This Keynote Address highlights the tragic accounts of the rise of insurgency under Boko Haram, inactions of governments fuelled by conspiracy theories and praxis of inactions and assessment of calamities experienced by citizens caught under the crisis. By all estimation, HE Shettima’s Keynote Address is an important leadership guide to managing humanitarian crisis and truly epitomizes Gen. Murtala's courage in leadership.

1. MANAGING THE BOKO HARAM CRISIS IN
BORNO STATE: Experiences & Lessons for a multi-
party, multi-ethnic and multi-religious Nigeria.
Being a keynote address delivered by H.E KASHIM SHETTIMA, EXECUTIVE
GOVERNOR OF BORNO STATE at the 2017 MURTALA MUHAMMED MEMORIAL
LECTURE; Monday, February 13, 2017, Abuja, Nigeria.
PROTOCOL
Apart from the immeasurable national impact he made within just 198 days
(less than seven months) in office, what is decidedly affirmed to be the late
General Murtala Muhammed's most famous speech set the stage for Africa's
epochal confrontation with colonial, racist and settler regimes in Angola,
Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Rhodesia (renamed Zimbabwe), and South Africa.
At the Extra-Ordinary Summit of African Heads of States under the
Organisation of African Unity, held in Addis Ababa, the political capital of
Africa, on 11th January, 1976, Africa's Martyr General Murtala Muhammed, put
the world on notice. The speech aptly titled "Africa has come of age" declared
that our countries, and by extension all their social and political organisations,
"would not take orders from any extra-continental power however powerful."
He, General Murtala Muhammed of blessed memory, further stated that
"Africa is capable of resolving her own problems without any presumptuous
lessons in ideological dangers, which more often than not, have no relevance
for the problems at hand...". 41 years after General Murtala expressed this bold
vision, we must ask ourselves, is it that Africa has now retrogressed below the
threshold of positive consciousness bequeathed to us to this moment when
"extra-continental powers" like ISIS or Al-Qaeda are directing Boko Haram to
turn its lethal weapons on social progress, with poor people as the undeniable
victims of their insurgency?
For a succession of Nigerian leaders going back to the first republic under
Prime Minister Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, through General Yakubu Gowon
and General Olusegun Obasanjo who succeeded General Murtala Muhammed,
the willingness to deploy resources to secure the basic rights to life and
happiness, not just in Nigeria but all over Africa, was deeply rooted in the
psyche of the true leaders of our people. For again, in that his famous speech,

2. General Murtala Muhammed, minced no words in stating why it was necessary
to fight evil wherever it occurred in Africa:, "when I contemplate the evils of
apartheid, my heart bleeds and I am sure the heart of every true- blooded
African bleeds".
Most researchers believe that the cradle of apartheid in South Africa was in
1948 and lasted till 1994 when Africa's legend, Nelson Mandela of the ANC
had to be released from prison to assume the democratic leadership of the
country. But in the age or era of apartheid a total of 21,000 persons were
murdered according to reports published by the Human Rights Committee of
South Africa which conducted extensive investigation into the atrocities of the
Boers against Africans. At the time General Murtala's heart bled over atrocities
of apartheid, the number of murders was less than 7,000 in the run-up to 1976
through the 1980s. Majority of the assassinations and murders totaling 14,000,
actually took place between 1990 and 1994.
Your Excellencies, Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, how much more
would General Murtala's heart have bled today if he were around to know,
that while it took South Africa's apartheid 46 years to take 21,000 lives, it took
Boko Haram only 7 years to cause the murders of 100,000 lives of innocent
people, largely women, children and old people in Nigeria?
If General Murtala Muhammed were alive today, imagine how his heart would
have bled most profusely! Certainly, his fate would have been no better than
Egypt's General Gamel Abdel Nasser's in September 1970, when his heart
failed over a lingering worry that fellow Arabs, Jordanians and Palestinians,
were killing each other. I cannot resist such a comparison, for it stands to be
argued if General Murtala Muhammed was not to Africa, what Gamel Abdel
Nasser was to Arabia. It took a heart failure for Gamal Abdel Nasser, whereas
a black African consciously planned and carried out the assassination of Africa's
martyr, General Murtala Muhammed! May his soul rest in peace!Amen.
Ladies and Gentlemen, immersed as I often find myself in thoughts over the
greatness in General Murtala Muhammed, I was thoroughly bemused when
Aisha Muhammed-Oyebode, replied my SMS of acceptance to this event, by
saying the Murtala Muhammed Foundation was so honoured. I laughed at her
humility as I considered myself to be the one who's truly honoured. What an
honour to be a keynote speaker at the memorial of one of Africa's liberators, a

