The next general election is two years away, but the political atmosphere is already charged as political actors and political parties have begun the game of setting up structures and putting up their chosen candidates for the election. In this chat monitored on Channels Television, Shehu Sani, a former Senator representing Kaduna Central Senatorial District, bares his mind on the state of the nation and builds up to the crucial election.

You have had your own intervention of wanting to see how peace can be restored in the Northeast when the Boko Haram terrorism started, but when you heard that some leaders of the Ansaru were arrested, what came to your mind?

Well, it is a fact of history that in the last 15 years, the northern part of this country has come under sustained attacks by a plethora of terrorist groups. In the northwest, they’ve been known to be bandits who exist in clusters, with Zamfara being the hub. They kill, they kidnap, and they extort ransom from people. In the north-eastern part of Nigeria, you have a defined, organized terror group with local and global networks. The most popular ones are the Boko Haram and the ISIS, but over the years, we have seen the rise of other smaller terror groups and terror cells with the same strategy, objective, but different identities. You have the Ansaru, you have the Mamudawa, and you have the Lakurawa. All these are terror groups engaged in these acts of bloodshed and extortion.

Now, this has been going on for a very long time, and the activities have seriously destroyed lives and livelihoods in the north. It has disrupted education, agriculture, and so many other things. So, the news of the arrest of these leaders of Ansaru, I think it’s a testimony to some efforts that have been made or invested over the years. It is a statement by the Nigerian state that terrorism is not peculiar to us. It is the same cancer that we have that traverses Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, and parts of Chad. But it is incumbent on us to tackle our own issues. But we can only work in collaboration and network with our neighbours to also achieve results.

The arrest does not mean terrorism has come to an end, but it is a significant milestone in terms of the war we have been fighting and the situation we have found ourselves

The National Security Advisor said that Mahmoud Muhammad Usman and his deputy could be regarded as two of Nigeria’s most wanted militants linked to Al-Qaeda and its affiliates, and this sting operation took several weeks. It would appear to me that their arrest also yielded some digital evidence that these men have cross-border links to the Sahel. What sort of follow-up do you think this government could make, and how much of a success could this be for us towards a possible end to Boko Haram in the north-eastern region of the country?

Well, I will answer it this way. What many people don’t understand is the difference between terrorists and bandits. They’re not the same. Bandits are the ones in the northwestern part of Nigeria. So these are gangs of criminals that exist in small clusters. They’re in Zamfara; they’re in parts of Kaduna, Niger, Katsina, and Sokoto States. They are driven by the need to acquire proceeds of their own crime. So they are not driven by any ideological or philosophical background. On the other hand, terrorists are defined as criminal organizations with a political, social, and religious agenda. They are in pursuit of a theocratic state. They are called Islamists. Another difference between them and the bandits is that they have other networks, like the Boko Haram is linked to Al-Qaeda, and ISWAP is linked to ISIS. And you know, when you are linked to terror groups outside of your country, it means that the one in your country is an affiliate of a global terror network. So the terror groups are more sophisticated, are more armed, and they have an agenda for any country. If you talk of the bandits, bandits kidnap, extort money, and release their suspects. But these have an agenda. For example, if Leah Sharibu were in the hands of bandits, she could have been released because their objective is simply to extort money. But the terror groups have another religious agenda for the whole country. And they also have a global leadership that receives commands and instructions on what to do. So these are the fundamentals.

Now, the suspects that were arrested were part of a terror group, perhaps a breakaway from Al-Qaeda or the ISWAP, and they have their own group called Ansaru. So if an Ansaru is in control of a village, it will impose its aspect of Islamic rule, and they have an Imam, and they have a court and other ethical stipulations for their own society. Now, this is what they do. So the arrest of these two persons is a major victory for Nigeria.

Is there something that we do not know? Something more that you can tell us about these two men. How powerful are they in the scheme of things?

When they say, this is an Amir, it means that he’s the spiritual leader of that group, and he is also the link between that group and his external organ. He is also the main supplier of logistics to the activities of the group. So when such of person is apprehended, it is a major setback for the group and a major victory for the country in terms of being able to annihilate that aspect of terror groups they are linked with. Their arrest will not bring an end to terror attacks in Nigeria, but for that very group which they lead, at least there is a strong seal that has been imposed on them. It is demoralizing for their members when their leaders are arrested, and it’s also a step forward to the ultimate aim of achieving victory over the terror groups’ network, country-wide.

It is ironic and very interesting, actually, that we are discussing this at a time when a court in Canada had declared that two main political parties in Nigeria are terrorist organizations. Do you think that it’s an overreach or a reflection of reality?

You see, a lot of things are said about our country, and we seem to belittle our prestige and our role in history. That is why you hear people outside of the country calling Nigeria a nation of scammers, of fraudsters, and corrupt people, and terrorists, and whatever. But if you go through history and see the role Nigeria played, there is no country in this continent or outside of this continent that has made as many contributions as Nigeria to global peace and stability. I’ll go into a bit of history. Before Nigeria’s independence during the Second World War, Nigeria was drafted to fight in Europe. Nigerians fought in Europe against Nazi Hitler. We fought in East Africa when Mussolini was trying to occupy Somalia and Ethiopia. Nigerians were in Burma. Nigerians were in the Philippines. These were the records before even our independence. Then, just immediately after our independence in the 60s, Nigerians were in Congo to restore peace and order. You can also see the role we played in the 80s in terms of bringing peace to Somalia under UNISOM and the role we played in Liberia and Sierra Leone. We were also at the forefront of the fight against apartheid colonialism in Southern Africa, particularly in South Africa. We lent support, logistics, and training to revolutionary fighters there. We supported the MPLA in Angola. We supported FRELIMO in Mozambique. Now, this is the country that someone will sit down comfortably in Europe or the United States and simply cast aspersions, defame us, and try to destroy our identity, while for all these things we have done to humanity, we get no credit for it. Now, a court in Canada, an obscure court, whether it’s a magistrate or a high court, will sit down and look at a nation of 250 million people and say the biggest of their political parties that preside over their affairs are terror groups. I think it’s time for everyone to learn to speak for this country. I don’t think that it makes any sense. I read a legal opinion on it. Someone who was perhaps a minister under the Obasanjo administration, and then he had an issue there. So we are too big a country for a judge in Canada to look at us and see our political parties are terrorist groups.

