Former United States Ambassador to Nigeria, John Campbell, has said the insurgency by Boko Haram was caused by the feeling that the South alienates the North.
He said those in the North felt they were being alienated by those in the South, while the Federal Government had allegedly long ignored the feelings of the northerners.
He also accused the Peoples Democratic Party and the All Progressives Congress of turning the insurgency into a political game.
In an online interview with our correspondent, Campbell, who authored the book, Nigeria: Dancing on the Brink, said the insurgency rocking Nigeria was being treated by the political parties as “political football.”
According to Campbell, a Ralph Bunche Senior Fellow for Africa Policy Studies, the feelings of alienation and marginalisation go deeper than the problem of poverty the North is grappling with.
He said, “Alienation and marginalisation have far more complicated roots than just poverty. My sense is that many in northern Nigeria feel “disrespected” by their fellow countrymen, and certainly Abuja has long ignored it.”
The US diplomat said Nigeria’s industry players, power brokers and opinion leaders might have added to the growing frustration in the North because fewer investment opportunities were made available and that some opinion leaders usually dismissed the region as being “backward.”
These, Campbell said, were conditions that the sect was capitalising on.
“Boko Haram feeds on a sense of political marginalisation along with economic marginalisation. Poverty in the North-East Nigeria is, in the best of times, among the world’s worst, as are the social statistics.
“But, the North-East is also ‘marginalised’ by many businessmen in the South, who avidly pursue opportunities in other parts of Africa but ignore the North. Opinion leaders, too, often dismiss the North as ‘backward.’ Factors such as this all contribute to marginalisation,” he added.
Campbell also stated that part of the current impasse was not unconnected with the alleged zoning pact broken by the incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan. According to him, many politicians particularly from the North will feel excluded from power at the centre.
“With the end of ‘zoning’, many political figures sense that they will be excluded permanently from power in Abuja,” he said.
The APC had accused the PDP-led Federal Government of benefitting from the insurgency by the sect, while the ruling party had alleged that the opposition party had links with the terrorist group.
Campbell, however, dismissed the accusations and counter-accusations by the parties, saying he did not think either of them was responsible for the uprising of the Islamist extremists.
He said, “Boko Haram has become a political football between the governing party and the opposition party in this pre-election period. I have heard the allegation that the opposition party and Boko Haram cooperate to discredit the present administration.
“On the other hand, there is the allegation that (President) Goodluck Jonathan is using Boko Haram to prevent 2015 elections from taking place in the North. I don’t think there’s any truth to these two scenarios.”
The American diplomat, however, stated that such allegations were indications of lack of trust among many people in the country.
“But such accusations indicate a lack of trust among many Nigerians. The drivers of northern alienation that Boko Haram feeds on are a sense of political marginalisation, economic impoverishment, and resentment of security services and human rights abuses,” he said.
Source: Punch
