The Man Who Talks with Boko Haram
By Michael Ireland, Senior Reporter, ASSIST News Service answritermike@gmail.com
NIGERIA (ANS, March 30, 2015) -- A year ago April
14, Boko Haram kidnapped 275 girls from the government secondary school
in the Christian-dominated town of Chibok, Borno State. Now, a year
after the kidnaping of the Nigerian girls, Australian Stephen Davis
still says his contacts indicate government complicity, according to
World Watch Monitor (www.worldwatchmonitor.org).
World Watch Monitor (WWM) says students reported to the Chibok
Government Secondary Boarding School on Sunday, April 13, to take an
exam on Tuesday morning, April 15, despite the fact that the government
had closed schools across the state because it could not offer
protection.
At about 11pm armed Boko Haram insurgents broke into the school. They
burned the administration block and classrooms. Dressed in military
uniforms, they told the girls that Chibok was under attack but that they
were there to protect them. The girls believed them and obeyed their
orders to mount the vehicles outside. Forty three girls escaped, some
during the attack at the school; others during the journey to a camp in
the Sambisa forest, where the captive girls were initially kept.
World Watch Monitor says that one year on, the 232 girls taken that night from Chibok remain in rebel custody.
The news outlet says it is not clear where they are being held or
what circumstances they have been facing this past year. The first of
the babies born to the girls since their captivity arrived in
mid-February this year. Four girls who managed to escape after their
arrival at the Boko Haram camp reported that they were raped almost on a
daily basis. They said those who did not cooperate with the rebels
faced severe punishment. Some other girls who were captured before the
Chibok girls, and who managed to escape after varying time in captivity,
said some girls were killed because they would not renounce their
Christian faith.
World watch Monitor says the Nigerian Government has been under harsh
criticism for its handling of the crisis. Critics say it has not done
enough to secure the girls’ release or to support their families.
Australian Negotiating Nigerian Girls’ Release
In
May last year, news surfaced that an Australian, Dr. Stephen Davis, had
been negotiating behind the scenes for the release of the girls.
Although he secured an agreement to win the release of about 60 girls,
the exchange was compromised. In October, there was another glimmer of
hope when the government announced it had reached an agreement for the
release of the girls. But just as the news broke, fighting intensified
and a person claiming to be the leader of the group, Abubakar Shekau,
whom the military previously had announced was dead, declared in a video
released to media there was no deal. “War is what we want,” the speaker
said.
According to World Watch Monitor, Dr Stephen Davis, the Australian
who had been involved in the negotiations for the release of the Chibok
girls, served as Director at the International Centre for Peace and
Reconciliation at Coventry Cathedral in the U.K. in 2005 and 2006.
Davis also served as an advisor to two Nigerian presidents: Olusegun
Obasanjo, and Umaru Musa Yar’Adua.
Davis became involved in the negotiations because of his recent
history of interaction with the forerunner of Boko Haram, Jama’atu Ahlul
Sunnah Lih Da’awa Wal Jihad. He was confident from telephone
conversations he had with contacts in the group soon after the
kidnapping that there was a good chance of securing the release of some,
if not all, the kidnapped girls. “I arrived in Nigeria on May 3, 2014
for the specific and only purpose of securing the release of the Chibok
girls,” he said. World Watch Monitor stated that although he enjoyed
logistical support from the Nigerian presidency, he received no payment
for his negotiations for the release of the girls and was never formally
contracted.
“Soon after arrival in Nigeria and discussions with the Presidency I
travelled to Borno State in the north east by military aircraft provided
through the Presidency,” Davis said. “As the visit was to be discreet,
it was decided that I would be met at the military airbase by a civilian
and travel in a private vehicle. Over subsequent days I met with the
head of the Maiduguri University Teaching Hospital who was cooperative
in providing medical team support for any kidnapped girls who might be
handed over.”
Davis learned that the majority of the girls were not held in
Nigeria, but in camps in Cameroon, Chad and Niger. A small group was
confirmed to be in Nigeria, ready to be handed over.
World Watch Monitor says that around the same time, Davis received a
phone call from a young man named Idris, who claimed to have been
kidnapped by Boko Haram and forced to drive vehicles during their
attacks.
"Over subsequent weeks and many interactions by phone, we arranged a
vehicle to assist Idris to escape and bring with him four girls who had
been kidnapped in Chibok. The girls managed to escape, but Idris, and
the driver we sent to pick them up, were apparently killed by Boko
Haram,” Davis said.
“The girls escaped (from Cameroon) by walking west to follow the
setting sun each evening, knowing that would eventually lead them to
Nigeria. After several weeks, they arrived at a village on the Nigerian
side of the border and through a local pastor they were reunited with
their families.”
