like every other well-meaning Nigerian, the Senate president feels very strongly about Boko Haram. Senator David Mark is a very well-respected public officeholder and he has consistently done well in all the high offices he has held. You may not agree with or even like his politics, but he has always been a competent person who takes whatever job he is doing seriously. As a lieutenant colonel, he was governor of Niger State under the presidency of both generals Muhammadu Buhari and Ibrahim Babangida, and he remains one of the best the state has had. On account of that, he is still very popular with the intelligentsia of the state. As Senate president, he has brought stability and maturity to the Senate chamber. That is why I am so surprised at the quality of his views on the Boko Haram insurgency, an issue that is supposed to be a very straightforward matter: the failure of President Goodluck Jonathan’s presidency.
The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria declares very clearly that the welfare and security of the people is the responsibility of the federal government. The Senate president has blamed everyone else on this Boko Haram issue but the federal government and the person who heads the government, President Jonathan. Publicly, Senator Mark has held very strong views about the intractable Boko Haram insurgency. He has consistently continued to put the responsibility of solving the problem on the shoulders of the northern elders - by the way, he is one of them - but he has never for once declared that President Jonathan has failed disastrously in doing the most elementary job he was elected to do.
The first time the Senate president spoke publicly on the matter was at a conference organised by the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) last year. The most notable thing he did there was to condemn northern elders for not condemning Boko Haram. He asked why northern elders were not condemning Boko Haram. I remember writing on this page and saying that the Senate president should instead be asking Jonathan and the federal government why they were not effectively doing their job. I went further to say that northern elders were not condemning Boko Haram publicly because they were afraid to do so. Pure and simple. That is a matter of fact. People were afraid because they knew the government was incapable of protecting them when they got that bold. And it is on record that Boko Haram operatives had murdered those northern elders that had condemned them or even reported some of their members to the authorities.
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