Nigeria and Boko Haram

38.4.2: Nigeria and Boko Haram

Boko Haram is an Islamic extremist group based in northeastern Nigeria, which pledged its allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Since 2009 it has been trying to overthrow the Nigerian government to establish an Islamic state.

Learning Objective

Account for the rise of Boko Haram in Nigeria

Key Points

  • Boko Haram is an Islamic extremist group based in northeastern Nigeria, also active in Chad, Niger, and northern Cameroon. Mohammed Yusuf founded it in 2002 when he established a religious complex and school that attracted poor Muslim families from across Nigeria and neighboring countries. The center had the political goal of creating an Islamic state and became a recruiting ground for jihadists. By denouncing the police and state corruption, Yusuf attracted followers from unemployed youths.
  • The government repeatedly ignored warnings about the increasingly militant character of the organization. Yusuf’s arrest elevated him to hero status. Stephen Davis, a former Anglican clergyman who has negotiated with Boko Haram many times, blames local Nigerian politicians who support local bandits to make life difficult for their political opponents. In particular, Davis has blamed the former governor of Borno State, Ali Modu Sheriff, who initially supported Boko Haram.
  • Boko Haram seeks the establishment of an Islamic state in Nigeria. It opposes the Westernization of Nigerian society and the concentration of the wealth of the country among members of a small political elite. The sharia law imposed by local authorities may have promoted links between Boko Haram and political leaders. The group had alleged links to al-Qaeda, but in March 2015, it announced its allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
  • Boko Haram conducted its operations more or less peacefully during the first seven years of its existence. That changed in 2009 when the Nigerian government launched an investigation into the group’s activities following reports that its members were arming themselves. Since then, Boko Haram has been attempting to overthrow the Nigerian government through various militant, including terrorist, strategies.
  • Boko Haram began to target schools in 2010, killing hundreds of students by 2014. A spokesperson for the group said such attacks would continue as long as the Nigerian government continued to interfere with traditional Islamic education. Boko Haram has also been known to kidnap girls, who it believes should not be educated, and use them as cooks or sex slaves. In 2014, Boko Haram kidnapped 276 female students from the Government Secondary School in the town of Chibok in Borno. As of January 2017, 195 of the 276 girls were still in captivity.
  • The Nigerian government’s response has revealed the political and military weaknesses of the state apparatus and as of March 2017, Boko Haram continues its terrorist activities. While human rights abuses committed by Boko Haram are widely known, the conflict has also seen numerous human rights abuses conducted by the Nigerian security forces in an effort to control the violence, as well as their encouragement of the formation of numerous vigilante groups.

Examples

Key Terms

Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
A Salafi jihadist extremist militant groups led by and mainly composed of Sunni Arabs from Syria and Iraq. In 2014, the group proclaimed itself a caliphate, with religious, political, and military authority over all Muslims worldwide. As of March 2015, it had control over territory occupied by ten million people in Syria and Iraq and nominal control over small areas of Libya, Nigeria, and Afghanistan. It also operates or has affiliates in other parts of the world, including North Africa and South Asia.
al-Qaeda
A militant Sunni Islamist multi-national organization founded in 1988 by Osama bin Laden, Abdullah Azzam, and several other Arab volunteers who fought against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s. It has been widely designated as a terrorist group.
Boko Haram
An Islamic extremist group based in northeastern Nigeria, also active in Chad, Niger and northern Cameroon. The group had alleged links to al-Qaeda, but in March 2015, it announced its allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). It was ranked as the world’s deadliest terror group by the Global Terrorism Index in 2015.
sharia
The religious law forming part of the Islamic tradition. It is derived from the religious precepts of Islam, particularly the Quran and the Hadith. In Arabic, the term refers to God’s divine law and is contrasted with fiqh, which refers to its scholarly interpretations. Its application in modern times has been a subject of dispute between Muslim traditionalists and reformists.

 

 

Origins of Boko Haram

Boko Haram is an Islamic extremist group based in northeastern Nigeria, also active in Chad, Niger, and northern Cameroon. Mohammed Yusuf founded the sect that became known as Boko Haram in 2002 in Maiduguri, the capital of the northeastern state of Borno. He established a religious complex and school that attracted poor Muslim families from across Nigeria and neighboring countries. The center had the political goal of creating an Islamic state and became a recruiting ground for jihadists. By denouncing the police and state corruption, Yusuf attracted followers from unemployed youths. It has been speculated that Yusuf founded Boko Haram because he saw an opportunity to exploit public outrage at government corruption by linking it to Western influence.

