‘We did not do what we should have done when we should have done
it. We left it to become a very very intractable problem’, these
were the words of former president Olusegun Obasanjo while
responding to questions in an interview with BBC’s Nkem
Ifejika.
The former president who was speaking about why it seems
difficult for insurgency in Nigeria to end permanently pointed out
that the issue was not nipped in the bud to prevent what we have
now.
Speaking further, Obasanjo said ‘ I went out in 2011 to
Maiduguri. I took great risk to find out what is really happening.
Boko haram, do they have grievances, if they have grievances, what
are their grievances and I brought all that to Jonathan. Jonathan
didn’t believe that Boko Haram was a serious issue. He thought that
it was a device by the North to prevent him from continuing as
president of Nigeria which was rather unfortunate.
‘Even when Chibok girls were abducted, it took a while for the
government to believe. Now if that is the situation, you can
understand why the right attention was not paid to the issue of
Boko Haram when it should have been paid.
‘Boko Haram will not be over. It started from a position of
gross under-development, unemployment, youth frustration in the
north-east. So we must be treating the disease not the
symptom’.
‘We did not do what we should have done when we should have done
it. We left it to become a very very intractable problem’, these
were the words of former president Olusegun Obasanjo while
responding to questions in an interview with BBC’s Nkem
Ifejika.
The former president who was speaking about why it seems
difficult for insurgency in Nigeria to end permanently pointed out
that the issue was not nipped in the bud to prevent what we have
now.
Speaking further, Obasanjo said ‘ I went out in 2011 to
Maiduguri. I took great risk to find out what is really happening.
Boko haram, do they have grievances, if they have grievances, what
are their grievances and I brought all that to Jonathan. Jonathan
didn’t believe that Boko Haram was a serious issue. He thought that
it was a device by the North to prevent him from continuing as
president of Nigeria which was rather unfortunate.
‘Even when Chibok girls were abducted, it took a while for the
government to believe. Now if that is the situation, you can
understand why the right attention was not paid to the issue of
Boko Haram when it should have been paid.
‘Boko Haram will not be over. It started from a position of
gross under-development, unemployment, youth frustration in the
north-east. So we must be treating the disease not the
symptom’.