3. man so immeasurably endowed with eternal greatness that contemporary
African History credits him with hastening the collapse of apartheid South
Africa and its surrogate regimes in Southern Africa. His name was one of the
words that rolled out from the lips of Nelson Mandela when he regained his
freedom. Africa remains grateful that in its hour of great need, it had General
Murtala Muhammed. Again, may his soul rest in peace!
Understandably, from July 1975 to date, a lot of Nigerians have more
admiration and respect, indeed nostalgia, for the days of General Murtala than
they have for some of us holding public offices today and in recent times.
'Fellow Nigerians' as Murtala often addressed citizens, would normally stand up
for leaders who truly served them. I must express my profound appreciation
to the Board and management of Murtala Muhammed Foundation for giving me
the platform to narrate the story of Borno's struggle with the evil that has
continually wreaked death and destruction in our state.
I came into office in the midst of the Boko Haram crisis in 2011. As at that
time, the insurgents had began serial assassinations and planting of IEDs mainly
in Maiduguri metropolis, which was, and now even more so, the most
populated part of the State.
Last month, my predecessor Governor Ali Modu Sheriff issued a political
statement. In it, he implied that as at the time he handed over to me in 2011,
Boko Haram had asserted territorial control and carried out its atrocities
within Maiduguri only. According to him, Boko Haram wasn't in control of
local government areas. His statement, designed as it were to aim a cheap
political shot, simply stood down both the facts and internal dynamics of the
Boko Haram terror strategy. The thesis, yet to be punctured, is that the
spread of Boko Haram was a consequence of creating and nurturing the
enabling environment that started it in the first place, and that consciously
carved out niches for it in governance and society.
Two years before I came into office, specifically, in July, 2009 when the Boko
Haram launched its first major, concurrent attacks in Maiduguri, its cells
carried out similar attacks in Damasak, headquarters of Mobbar Local
Government Area in Borno State. Cells, then yet to become active, existed
alongside visible followers in other local government areas. In fact, the Boko
Haram which spread to Bauchi (Bauchi State) and Potiskum (Yobe State) from

4. Borno State attacked targets in these states within the same July, 2009. Boko
Haram was by this time everywhere in Borno State.
I have restrained myself from blaming the previous Governor but the fact of
the matter is that Governor Ali Modu Sheriff allowed his ego to override his
actions by failing to amicably settle the violent disagreements that ensued
between a group of armed forces and followers of the Boko Haram sect in
2009, who at that time were known as Yusufiyya. Between 2008 and 2009, the
late Mohammed Yusuf was a regular critique of Sheriff’s administration in some
of his sermons, I do not know the basis of their problems.
Then, in June, 2009, there were disagreements between Yusuf's followers and
an anti-robbery squad code named, 'Operation Flush'. The disagreements were
over the use of crash helmets in Maiduguri which resulted in one of the armed
personnel in Operation Flush firing at 17 followers of the sect. I think the
security agent said they attempted disarming him or so. It is true that the Boko
Haram members had clear disregard for the policy on motorcycle safety (anti-
crash) helmet and didn't wear it. But after a serious incident involving armed
forces and a radical Islamic group, a Governor in his normal senses would at
least visit victims of the shooting, even settle their medical bills to lay
foundation for peaceful resolution and also set up a panel of Inquiry over the
shooting of 17 radical sect members. We all saw how Governor Nasiru El-
Rufai quickly set up a Judicial Commission of Inquiry over the Shiites crisis with
the Army in Zaria, and a white paper has since been issued. But in the case of
the June, 2009 Boko Haram crisis with Operation Flush in Maiduguri, then
Governor of Borno State, Ali Modu Sheriff mismanaged the crisis by blatantly
ignoring the entire incident. The Governor was in Maiduguri when the incident
happened but he neither set up at least a Commission of Inquiry after the
incident nor did he visit those shot and hospitalized while he also didn't send
anyone and didn't settle medical bills of victims. Sheriff acted as if nothing
happened. At the end, he played into the hands of the insurgents.
It is possible that some of the insurgents wanted a Jihad to declare their kind of
Islamic State and Sheriff's inactions and negligent disposition gave Mohammed
Yusuf an opening to mobilize his followers and declare a Jihad. Radical groups
normally seek basis to justify actions. And so, Mohammed Yusuf told his
followers that the silence of the Borno Government was an indication that the

