Abdullahi M Gulloma
Shuttle Diplomacy: This two-word term means different things to different people and groups. But regardless of what it means to various schools of thought, one thing is evident: shuttle diplomacy is an indispensable ingredient in the comity of nation.
Consider this scenario: Two nations are at war or engaged in a delicate tango over one issue or the other. With each country sticking to its gun, with officials of both lands staring eye-ball to eye-bal with one another and refusing to blink, the centre cannot hold. Diplomacy must be brought to bear on the issue, or else…
It is against this backdrop that President Goodluck Jonathan’s recent consecutive visits to neighbouring Chad must be situated. The issue at stake needs little or no introduction: the seemingly intractable Boko Haram insurgency. An armed insurrection which had boiled in over the years.
With the insurgents maintaining a vice-like grip on sizeable portion of the north-eastern part of the country, none of us needed any soothsayer to know that aside from the military onslaught, something else needs to be done with a view to taming the rampaging insurgents. That “something,” in this case, happens to be diplomacy.
To put the matter in perspective, take the over 200 Chibok schoolgirls who have been in captivity for over 227 days now. A lot has been said about this dastardly act. Barely few weeks after the girls’ abduction, people got a hint that many of them might have been spirited to some hiding places both in Nigeria and beyond. As such, it dawned on officialdom that shuttle diplomacy, rather than raw power, was essential to securing the ill-fated girls freedom from captivity.
Accordingly, the Nigeria leader paid a visit to his Chadian counterpart, Idris Debby in Ndjamenna, the capital of Chad. That initial meeting was reportedly dominated by the Boko Haram issue in general and how to free the Chibok girls, as well as the possibility of reaching a ceasefire with the insurgents. Given that the terrorists are said to sneak into neighbouring countries (notably Chad and Cameroon) whenever the heat is on them, it goes without saying that the cooperation of Debby and company is crucial to Nigeria’s success in the anti-terror campaign.
It is pertinent to periscope what Jonathan said when he visited Chad again last week.
Accompanied by the Director-General of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) Ambassador Ayodele Oke, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Aminu Wali, Jonathan pointed out that co-operation between the neighbouring nations was crucial in the face of the insurgents’ relentless onslaught.
Speaking to reporters at the Presidential Palace in N’Djamena after a closed-door meeting, with his Chadian counterpart, Jonathan said Boko Haram had a lot of external influence from outside Africa and it had become even more imperative for all countries in the region to work together to overcome terrorism and other criminal activities across their borders.
“If you look at the economies of Nigeria and Chad,” the president continued, “both are linked. The Boko haram people don’t take permission to move from Chad, Niger, Cameroon and Nigeria. If the countries do not cooperate, we will not find it easy to win the war, because when the heat is strong in one country, the criminals and terrorists will go to another one and hide. So we must work together and we are discussing along that line.”
Jonathan said his visit to Chad was the second in the last one month, noting that it underscored the importance of building a robust relationship between the two countries to improve trade, economic and security ties, especially the urgent need to to win the war against terrorism and insurgency.
With the two leaders’ bilateral talks focused on security and economic matters, Jonathan expressed the hope that mutually beneficial solutions would be found to their common and/or respective challenges. This is more so as the Nigeria leader pointedly emphasized that Boko Haram is being reportedly funded by certain interests outside the African continent.
What that means in essence, is that the war against the insurgents is not one that can be easily won by a single nation. Rather, the cooperation and/or collaboration of other nations is essential. This is more so as the saying that “when one finger brings oil, the others are affected” applies to this matter. When insurgents run amuck in one country today, tomorrow they may over run another country.
The question is, will the ongoing shuttle by the president yield fruitful results? Well! Given the level of tireless efforts being put into the anti-terror campaign by the federal government and President Jonathan’s single-minded determination to overcome this unusual challenge without further delay, few would be surprised if the long hope-for-result materializes very soon.
In fact, following the recent failure of that still-born “ceasefire,” Mr. President has reportedly intensified his determination to ensure a successful conclusion to the whole mess. We can only wait and watch with bated breath as the scenario unfolds.