It’s a sweeping statement…

The world has just marked eighty years since the attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The US just threw a bomb and killed about 250,000 people, and nobody is calling them terrorists. Yet, a nation that has not colonized or occupied anybody’s territory is given a negative tag. We have not looted; we have not destroyed and enslaved other persons. And then you look at us, a nation of 250 million people, and say that? It doesn’t make any sense at all.

Don’t you think that it is because of the activities of members of these political parties, where we see political violence and subversion, which may have brought that appellation of terrorists in that courtroom?

Well, it’s just what I’m saying. The U.S. has two parties, the Democratic and Republican parties. All their presidents have been engaged in bombing other nations and killing people. In the United Kingdom, you have the Conservatives and Labour; they have Prime Ministers who are also involved in some of these activities, always attacking and killing people.

But they don’t let such kind of courts declare them as terrorist parties. So it is simply trying to cast aspersions on our country. It’s not only limited to the Canadian court, but this is a narrative that we as Nigerians must stand up and speak. We have made sacrifices for the peace, stability, and progress of humanity like no other country in the world. We should be given credit for that, and we shouldn’t take it.

I can remember that there was a time, a magistrate gave a ruling against the Rwandan President, Paul Kagame, and the response was swift.

You can’t sit down somewhere in a court, in a city that is unknown and of no value to us as a country, and look at us and tell us that we have political parties that are terror groups. It makes no sense, and we shouldn’t give credit to that court, and we shouldn’t give audience to such of ruling.

Your own state, Kaduna, experienced a huge pressure from bandits, but we saw a kind of different approach from what happened under your good friend, Nasir El-Rufai, the former governor. In comparative analysis, is there a lesson to learn for the rest of the states that are battling similar problems?

Well, since Uba Sani took office in 2023, he was able to study the political configuration, the conflicts, and the hotspots in the state and came up with this idea that: if we have been using bombs and bullets to exterminate these terrorists and it’s not been possible, why don’t we try a different approach? And then he experimented with this idea of dialogue with these bandits, and it worked. But something miraculous about it was that he was not the first to initiate a dialogue. There was one time, years ago, we had a dialogue in Katsina that never worked, when Masari was a governor. There was one time we had a dialogue with Matawale, when he was the governor of Zamfara, and it never worked. Other governors in the north tried that path, but the uniqueness of Uba Sani is that it worked. Brinin Gwari, which is a local government in the central part of Kaduna, used to be the hub of terror groups and criminal bandits. Some communities are virtually under the control of these terrorists, and you can’t move. They moved from Brinin Gwari and launched attacks in Kaduna and even on the Kaduna-Abuja Road, and whoever was kidnapped from Abuja or Kaduna was taken to Brinin Gwari and later transferred to Zamfara. Now, Uba Sani, with the help of the Office of the National Security Adviser and other agencies, has been able to achieve that feat. Now that you have peace in Brinin Gwari, people can drive anywhere and at any time of the day. So I wonder why other governors have not adopted the formula of Kaduna.

But I have read somewhere where a certain governor said what happened in Kaduna cannot happen in their place. But why don’t they give it a try? For the first time, we have actually a governor that has been able to achieve this feat, and the cases of kidnapping or ransom and terror attacks are very limited in Kaduna. So you can give that credit to him.

During the 2023 campaign, President Tinubu promised economic revival, anti-corruption, and comprehensive reforms, but two years later, the opposition is saying poverty remains stubbornly high and policy reform is sluggish. There are talks about the emerging opposition coalition, and they are saying the only agenda they have is to send President Tinubu back to Lagos. What do you make of what is going on?

Well, first of all, I don’t speak for the government, but all I know is that an economic reform programme anywhere in the world is not easy. And for any nation that has a vision of the future, sacrifices need to be made. That became the foundation for the greatness of nations like South Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore. We have to make sacrifices for the future. And we’re in a democracy. It is within the rights and the ambit of our democratic experiment to have an opposition that will provide an alternative. But if their only a power motive is to remove Tinubu without providing any alternative to his governance style, then they have no agenda. And let me be very frank on this, the people that constitute the coalition today are not ideologically and philosophically different from the Tinubu administration in terms of the programmes it is prosecuting.

So it’s not like you have a Marxist and a Capitalist or a Neo- liberal and a Conservative. They all have during their campaign and in their lives; you can see those liberal values.

Now, in the case of Jonathan, each time there is an election, you will see the name of Jonathan coming up. But he intends to try to contest. But I advise him not to do that. The reason for that is very simple. The PDP he used to know is not the same now. The PDP in the Southwest is endorsing the president, and some members of the party are in the coalition. So he is not going to be at the party that he used to know. So he shouldn’t waste his time.