5. attack on his followers was orchestrated by the Government and he
threatened a retaliation.
About a month after his threat, we had the first major attack in July, 2009. It
was after that attack that Sheriff set up one committee to look into the whole
incident, long after substantial damage had been done. In 2010, the more
vicious Abubakar Shekau emerged on the scene as a more offensive and daring
catalyst. He threatened reprisals which have brought us to where we are
today.
As indicated earlier, the transition from Yusufiyya to Boko Haram under
Shekau, dispatch of outposts outside Maiduguri in Borno State and to Yobe and
Bauchi, all planned and coordinated from headquarters in Borno, had become
contrived fait accompli under Governor Ali Modu Sheriff. We all know for
instance, that President Barack Obama opposed the 2002 invasion of Iraq. He
was a state Senator then and took part in campaigns against that invasion. It
was President Bush that dragged the United States to the war in Iraq but then
it was President Obama's administration that suffered the consequence of that
war in Iraq and as we have seen, the Democrats lost at the November, 2016
US elections.
In our case, we inherited in 2011 a violent group which melted into the public,
disguised, silently mobilising its adherents and deploying its fighters all over the
nucleus and contiguous states in the typical fashion of a home grown
insurgency with a broader political objective. The Boko Haram insurgency has
led to deaths of almost 100,000 persons going by the estimates of our
community leaders over the years. Two million, one hundred and fourteen
thousand (2,114,000) persons have become internally displaced as at
December of 2016 with five hundred and thirty seven thousand, eight hundred
and fifteen (537,815) in separate camps; 158,201 are at official camps that
consists of 6 centres with 2 transit camps at muna and custom house both in
Maiduguri. There are 379,614 IDP's at 15 satellite camps comprising of Ngala,
Monguno, Bama, Banki, Pulka, Gwoza, Sabon Gari and other locations in the
state. 73,404 persons were forced to become refugees in neighbouring
countries with Niger having 11,402 and Cameroon having 62,002.
We have an official record of 52,311 orphans who are separated and
unaccompanied. We have 54,911 widows who have lost their husbands to the

6. insurgency and about 9,012 have returned back to various communities of
Ngala, Monguno, Damboa, Gwoza and Dikwa. Based on the post insurgency
Recovery and Peace Building Assessment (RPBA) Report on the Northeast
which was jointly validated by the World Bank, the European Union, the
Presidency and the 6 States of the Northeast, the Boko Haram has inflicted
damages to the tune of 9 billion US Dollars in the region. Of this amount, the
destructions in Borno State amounts to 6 billion US Dollars and they are
supported by grim statistics.
A total of 956,453 private houses representing 30 % of the total number of
houses in Borno were destroyed across the 27 local government areas in the
State. A total of 665 municipal buildings comprising state ministries, LGA
buildings, prisons, police stations and power distribution offices were
destroyed in Borno. 5,335 classrooms and other school buildings were
destroyed in 512 primary schools, 38 secondary schools and two tertiary
institutions in the State. 201 health centres, mostly primary healthcare clinics,
dispensaries and some General Hospitals were all destroyed. The insurgents
also destroyed 726 power substations and distribution lines just like they
destroyed 1,630 water sources including motorized boreholes, hand pumps,
solar powered boreholes and facilities for piped water schemes. Across 16
local government areas of the State, the insurgents bombed parks, gardens,
orchards, game reserves, Green Wall projects and poisoned ponds, Rivers,
Lakes and stole over 500,000 cattle.
All these were in addition to setting ablaze markets, large-scale farms and
hundreds of trucks that evacuated farm produce for export to neighbouring
countries. Today, hundreds of well-known rich farmers and transporters,
among many others of the mercantile class, have become thoroughly
pauperised and rendered dependent on food aid. Thousands of children have
suffered various degrees of acute malnutrition either due to long stay in
captivity and entrapment or due to complex problems associated with the
management of IDPs. These include poor humanitarian relief delivery method
(initially experienced), and cases of diversion of food by officials and
volunteers. Painfully and paradoxically there are also cases of some of the IDPs
cashing out their food by selling at below market prices to heartless profiteers.
Those rent seeking IDPs would then return to their camps wearing faces of
neglect, hunger and hopelessness. This is the desperation borne out of