The news outlet stated that when news of his
involvement in the negotiations was leaked to the media, Davis expressed
disappointment and said it was not helpful to the negotiations. “This
noise and clutter slows down the process, and muddies the water.”
Davis said he came close to brokering a release three other times,
only to have each handover ruined at the last moment. In one episode, he
told World Watch Monitor, “we had set out on a trip to receive a group
of Chibok girls who were to be handed over at the village of Kirenowa
near the northern border with Niger. At New Marte we picked up a
military escort and continued to Kirenowa.”
Fifteen minutes before the exchange was to happen, another group
kidnapped the girls to try and cash in on the several million Naira
reward the police had announced just 24 hours before. Shortly afterward,
Boko Haram attacked Kirenowa, wiping out the military barracks. They
also took New Marte and Dikwa, both large towns with substantial
military presence.
Taking on the Sponsors behind the Kidnapping
World
Watch Monitor says Davis became aware that powerful figures with
“vested interests” were sabotaging his efforts to reach a deal. “While I
was making efforts to secure the release of the girls, I realized that
if I got 30 or 40 girls out, the political backers of the group would
have the militants kidnap another 60 to replace them and a further 100
villagers would likely die in the process. I became very frustrated. The
backers threatened that any commander of the group who agreed to
participate in any peace dialogue or handover of girls would be
slaughtered by other commanders.”
The news outlet says Davis implicated former Borno State Governor,
Modu Sheriff in funding the group for political gains. In addition, he
accused former National Security Adviser Andrew Azazi of pocketing money
from generous defense budgets designed to fight the insurgency. He also
said a senior Central Bank of Nigeria official has provided an official
channel by which to supply a Boko Haram agent in Egypt with funds to
buy weapons and military uniforms.
“In short, the sponsors of Boko Haram clearly want to show that a
Christian President cannot overcome the current insecurity caused by
Muslim extremists,” Davis said.
Davis has concluded that the first step in defeating the highly
radicalized and increasingly organized Boko Haram is to arrest the
sponsors, cut off arms supplies and communications, and isolate them
geographically. In a previous interview with World Watch Monitor, he had
said commanders of the political arm of Boko Haram were tired of the
ritualistic blood-letting, and that once the sponsors’ influence has
been removed, these leaders would be ready to negotiate an end to the
insurgency. As long as the sponsors are in the picture, he said, no
negotiation would take place.
In January, the UK-based news website Nigerian Watch reported that
Davis’ allegations regarding Sheriff had prompted the People's
Democratic Party, or PDP, to drop him as its senatorial. “Apparently
concerned by the implications of fielding Alhaji Sheriff as a candidate,
the PDP has removed his name from the list of candidates submitted to
the Independent National Electoral Commission,” Nigerian Watch reported.
“He has been replaced with the little-known Muhammad Baba Kachalla, 49,
who is the official PDP candidate for the Borno Central senatorial
district.”
At the same time, corners of Nigeria’s media speculated Davis was
somehow plotting with Boko Haram and that his revelations were an
attempt to discredit President Goodluck Jonathan.
Although State Security Services, or SSS, said Sept. 5 it would
investigate the fresh accusation against Sheriff, having already invited
him for questioning in the past, it instead started arresting people
associated with Davis, World Watch Monitor reported.
Davis said the arrests are an “expected strong response from powerful
and wealthy people who have a lot to lose.” Davis also asserted that
any confessions made by those arrested have been made under threat.
Now
almost a year after making his allegations public, Davis told WWM that,
despite the media criticism and the arrest and extrajudicial detention
of people associated with him, he stands by his assertion.
“I have learned years ago as an expert witness that the guy on the
other side’s job is to destroy your credibility,” he said. “They spend
all their time destroying your credibility, so they do not have to
contend with your evidence… They will marshal all of their forces to try
to discredit you because they will not address the issue, the facts,
the evidence.
“If you worry about defending your reputation you are back fighting
where they are comfortable and they have strength,” he said. “Jesus
didn’t do this. The New Testament is not full of Jesus walking around
justifying himself. He carried on with the work.”
He was asked if the difficulties caused him to rethink the wisdom of taking on the politicians?
“For me it is a non-question,” he said, “because if you have sought
the Lord before you have gone into it, it is irrelevant whether you see
or don’t see a result. You do it in good faith that this is what the
Lord wanted you to do and that He will provide the ways, the means and
the strength to do it.”
Davis said he maintains contact with factions within Boko Haram.
Recently he received a message from one of his contacts in the group
which read: "Moving a large number of girls across the border from
Nigeria into Niger". When Davis asked why, the source replied: "The
contract is almost over".Davis said he understands the statement to mean
that when the Nigerian presidential election is held March 28, the
contract to hold the girls will expire.“A contract! This proves yet
again that politicians are paying money to create this sort of mayhem –
paying to have people slaughtered!” Davis exclaimed. “This is terrible!
