'Nigeria needs structural reforms that will offer an alternative to organised criminal networks'

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00:00Next, all 24 schoolgirls held by assailants following a mass abduction last week from a school in northwestern Nigeria have been rescued.

00:08The children of 25 girls were abducted on November 17th from the Government Girls Comprehensive Secretary School in Kebi State Maga town.

00:16One of them was able to escape the same day. The remaining 24 were all rescued, according to the statement from President Bola Tenubu.

00:23No details about the rescue have been released.

00:25And the case once again raises concerns about security across Nigeria.

00:31Here to talk more about the issue, Douglas Yates, Professor of Common Law at Sergi Paris University.

00:38Douglas, as you well know, if you watch Front 24 on a regular basis over the years, a real specialist on African matters.

00:44Douglas, always a pleasure to see you. First off, this is good news. The girls are free.

00:49Yeah, it is. But, you know, this is retail police work we're talking about rather than jihad.

00:57But, yeah, it's great news when Nigeria is able to save victims of crime.

01:03But what Nigeria needs is structural reforms that will allow it to give people an alternative to entering into organized criminal networks.

01:13You mentioned jihad. That automatically, to many of us, will bring up the name Boko Haram.

01:18Right.

01:18I'm wondering whether Boko Haram as a group is still a threat to Nigeria.

01:21Well, it's a different kind of threat. So, Islamic terrorism still has fuel left in it as an ideological movement.

01:31But that movement in Nigeria was always just a pretense. It was a justification for criminal acts.

01:38What we have now going on are criminal acts without ideological justification.

01:44It really is things falling apart.

01:47So, yes, Boko Haram, yes, Islamic terror remains a threat in the north.

01:51But these new kinds of bandits, these fulani who are incapable of feeding their herds because of climate change

02:02and organized crime, who simply are hijacking people, whatever their religion, and taking money,

02:09those are now a more diffuse threat and harder to manage than an organized ideological movement.

02:16Indeed, you've pointed out very clearly the fulani that we've reported on in the past

02:19involved in cattle rustling and crimes between their groups.

02:23Now it seems basically targeting others, schools, for instance.

02:27And that's the alarming thing when you hear about a group of girls in that sense being kidnapped.

02:31Yeah. And, you know, the thing with the fulani is they get blamed in many countries for terrorist

02:38and criminal acts. But it's important to remember that they're such a large people and they have

02:43no nation state. They are really a problem of the scramble of Africa, the curse of Berlin,

02:49because everywhere you have the fulani, nowhere do they manage to capture the state. And so in the

02:55north of Nigeria, they find themselves out. They're not hausa. They're not part of the

03:00structure. And so they end up using their skills in the way that they can to gather together the

03:07golden crumbs of criminal activity in one of the poorest regions of Nigeria.

03:12Indeed. You point that out, one of the poorest regions of Nigeria, which, of course, everyone's

03:16struggling to make a living. These people, as you say, kind of outcasts in that sense.

03:20How do you begin to get that into line? Because trying to police that, trying to regulate all

03:26of that, it must be nigh on impossible.

03:29Right. So the thing about fighting crime is that crime never goes away. So if you invest

03:35simply in fighting crime, that's a management of the problem, but not an eradication. The

03:41kinds of things Nigeria needs to do is to create alternatives of development for the northwest.

03:48So Nigeria, for example, is a big food producer. And that region can produce food, including

03:55pastoralism. But food no longer really offers young people who have iPhones the big riches

04:04they want. And of course, in Nigeria, everyone knows the big money comes from oil. So the kinds

04:10of things Nigeria needs to do to offer this region, the youth in that region, a better future,

04:16it doesn't have available to it. And so that means that it needs to go to Plan B, which is

04:23managing through police activity in a vast territory where they're not fighting an armed group, but

04:30they're fighting civilians who can blend into the population with ease. Bolo Tinubo on top is a

04:37businessman from Lagos. He's not a northerner. So he's not able to make the kinds of ethnic or

04:43religious appeals that we have when you have a president who's a northerner.

04:47You mentioned the point that President Tinubo is from Lagos, from the south of Nigeria. It very

04:53much is a story of the country almost split in two in terms of one half having more, a real north-south

04:58divide kind of thing.

04:59Yes. All across West Africa, in this part of West Africa, all the way from Ivory Coast to Ghana, to Togo,

05:07to Benin, to Nigeria, and to Cameroon, you have the north of the country that's less developed,

05:13that's poorer, that has ethnic grievances, sometimes voting grievances. Nigeria is no different. And

05:19that's why in the northeast towards Lake Cameroon, you have Boko Haram, and in the northwest, you have

05:25the bandits. What can be done to redress the north-south divide? One would be regional integration,

05:31where Nigeria could play a critical role. If you could create a regionally integrated West Africa

05:38that did pan-Africanism, those in the north would be able to benefit broadly from the wealth of all

05:44of the region. The other would, of course, be secession. And secession always remains on the

05:49agenda for people who are excluded. The problem with the northwest is they don't have any resource

05:55space that would provide them a feasible alternative to living on oil rents from Abuja.

