Today’s Powerful Govs May Find Themselves In Prison Tomorrow – Northern CAN Chair

The Chairman of the Northern Christian Association, Rev John Hayab, speaks with NICHOLAS DEKERA on rehabilitation for repentant terrorists, State Police, and other matters.

The entire CAN is mourning the passing of Rev. Williams Okoye, the Chairman of the Northern Christian Association. How did you receive the news?

Dr Okoye was a key figure in our struggle for Christian freedom and unity. I remember his time as Chairman of CAN, FCT; as Chaplain of Aso Villa; and as Senior Special Assistant to the President on Christian matters. Okoye is someone I know personally. I even visited him a few years ago for research. He always showed concern. When something came up, he would call. He was committed to sharing God’s word or his thoughts with some of us every day, and I was one of those who received them. So when the news of his demise came, it was shocking, but as believers who know God, we know that one day we too will pass on. He was a great leader, and we will miss him, but we know he is in a better place, one that all of us will one day go to.

Statistically speaking, there are about 800,000 persons in IDP Camps in the North West alone. What forms of advocacy and support has your organisation offered?

Well, like we in Kaduna, we’ve had IDP camps for even longer than the period you are talking about. Because during the 2000 crisis, so many homes were sacked. We had the crisis of 1987, and people started experiencing IDPs at that time. We had a crisis in 1992, and people started having IDPs at that time. We continue to have IDPs at this time. We have a separate crisis that keeps creating IDP camps. Until the worst of it in 2000, then in 2002, and then another pocket of violence.

So, all these things have been happening. I think there is a national problem of how we manage IDPs. Until some state governments created the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, you know, those ministries didn’t exist. It was just to set up a small committee, let them go and help people, and then it ended.

I have been involved; I was called upon to serve during Patrick Yakowa’s tenure as governor of Kaduna. I know that, then, we didn’t have the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs as we do now. They will just set up a committee, we will go to these people, support them, plead with them to come back and give them a little assistance, and it ends.

So, when you still have IDPs around, that is the problem. What we’ve been doing as a church is creating our own system to support one another. Either denominational support, or collective support as CAN, or support from spirited individuals, or support from other Christian humanitarian agencies.

I just came back from a three-day training. Someone was sent from outside this country to train some of us in humanitarian service. The need assessment, the need for transparency, the way to do it without causing harm and further unite the people. We are also hopeful that more support will come our way so we can help more IDPs.

So these things are there. But for me, I still come back to my earlier comment: if we have responsible leadership. Leadership that fears God. Leadership that cares for one another. Leadership that is not sentimental. Leadership that is not selfish. Neutral leadership. Leadership that carries our citizens.

If the citizens of Kano are in pain, you don’t care about their religion; you care about the citizens of Kano, attend to them, solve their problem. Similar in Zamfara. Similar in Sokoto. Similar in Katsina. Similar in Jigawa. Similar in Kaduna and everywhere that human beings live.

Because this is the government’s work, the government is responsible for protecting the lives and property of citizens. And if citizens are in pain, have been dislodged, or have had their property destroyed, whether through natural disaster or crisis, conflict like this, governments have a way of returning them to base, of helping them to recover so that they will continue living.

IDP camps are supposed to be temporary shelters where you live for a short time, and when things work out, you go back to your base. But you see, our inability to solve the 2015 problem is why we are still having IDPs in 2026, which is over 11 years since we started. If we have been able to solve the problem, IDPs are not supposed to exist. Because in two months, three months, or even one week, stability has come, and they go back to their base.

But we want to use this opportunity to remind people that we, as the Northern Christian Association, have been doing a lot.

Like what?

Recently, we provided support to IDPs in Maiduguri, Benue, Plateau, and Kaduna. We even went outside the North to Ondo State because of an attack in Owo and a crisis in a community called Belegi. We all went there. I didn’t send people. We went with our team to give support. A very tangible, friendly support that reminds them we are not here to treat them as beggars. We are here to treat them with respect, with love. They are only unfortunate.

In every state, we surveyed 1,000 households. But you know, the support we got won’t be enough to get us everywhere. So we are looking forward to more support. If they come, we will go to other places that have not yet been tested.

What’s your take on Rehabilitation of Repentant Terrorists?

