INSECURITY: Why Govt Must Not Negotiates With Terrorists.
By Yusuf Sani Maitama
AREWA AGENDA – Nigeria as a signatory membe to various international organizations is expected practice and learn how to handle some menace ranging from economic policies, social and security threat.
Looking at the security issue from a global perspective, Nigerians are not living in isolation from other comity of nations. Nigerians are human beings like other human beings living across the globe, so we are also affected by global events. The world now being a global village has made movement of people easier.
You have now almost seamless transnational and trans-intercontinental movements.Now, people have started interacting in different clusters, so the development has given more tasks to the issue of not only national but also international security across the world.
The argument against negotiating with terrorists is simple Democracies must never give in to violence, and terrorists must never be rewarded for using it. Negotiations give legitimacy to terrorists and their methods and undermine actors who have pursued political change through peaceful means. Talks can destabilize the negotiating governments’ political systems, undercut international efforts to outlaw terrorism, and set a dangerous precedent.
Nigeria being a part of a regional bloc in West Africa, called ECOWAS, is a signatory to the bloc’s convention which allows free movement of people among member states. Then in other parts of Africa you have similar blocs which allow free movement of people. The aim of all these regional collaborations and cooperation is to ease commerce and social relationships.
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But this good intention has not always been 100 percent successful because you see some criminals with sinister motives will infiltrate the system, thereby leaving those saddled with maintenance of security in different countries with a lot of work to do.
Looking at insecurity in Nigeria we are looking at a country that is so large but also a nation so brotherly and accommodating willing to foster African oneness to the extent that it is now causing Nigeria so much pain.
Nigeria is also sharing boundaries with a lot of countries that share boundaries with North Africa, and we are all aware of the Arab springs where revolts started in Tunisia and spread to other nations, including Libya.
Unfortunately the death of late Libyan leader, Muammar Gadaffi led to a state of lawlessness, thereby resulting in influx of armed gunmen with sophisticated arms into Nigeria and some other nations. Some of these people are sponsoring different groups in Nigeria including Boko Haram.
negotiations with terrorist organizations can serve as a starting point for a broader peace agreement, as secret and public negotiations between the government of Nigeria and Boko Haram and the latter’s subsequent disarmament and participation in politics demonstrates.
It is clearly very convenient politically to adopt slogans such as “never negotiate with terrorists,” as it may seem to be the political and moral high-ground, but being right and clever are not always compatible. Sometimes it is clever to negotiate with terrorists — just sometimes.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect editorial policy.
Yusuf Sani Maitama writes from Bayero University,Kano
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Arewa Agenda is a Publication of young writers from Northern Nigeria towards peaceful coexistence and national development through positive narratives.