7. supposed self-help that sometimes aggravates the scarcity of basic essentials of
life among the IDPs.
Your Excellencies, Ladies and gentlemen, of all the impacts of the Boko Haram
menace including the hugely expensive and time consuming reconstruction,
resettlement and rehabilitation process, as well as supporting security agencies
in the discharge of their counter-insurgency duties, I dare say that what has
been the worst headache is managing the humongous humanitarian crisis,
particularly managing both formal and informal IDP camps. On one hand, there
are IDPs who accept to be registered and admitted into camps. On the other
hand, there are those who have set up their own camps themselves. They have
defied all entreaties to relocate to the formal camps. In both camps, there are
crisis of children and adults living in constant need of food, medications and
habitable environment. International humanitarian agencies and NGOs have
been of tremendous assistance and so are their local counterparts. The
problem, however, is that there are also the so-called NGOs who are mainly
into humanitarian aid to divert donor funds.
What is most worrisome in all of these, is that because the people of Borno
State are beneficiaries of interventions, our Government is easily accused of
not being appreciative when we ask questions. It is true that most humanitarian
agencies announce the amount of resources they require or have spent, but
certainly, the Borno State Government is mostly not involved in their
procurements. Nor in the withheld "distribution" of undelivered humanitarian
relief supplies.
CONSPIRACY THEORIES AND THE PRAXIS OF INACTION
The Murtala Muhammed Foundation has asked me to speak about my
experiences and lessons for our diverse country and this brings me to
CONSPIRACY THEORIES AND THE PRAXIS OF INACTION.
For me, the most critical experience and lesson I have had and learnt within
the last five years, has been the power of conspiracy theories and how they
can strongly undermine the fight against insecurity and the management of the
humanitarian crisis. In the first place, the Boko Haram insurgency grew from
strength to strength because of an initial conspiracy theory which began after
the 2011 general elections.

8. Distinguished Ladies and gentlemen, after the Boko Haram carried out its first
suicide attack on the headquarters of the Nigerian Police Force in June 2011
and a later attack on the UN building in August, both in Abuja, a conspiracy
theory emerged immediately alleging that the Boko Haram was set up by
Muslim-majority northern leaders to target Christians and make Nigeria
ungovernable for His Excellency, President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan. Given
the fact that both attacks took place in June and August, which were within
three months after President Jonathan was sworn-in, this conspiracy
hypothesis immediately assumed a life of its own. Those who believed the
theory did not care to recall that the first major attacks by Boko Haram in
Borno and Bauchi states which took place in June 2009, had occurred under
the late President Umaru Musa Yar'adua, a Northern Muslim from Katsina
State. The proponents of this ridiculous conspiracy theory didn't care to recall
that a Northern Muslim from Kaduna State was actually the Director-General
of President Jonathan's 2011 elections campaign.
Surprisingly, when it suited their narrow political agenda even pro-Jonathan
northerners propagated that the insurgency reflected the collective will of the
Northern opposition to undermine the federal government. What that meant
in effect, was that the theory changed from all Northerners using Boko Haram
to undermine Jonathan into a narrower theory that northerners in the
opposition were using Boko Haram to destabilize Jonathan's administration.
The end result was an alibi for the state not to admit its failure to rout the
Boko Haram at the earliest opportunity.
It appeared the President himself initially believed the conspiracy theory. For
instance, when he visited Borno State on Thursday, 13th of March, 2013,
President Jonathan requested to meet differently with officials of the Borno
State Chapters of the Christian Association of Nigeria and the Jama'atul Nasril
Islam. The President neither invited nor stopped me from participating but I
understood he wanted to meet each group without me. Both meetings were
arranged for the President without me knowing the agenda.
To his credit, I must acknowledge, President Jonathan was actually on a fact
finding mission because the following day, during his courtesy call at the
Government House in Maiduguri, he said that officials of the Christian
Association in Borno State had told him that Boko Haram was not targeting