Sadly, the people who cause other Nigerians pain are the ones enjoying the government. Well, the government is not even caring about the victims. How can you incorporate people who have caused evil to others? What? You have not genuinely understood their commitment to change.

When you speak with the government, they will give you some excuses. But certainly today, the government and we are suffering because of their poor decision. Because some of those who claim to have repented and have not genuinely repented are integrated, they will return and cause the community a second harbour, which becomes a double tragedy.

Some of them are even integrated into the army, and they become the reason for betrayal in the system.

I am a pastor who preaches repentance, renewal, and restoration. But you see, I only understand repentance, renewal and restoration where there is evidence of true change. Not politicisation.

But what is happening is that this whole issue of repentance, Boko Haram, is purely another system of helping some people to get quick money. Because if you hear even the amount of money they say they are feeding them and rehabilitating them with, you will be shocked. Even those who are working and earning a salary don’t receive that huge amount, which shows it’s a new business.

But you see, in this country, this is a situation we know is true. If you speak truth to the system to correct, someone will see it as if you don’t want it because of this and that. That’s where, sometimes, when we say, ‘Okay, that means the killers belong to a certain identity,’ then they say, ‘Ah, you are bringing religion.’ But you just try to protect a criminal, a hardened criminal, just because of his identity.

Can Nigerian governors be trusted to manage State Police?

A governor is a product of the country. A governor is not imported from Cameroon, Chad, America, or Britain. All those who are our governors are our brothers, are our friends, are our neighbours, are our schoolmates, are our classmates, are people who have played games with us, are people who debate and joke on the street with us.

So, we are the people. Let’s look at a little history. Have we ever had state police? Yes. Was there success recorded? Yes. If you ask those who claim that it wasn’t, they can only justify why it was scrapped. It was scrapped because we attempted to integrate them.

They now brought all the state police formations and said, ‘Let’s jam all the police into one, the federal police, instead of having state police.’ I think that’s what led to the scrapping of the state police.

But we have a unique situation—a situation in which criminals and terrorists are invading our land and territory, killing us. Unfortunately, our federal police system does not understand certain things. The federal police are good and capable. Still, when you send someone from Katsina, Kaduna, or Zamfara to the Riverine area, he has not even learnt to swim, and you want him to go and arrest a criminal across the river. He will not do it.

So the only thing he will do is join others in collecting ‘offerings’. And when I use ‘offering’ in the service, you know it’s a little bribe and a claim that things are right.

Have you also brought someone from the Riverine area to us? He does not understand the terrain or how we live, so he cannot understand the routes criminals are using. And he will find a way to stand by the road and collect ‘offerings’ instead of performing his duties.

We are saying that to address this crime, we need local cooperation. And then we are saying that to achieve that cooperation, we need a force that is also local in nature. The people are cooperating. If my brother is the one in charge of the police around us, and he allows total strangers to come and destroy our village, that means they will destroy his village and his own family’s house too. That’s our thinking.

And so we are hopeful that, with the right state of mind and genuine support, the state police can help address those matters across the state. There will be interstate collaboration. There will be other measures to handle cases in which a criminal jumps from another state into this one.

Another argument I have always heard people make: “Ah, our governors are terrible. They will manipulate the state police. They will use it to threaten their enemies.” Isn’t this worrisome?

Recent experience in Nigeria has shown us that those who were in government as governors, who refused court orders and locked people up, thinking they were the alpha and the omega, are now in prison. A time will come when they will no longer be governors. They are the ones being locked up now. They are the ones who cannot get bail now.

So it is telling you that any state governor who comes and manipulates the police should be given 8 years, and he will be outside. Another person will come, and he will deal with him. So conscience will tell him, “Let me not use them negatively so that someone will not come and use them against me.”

So before we use such excuses to refuse to embrace something that will help us, let’s test it. It’s just like making laws in Nigeria. One of the greatest problems in Nigeria is not that we don’t have laws. We haven’t really tested our laws. So let’s test this state police and see what it will bring.

Let me see my brothers from Jaba Local Government who will join the state police and be posted there. If they have the audacity, or if they can compromise and allow criminals to come and kill us, then where will they go? They will be part of it. So, can we try something?

Because, you see, when it is state police, it is backed by law.