A Yoruba socio-cultural group, the Apapo Oodua Koya (AOKOYA), has backed claims by Ijaw leader and former minister of information, Chief Edwin Clark, that erstwhile military dictator, General Ibrahim Babangida renders undercover support to the Boko Haram Islamist fundamentalist sect.
The group described Clark’s position — which has already generated poignant criticism from IBB’s camp — as a reflection of the opinion of “everyone on the streets of Nigeria,” saying the Ijaw leader had only taken the bull by the horn by echoing what was already a popular belief.
“General Ibrahim Babangida was solely responsible for the growth of terrorism in Nigeria,” the group wrote in a statement released on Monday, signed by Mr. Akinwunmi Adeolu.
“His government could not account for the killers of the late Dele Giwa, the Oko-Oba Eight, the Dawodu brothers, who were murdered in cold blood in Lagos, and many cases of state-sponsored deaths within and outside the security services, a chain of awful events that culminated in the k*lling of his own best man, General Maman Vatsa and his benefactor, Chief Moshood Abiola.”
In addition to public suspicion that IBB is funding Boko Haram in order to destabilise the country and help return the Hausa-Fulani to power through a military coup, AOKOYA noted that the sect is motivated by such ills as the lack of the right to peaceful protest in the country (since recent protests have been matched by violent repression), extreme poverty triggered by IBB’s Structural Adjustment Programme, (SAP), overcentralisation of power, corruption nurtured by IBB, and worst of all, sponsorship of violence by the elite, of which IBB is a notorious master.
“Eight years of IBB rule were dedicated to entrenching Hausa-Fulani interests through the creation of local governments and states, undue empowerment of his kinsmen that carried in their wombs eternal sources of contradictions and violence,” a part of the statement read.
“He killed the student movement, trampled on human dignity, strangulated the labour movement and let loose a culture of violence, armed gangsterism, killings and hate. This is one of the plots behind incessant killings in Plateau, Bauchi and Yobe States. IBB is a man of violence; he said it after the June 12 election annulment on national TV that he was ‘master in the art of violence.”
AOKOYA observed that IBB had never condemned Boko Haram but instead resorted to attacking the person of Chief Edwin Clark instead of debating the issues raised by the statesman.
The group also berated Babangida for responding to Clark with violent and hate language, expressing support for the Ijaw leader’s views as well as certainty that “Babangida and his cohorts will be brought to justice whether in Nigeria or in international courts for his crime against humanity, at the fullness of time.”
