By ; ZAYYAN YABO
I believe it may be strategically unwise and operationally unhelpful to the ongoing counter insurgency efforts for the fact that non of the spokesmen of govt agencies and the presidency against the insurgency is a muslim. It may feed into the insurgents’ propaganda and may inadvertently create the impression that all muslims are indifferent to the insurgency or sympathetic or even complicit. Also this may be cited by conspiracy theory advocates among muslims as another example of govt insensitivity or collusion or stereotyping based on religion. There may also be the implicit or implied message that only christians are concerned or affected or at the forefront of the fight against the insurgency. Apparently, any policy approach or response to this insurgency by govt and its agencies that tend to promote simplistic single point narratives on the insurgency as pointed out above may be disingenuous, defeatist and dangerous to the corporate existence of Nigeria. It is interesting to note that just today Hillary Clinton in a city hall meeting on CNN on her role as secretary of state said US usually send ambassadors to the Arab countries officials that speak the language fluently and understand the terrain and have extensive local netwoks. To defeat or contain the insurgency it is imperative to make muslims the public face or d very least, a prominent part of the official publicity of the counter insurgency message, in order to be able to garner the necessary local support to defeat or disrupt or dismantle the insurgency, especially since there is a school of thought that also believe the insurgency is thriving because of local support. This is not a political posturing, but a sincere and patriotic intervention on d ongoing crisis and would be most pleased if contributions are kept sensible and sensitive, not the too often tendency of discourse on these kind of issues to degenerate to insults, libellous and defamatory comments, which has been part of the reasons I hardly raise these kind of issues on the public space. Thank you all for your expected understanding.