9. only churches and Christians but rather, had attacked many Mosques and killed
many Muslims. President Jonathan went further to say that from his findings,
the Boko Haram had actually attacked more of majority Muslim communities
in the State. The President's revelation was an indication that he didn't
understand the crisis before March, 2013. Whether his initial lack of
understanding of the situation caused his ineffective response to the crisis
before 2013, is a matter for conjecture. But Borno people consigned to the
receiving end of poor policy articulation and response, were simply victims of
the resultant inaction or paralysis. And they paid with their lives and property,
for which the Nigerian Constitution in its fundamental derivative principles,
compels the state to use its exclusive possession of the organised means of
violence to guarantee.
Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, what got me very much upset was
the Chibok schoolgirls' abduction of April 14, 2014 and the conspiracy theory
that followed it. That abduction gave me the impression that the correct
lessons were not learnt at the Presidency despite President Jonathan's personal
findings in Borno. For instance, rather than the Federal and State Government
combining strength towards rescue efforts, a conspiracy theory was
immediately created that denied that an abduction of the poor schoolgirls was
real. The theory presumed that key politicians in the opposition APC, cooked
up the abduction story mainly to embarrass President Jonathan and the PDP.
Days later, when the Bring Back Our Girls campaigns began, the theory was
changed from cooked abduction story to saying yes, there was abduction, but
the abduction was designed and masterminded by the opposition led by our
administration. Meanwhile, the failure by the state to perform its constitutional
duty in rescuing the schoolgirls and bringing back the Sambisa forest into the
Federal Republic of Nigeria, by whatever means necessary, were glossed over
as an embarrassed nation sought refuge in yet another conspiracy to
undermine a Christian and Southern President.
As God would ordain it, President Goodluck Jonathan, in May, 2014,
constituted an investigative panel to gather facts regarding the abduction. The
panel had credible persons from all segments including representatives of the
majority Christian community in Chibok, serving and retired personnel of the
armed forces, local and foreign-based women and civil rights activists,
journalists and some persons believed to be very close to both President

10. Jonathan and his wife. The panel met all stakeholders from heads of security
establishments, leadership of the West African Examination Council in Borno
State, and the panel was also in Chibok to meet agonizing parents and
community members.
After an exhaustive investigation, the panel submitted its report to President
Jonathan. The Presidency didn't disclose the content of the report and didn't
point any more accusing fingers at Borno State Government. I remember that
the Thisday Newspapers in its edition of Friday, 24th of June, 2014, claimed to
have obtained a copy of the report and said the panel's report absolved the
Borno State Government of any complicity and in fact sympathized with us
over some findings the panel made.
Ladies and gentlemen, while you may assume these experiences should be
enough to make our dear country focus less on conspiracy theories, recent
developments do not quite show that we are learning from the dangers of
national paralysis and state inaction inherent in conspiracy theories. For
instance, months after the 2015 elections and the inauguration of President
Muhammadu Buhari, another conspiracy theory was cooked up following
resumed attacks by militants in the Niger Delta. There were some northerners
who began to create a conspiracy theory that the militants were regrouped
and being funded by those who lost out in the 2015 elections, in order to
destabilize President Buhari’s administration. There were those who even
believed and supported the theory in the south and they went as far as posting
through the online and social media, that it was the turn of the Niger Delta to
exact revenge on how Boko Haram was used to destabilize President
Jonathan's administration.
Again, the main issue, namely the inability of the state to guarantee production
of oil and secure vital strategic investments in the Niger Delta, being the only
variable outside the price of oil in the international markets within the ability of
the Nigerian state to influence for good, was side-tracked. Interestingly, even
though it is crystal clear that conspiracy theories do no one any good, they
seem to be stubbornly attractive in Nigeria because even as we speak, there
have been series of social media messages in recent weeks, alleging that Fulani’s
were being deployed to churches to cause mayhem. The whole thing seems to
be a sort of effort to link a Presidency led by a Fulani man with the activities of
murderous criminals, some or most of whom may be Fulani’s by ethnicity.

