What President Obama Told Me About Boko Haram - Egbase

In the heat of insurgency in Nigeria, Mr. Anthony Egbase, a Nigerian legal practitioner and security advocate based in the United States of America, met with the

American President Barack Obama and his wife. Egbase shares his experience and details of the meeting in this television-excerpted interview monitored by our correspondent.Mitchell Obama with Egbase

Give us a background of what your understanding of the Boko Haram in Nigeria.

Of course as you know, the Boko Haram issue began in Nigeria and started escalating. With their kidnapping of the 200 Chibok girls, the issue of Boko Haram was brought to the doorstep of the whole world.

Then, we in the diaspora, especially in the United States, felt that we should do something about it. I didn’t think Nigeria as a country was doing enough to push the issue and I believed that I could actually find out what was going on.

I read in the newspapers that there was a United States embargo on helping Nigeria with military assistance. On the other hand, there was the argument that Nigeria did not want to seek assistance from the United States because that would tilt Nigeria to the west when half of Nigeria is a Muslim country.

So I decided to first of all meet with the First Lady of the United States, Mitchell Obama and discuss the issue. And of course, I thanked her for bringing the issue to the world stage, because as you know, she also posed with the #BringBackOurGirls placard. 

So I thanked her and let her know that we needed more assistance from her husband. I went through the African way of doing things by going through the wife so that she would be able to push better for me.

She wasn’t able to speak to that because she doesn’t talk about national security issues, but I knew I could reach the President also. So I reached President Obama and we discussed the issue extensively.

What Mr. Obama told me was that the problem in Nigeria, the way he sees it, is that if the Nigerian government dared to go against the Boko Haram, it would be interpreted as one section of the country against the other section.

But, in my conversation with President Obama, I realised that what he actually wanted is for the affected African countries coming together to form a coalition and going after insurgency. With that, the United States would be comfortable rendering assistance just like they are doing it in the Middle East.

Don’t you think America has more access to information to dissect the situation?

I don’t agree with you on that. I don’t think they have more access than we do. You are talking about foreigners understanding your country better than you do? No!

I don’t understand how attacking Boko Haram would be interpreted to mean one section of the country against the other.

What I believe he meant was that we should understand that the President at that time (Goodluck Jonathan) is from the South. So if he decided to go against the Boko Haram in full force, it would be interpreted as the Southern part of the country going against the Northern part of the country.

I believe he was wrong though, but that is obviously what he got from the Department of States. And when he suggested or when he stated that what he wanted to see was the countries affected forming a coalition, you should understand that most of these affected countries are Muslim countries. But my point is that we shouldn’t let foreigners think for us. He (Obama) was right in that aspect that the countries affected should form a coalition.

Is that the same coalition we are getting to see now?

That is what we are getting to see now. We should have seen that before the United States or President Obama saw it. So if you had gotten the countries affected together and you figured a way to deal with the issue, we wouldn’t be where we are now.

After that, did you meet anyone in Nigeria to inform such a person of what President Obama thinks about the insurgency?

Yes, I did, but if you are talking about someone in government, probably no. It is easier for me to talk to elected officials in the US, than to talk to elected officials here for obvious reasons. But I did talk to former President Olusegun Obasanjo.

I was fortunate to meet him and we had a lengthy conversation. We actually flew from Atlanta to Lagos together for 12 hours. We had an interactive session where we discussed this issue in details.

I also met again with him in his residence at Ota (in Ogun State). He actually told me all the efforts he had made trying to broker the issue of insurgency and the Boko Haram and the meetings he had with former President Jonathan and suggestions that he made were not taken. And I believe him.

We now have a new president in Nigeria and Boko Haram has continued. What solutions would you want to suggest right now?

Shortly before President Jonathan left office, there was increase in the fight against insurgency. That did have an effect. What now happened is surgical strikes by the insurgents.

Prior to now, they were taking villages and territories. Now, it is surgical strikes. That is expected. How do you combat that? Through intelligence. Someone is obviously dropping the ball. Don’t tell me that in a country like Nigeria, an African country where you have communal living, neighbours know their neighbours, that you can’t have the intelligence to know the stranger in town? That baffles me.

Israel is one of the safest countries in the Middle East, but has the greatest number of enemies around it. Why is it safe? It is because of intelligence. We should be doing that and even ask countries like Israel and the US on how to do that.

Aren’t we doing that already?

Are we? I heard President Buhari is meeting with Obama. I would like him to stress on that part. He should tap on the US intelligence capability. President Obama said some days ago that the fight on ideology can only be won by better ideology. That is true, but how do you go about that?

Educate people; free education for every Nigerian child. If the law is already there, enforce it so that every Nigerian child is educated. Create opportunities, provide infrastructure and open up the economy.

Let us identify the root-cause of this insurgency.

The root-cause in my opinion is hopelessness, lack of opportunities and infrastructure. Even though it is an ideological war, it is based on something; an opportunity which the people have to tap into.