.

4. We should also check the military out, Smoke out the traitors, Lock them up in our Guantanamo. Never forget we still have officers in the military who are #Boys of some Retired Generals, these boys are still loyal to them and could still be giving their godfathers who are now out of government information. Let us move them around, take soldiers from 34 Artillery Brigade in Obinze to the North-West and those from 2nd Mechanized Division in Ibadan to North-East. We must also routinely change the police and other security personnels to avoid compromise.

5. Dear President Jonathan, “mercy is for the weak”, the time to #ACT is now. Forget about #2015 general elections and deal with these people decisively. Mr. President, after locking all of them up in our Guantanamo, switch-off all your phones & don’t listen to all their pleas through their traditional or religious leaders who will be pleading for their release. They might even try to use people close to you to plead for their release but do not listen to them; just lock them up and keep Nigerians safe.

In conclusion, Your Excellency, this your Born Again disposition is very good but it may not help you for long. The time to deal decisively; ruthlessly with these enemies of the state is now, Wear a new garment and shut your ears to all pleas, cries and complains and lock them all up. If you do so now, we will understand and no one will blame you because you have been very tolerating indeed. The world can bear witness that you have been magnanimous in tolerance but a new era of clampdown on all suspect is now. Suspicion alone is enough to secure you a bed-space in our Guantanamo.

May God give you the courage to take these painful but necessary steps and decisions for the sake of the dying populace of our dear nation.

Mr. President God bless you.

And God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

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Deji Adeyanju writes from Abuja, and can be contacted on Twitter @adeyanjudej9

 

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.