These guys are getting paid to go and slaughter tens of thousands of
people.” Davis continues to call on international authorities to
formally investigate Sheriff.
Davis also said the media play into the hands of the terrorists by
redistributing videos captured during raids, and called for a campaign
to ensure social media platforms and news media do not host or
distribute Boko Haram propaganda.
“The world’s media – denied any real access to these conflicts, where
Western journalists have been beheaded along with other Westerners —
are starved of dramatic footage. In the world’s media the terrorists
have the most efficient distribution network for their propaganda,”
Davis said.
“The terrorists are delighted that the world’s media show these
terrorist ‘victories,’ which intimidates the general population and
attracts more recruits. We should not give them the notoriety they
crave. The media can responsibly report without the need for publicizing
the shocking acts of murder, rape and genocide. This is a matter that
needs our urgent attention,” he said.
A critical part of the strategy to defeat terrorist groups like Boko
Haram and the self-proclaimed Islamic State, Davis said, should be to
isolate them from media outlets and to take down all content that could
sustain and perpetuate terrorist activities. Media who resist should be
punished, he said.
“People should write to their members of parliament to ask for
terrorist-generated propaganda to be banned from the internet. It is
very clear from research and from history that if you close down the
channel, you close down the organization. The correlations are very
high. We should be simply choking off terrorist access to media, and
politicians have the power to do this. It should be handled the same way
as pedophilia is handled,” he told World Watch Monitor.
The Church Around the World Needs to Break its Silence
Even
as he advocates for a media blackout on Boko Haram atrocities, Davis
said the worldwide Church must make more noise about it.
“I have visited many villages and towns attacked by Boko Haram. I
have seen first-hand the devastation and talked to families in the
attacks. These are tragic stories of loss of life, slaughter, rape and
the worst abuses of human life one can imagine,” he said.
“The
Christian churches and congregations around Gwoza on the
Cameroon-Nigeria border have been decimated, with many congregations
killed in their churches.” Davis said he asked the local Bishop how many
people were killed in the most recent attack on Gwoza, and the bishop
replied, “We have yet to see any living.” And there have been several
other attacks on Gwoza.
World Watch Monitor stated that in a recent report about the impact
of the violence on the Anglican Church in Nigeria’s northeast,
Archbishop Benjamin Kwashi said the effects of the displacement,
attacks, destruction and violence perpetrated on the Church is
unquantifiable. Archbishop Kwashi says one of the groups that has
suffered severely is the EYN Church of the Brethren, whose “entire
denomination of nearly 2 million membership has been uprooted.”
By the count of the Archbishop, the Anglican Church in Nigeria has
lost 60 churches in its province covering the northeast. In one area, 36
of 42 churches have been lost.
Davis pointed out that “the report relates to the Anglican Church
only. Keep in mind that there are at least as many Catholic Churches in
that area and at least three or four times the number of Pentecostal
Churches that would be affected in similar ways.”
“People in the north of Nigeria face unbelievable hardship. Some
women walk all day to get a bucket of muddy water. People are thin as
rakes because there is not enough food. You wonder what the future holds
for a child born there. But they go on. There is hope and a desire to
live. They don’t despair. Those who have the least in Nigeria are not
the ones who despair over their general living conditions, the lack of
water and the lack of food… It is the war and terror that causes them
despair,” Davis said.
“These Christians feel abandoned by their brothers and sisters and
the rest of the world. They are asking, ‘Why aren’t we hearing from
them? Why aren’t they trying to help us? Why aren’t they trying to stop
this?’ When word seeps through that congregations in the West are
praying for the situation of Christians under attack in Nigeria’s
northeast, they weep to know they are being held up in prayer.”
“More must be done to support the Church in the northeast,” he said,
“and to get word to these Christians that they are being prayed for.”
Dr. Davis is:
* Adviser to Nigerian president Umaru Musa Yar'Adua 2007
* Director of International Centre for Reconciliation and Canon at Coventry Cathedral, UK 2005-2007
* Adviser to Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo 2004-2005
* Adviser to Shell in Nigeria from 2002-2004
* Senior executive with WMC Ltd, later Western Mining, in 1990s
* Adviser to several chief ministers in the Northern Territory in 1980s
* Graduated from University of Melbourne with a PhD in political geography
Photo One: Truck advertising Bring Back Our Girls campaign (via
Wikimedia) Photo Two: Abubakar Shekau, Ledaer of Boko Haram (via Google
websearch) Photo Three: Coventry Cathedral in the United Kingdom
** You may republish any of our stories with full attribution to the ASSIST News Service (www.assistnews.net)
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