06:01Indeed, because if you just split the country in two, it wouldn't actually change the fact that in

06:04the north, people can't basically get enough together to live. That's the fundamental issue.

06:09And we see the same thing in Ivory Coast. In Ivory Coast, they ended up having a civil war,

06:13where the north seceded from the south. In Nigeria, the civil war had been the Niger Delta,

06:19had broken off at one point. And as of 1970, they've been able to manage secessionist movements.

06:28But right, half the country is Muslim, lives in the north. The Muslims had been able to capture the

06:34military, had benefited greatly during military rule, had built the capital in Abuja to try to move

06:41the gravity of politics away from Lagos. But in order to maintain democracy, they have an informal

06:48compact, where they alternate between a northerner and a southerner. And right now, a southerner's in

06:54power. And while the cat's away, the mice will.

06:56You mentioned this idea about some kind of federal structure to create more growth within that

07:04region. There is something called ECOWAS, which has been, I suppose, working along those lines.

07:08I take it from what you're saying, that isn't working well enough.

07:11Well, the thing about international organizations, Europe is, of course, the greatest world model we have,

07:17is you have to have common projects. So the last great project of Europe was the euro. Those who

07:23joined remain more committed to Europe. Those who opted out, in some cases, left the European Union.

07:29What ECOWAS has not managed yet to succeed is at that common project. They got ECOMOG together,

07:36which was a regional security organization where they intervened successfully in several conflicts.

07:42But what they're trying to do is create a currency. If they could get a common project towards creating

07:48a West African currency, that would give this international organization some momentum.

07:54In the meantime, what's happened is the coups that have broken out in the Sahel have broken off and

07:59tried to create their own organization. It won't survive. It doesn't have the basis. But it shows the need

08:05and the real thirst for something bigger than the post-colonial nation state in West Africa.

08:11And Nigeria, as the regional hegemon, is the make-or-break partner in that alliance.

08:17Douglas, I'm sorry to monopolize you for this long period in time, but I sense you can tell us a little

08:21bit more about this aspect of creating business and creating opportunities there. Because

08:25once upon a time, one might have thought it was about international investment coming in.

08:30Of course, the worst example of that was colonialism coming in in a very different format.

08:33Now, we don't want that to happen again, and that's not going to help anybody. But getting

08:37international players to come in with investment, with ideas, with ingenuity, is that feasible

08:43in a situation where security is a problem?

08:46Right. So we're seeing a coup d'etat today, for example, in Guinea-Bissau. And that risk for all

08:52investors, the risk that you'll lose everything to a change in regime, keeps a lot of foreign investors

08:59out. But those investors are already out. The new ones who are coming in from Indonesia,

09:03from India, from China, from Malaysia, from Brazil, those investors have found that they

09:10can flourish in an unstable environment. They're willing to accept the risks, and they're willing

09:14to come in. The big problem for West Africa integration until now has been that they all

09:19make the same things. That's no longer the case. It used to be coffee, cocoa, cotton, some

09:25simple exports. But now that we have a more complex environment, and now that resources are

09:30getting scarcer, including arable land, and now that West Africans are more educated, better

09:38integrated into the system, and part of the international community of communications, they're

09:44sophisticated enough to start to take the lead on a variety of sectors where they can create

09:50their own development. And that's always been the dream since Kwame Nkrumah, which is breaking

09:56the chain with foreign investors. And there are areas where Nigeria is taking the leadership.

10:02We're looking at, for example, energy production, solar energy, things where Nigeria can move

10:07away from its oil curse and into a 21st century, a future where it could be harvesting and selling

10:15renewable energy and using arable, sustainable development for agriculture and be the food basket

10:24of the region.

10:25Indeed, Douglas, thank you. And of course, the bottom line of that is moving away from the

10:28kind of criminality which has resulted in 24 girls being kidnapped, who are now all back

10:33safe, we are pleased to report. Douglas Yates, as always, pleasure to see you. Thank you for

10:38coming in. It's always a privilege to have your insight on these things. Professor of Common Law

10:41at Sergio Paris University, but as we heard, a real expert on all matters Africa. Great to see you,

10:46sir. Thank you for joining us once again. Thank you. We take a very short break. After that,

10:50more news to you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

'Nigeria needs structural reforms that will offer an alternative to organised criminal networks'

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