11. Conspiracy theories sometimes begin by a simple message and they grow wild.
I have met someone who told me that President Buhari didn't visit Kaduna
because those killed were mostly Christians and I had to remind the person
that the same Buhari hasn't been to Borno State, the epicentre of the Boko
Haram. I am not saying it was right or wrong that the President visited neither
Kaduna nor Borno State; my concern is our quick judgment to weep up ethnic
and religious sentiments. The oxygen and carbon dioxide which most
conspiracy theories require to breathe in and out are religious and
ethnic sentiments.
Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, we must as Nigerians try to
suppress our bias by working hard to get facts on all issues, otherwise, we will
continue to fall victims of conspiracy theories. We must recognize that for
every conspiracy theory, there is group that stands to gain politically. As
Nigerians, we should regularly free our minds and ask ourselves, who stands to
gain on any conspiracy theory we come across. We must also not anymore,
allow figments of crazy imaginations as excuses for the state to fail to protect
life and property. We must stop condoning our collective callous attitude that
predispose us to blaming victims for their losses in lives and property, the
protection of which is a main reason for the existence of our national
government. For as you can now see, there is no issue that has gained
notoriety for conspiracy theory as much as the Boko Haram insurgency. What
makes the insurgency particularly worrisome is that anyone can easily move
from being a victim to becoming a suspect. Boko Haram insurgents do not
have particular looks unless those of them who openly professed their evil
ideology and are known by locals.
No matter how highly or lowly placed one might be, it is possible to innocently
associate with someone secretly working or supporting the insurgents. The
military have had instances where some soldiers were suspected of working
for insurgents, there were also instances where some volunteers were
identified and picked up, just as we had had cases were some officials of
government at various levels were suspected of having some links with the
insurgents. The important take is that in all extenuating cases, whether among
the military, volunteers or inside Governments and their agencies, the total
number of those found to have questions to answer for collaborating with the
enemy is neither significant enough to draw systematic conclusions, nor

12. widespread enough to cast any doubt that the collaborative efforts of our
military, volunteers, whole communities and governments at the three tiers,
will give our country and her heroic armed forces a decisive military victory
over the mortal enemy of our national wellbeing and sovereign aspirations.
OUR PROGNOSIS
Though the victory of our armed forces and intelligence services over the
Boko Haram is a foregone eventuality, I have deliberately delayed talking about
what we are doing to proffer enduring solutions, so that the organisers would
not give me a bill for self-adulation. I would not do justice to this gathering if I
do not state our proven capacity and commitment to make our state much
better than we have met it.
Ladies and gentlemen, quality and affordable education is for me, the number
one road map to addressing the Boko Haram insurgency. One of Nelson
Mandela's most memorable quotes says "Education is the most powerful
weapon which you can use for to change the world". I am by no means trying
to pass the buck, but it is obvious that the abject neglect which education
suffered and the levity with which it was treated especially by the immediate
past administration in our State did a great deal to fuel the embers of the Boko
Haram insurgency.
There are fighters who joined the Boko Haram out of hopelessness. When
people have little or nothing positive to expect in their tomorrow, they mostly
don't see reasons to preserve themselves for tomorrow. A hopeless person in
a state of lack doesn't mind everyone dying with him. We are therefore
investing heavily in education. Our plan is to pass a legislation that will make
education free and compulsory but we have to first put the infrastructures and
teachers in place and this is precisely what we are doing.
Virtually all our schools are being rebuilt in Borno. We are investing 20 billion
Naira in building brand new mega schools designed to provide quality boarding
education for over 20,000 orphans created by the Boko Haram insurgency and
other vices in Borno. If we don't take care of these orphans and other
vulnerable children and give them hope, they may grow up and take care of us
in a manner in which Boko Haram has dealt with their deceased parents and
guardians. In the social realm, we plan to pair the orphans with widows of the

13. insurgency through an arrangement which will involve evaluating both the kids
and the widows, giving the widows means of livelihood that creates
accommodation for them and the orphans they are encouraged to adopt. We
want a suitable widow with say one child, to be a foster mother for two
orphans, while we bring experts and humanitarian partners to supervise the
envisaged foster parenting and education.
Of course, as you are all aware, we have refused to submit to the dictates of
the Boko Haram terrorists as regards their resolve to eliminate education in
Borno and elsewhere, and we will never submit to them by the grace of God.
We have even moved to kick off our own Borno State University. There is no
better way of consigning the Boko Haram ideology to the dustbin of history,
than to ramp up the value system that they have set about to stamp out of
existence. We have invested heavily in agriculture and we intend to use our
agricultural war chess to reposition the economy of Borno and create massive
job opportunities for our people.
We are currently building ten agriculture-based factories opposite the newly
established Borno State University, and they will serve as drivers to add value
to farm produce, processing, and packaging in order to create jobs. We are
also continually rebuilding, restructuring our destroyed and devastated
communities, and resettling and rehabilitating our long suffering and
beleaguered but highly resilient people. A deep sense of collective frustration,
deprivation and disillusionment produced by poor and irresponsive governance
triggered the radicalization of otherwise innocent, responsible and law-abiding
citizens that are the monstrous Boko Haram insurgents. Our firm resolve
therefore, is to break this deadly link between violent extremism and extreme
poverty and illiteracy through an aggressive policy of job creation especially
through agriculture, reduction of inequalities, promoting education and building
a just and inclusive society.
Perhaps this is not the forum to bore you with our modest efforts. Telling you
everything may take too much of your day. We are gathered in the Murtala
Muhammed spirit and once you are in that spirit, you would want to ask
yourself how much committed you have been to the selfless discharge of your
duties. It is my wish and prayers that we get leaders who would surpass the
positive effects Gen. Murtala Muhammed made in our country in less than
seven months. Until such a time when another of his kind leads our country,

14. the late General Murtala Ramat Muhammed remains Nigeria's most treasured
iconic leader of all times. And Like the Scottish essayist Carlyle Thomas said,
"No great man lives in vain, for the history of the world is all about the history
of great men." May Africa's martyr, General Murtala Ramat Muhammed's soul,
rest in peace and continue to fire us up until the remnants of man's inhumanity
to man, is brought to a terminal end in our country and continent. Amen.
Finally, finally, I would like to make it unequivocally clear that as a Muslim,
Boko Haram does not represent me. As Federica Mogherini rightly posited
“Boko Haram are not a voice of Islam – they are an enemy of Islam. Just like
the Lord’s Resistance Army has nothing to do with the Lord. Only with
warlords, child slavery, and black magic’’.
The Quran is very clear on the requirements for being a Muslim and boko
haram has negated every single criteria. The Boko Haram approach is based on
killing, kidnapping, raping, forceful conversion of their captives into their
believes that totally negates the teaching and practice of Islam that is anchored
on respect and protection of sanctity of human lives and property. The Quran
is clear that there is no compulsion or coercion in conversion for religion.
Added to that, the Quran categorically states that 'if any Muslim kills any
innocent soul, it is synonymous to killing the whole of humanity and that such
killers will recompense in hell fire on the day of reckoning”. Hell fire is
certainly the end of unrepentant Boko Haram fighters and those who support
them.
I thank you for listening and I apologize for taking too much of your time.