The government repeatedly ignored warnings about the increasingly militant character of the organization. The Council of Ulama advised the government and the Nigerian Television Authority not to broadcast Yusuf’s preaching, but their warnings were ignored. Yusuf’s arrest elevated him to hero status. Borno’s Deputy Governor Alhaji Dibal has reportedly claimed that al-Qaeda had ties with Boko Haram, but broke them when they decided that Yusuf was an unreliable person. Stephen Davis, a former Anglican clergyman who has negotiated with Boko Haram many times, blames local Nigerian politicians who support local bandits to make life difficult for their political opponents. In particular, Davis has blamed the former governor of Borno State, Ali Modu Sheriff, who initially supported Boko Haram but no longer needed them after the 2007 elections, when the group became much more powerful.

Boko Haram seeks the establishment of an Islamic state in Nigeria. It opposes the Westernization of Nigerian society and the concentration of the wealth of the country among members of a small political elite, mainly in the Christian south of the country. Nigeria is Africa’s biggest economy, but 60% of its population of 173 million (2013) live in dire poverty. The sharia law imposed by local authorities, beginning with Zamfara in 2000 and covering 12 northern states by late 2002, may have promoted links between Boko Haram and political leaders.The group had alleged links to al-Qaeda, but in March 2015, announced its allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS) and since then publicly uses the name “ISIL-West Africa Province” or its variants.

 

Boko Haram Insurgency

Boko Haram conducted its operations more or less peacefully during the first seven years of its existence. That changed in 2009 when the Nigerian government launched an investigation into the group’s activities following reports that its members were arming themselves. Prior to that, the government reportedly repeatedly ignored warnings about the increasingly militant character of the organization, including those from a military officer. When the government came into action, several members of the group were arrested in Bauchi, sparking deadly clashes with Nigerian security forces that led to the deaths of an estimated 700 people. During the conflict with the security forces, Boko Haram fighters reportedly “used fuel-laden motorcycles” and “bows with poison arrows” to attack a police station. The group’s founder and then-leader Mohammed Yusuf was killed during this time while still in police custody. After Yusuf’s killing, Abubakar Shekau became the leader and held this position until August 2016, when he was succeeded by Abu Musab al-Barnawi,  the first surviving son of Mohammed Yusuf. The group suffered a split in 2016 and Shekau and his supporters continued to operate independently.

The photograph shows two bleeding wounded men on the ground.

Wounded people following a bomb attack by Boko Haram in Nyanya, in April 2014. After its founding in 2002, Boko Haram’s increasing radicalization led to a violent uprising in 2009. Its unexpected resurgence following a mass prison break in 2010 was accompanied by increasingly sophisticated attacks, initially against soft targets, and progressed in 2011 to include suicide bombings. The government’s establishment of a state of emergency in 2012, extended in the following year to cover the entire northeast of Nigeria, led to an increase in both security force abuses and militant attacks.

After the killing of Yusuf, the group carried out its first terrorist attack in Borno in 2010, which resulted in the killing of four people. Since then, the violence has only escalated in terms of both frequency and intensity. In 2010, a Bauchi prison break freed more than 700 Boko Haram militants, replenishing their force. In 2011, a few hours after Goodluck Jonathan was sworn in as President of Nigeria, several bombings purportedly by Boko Haram killed 15 and injured 55. The same year, Boko Haram claimed to have conducted the Abuja police headquarters bombing, the first known suicide attack in Nigeria. Two months later the United Nations building in Abuja was bombed, signifying the first time that Boko Haram attacked an international organization. By early 2012, the group was responsible for over 900 deaths. In 2013, Nigerian government forces launched an offensive in the Borno region in an attempt to dislodge Boko Haram fighters after a state of emergency was called. The offensive was initially successful but eventually failed.

 

Chibok Schoolgirls Kidnapping

Boko Haram began to target schools in 2010, killing hundreds of students by 2014. A spokesperson for the group said such attacks would continue as long as the Nigerian government continued to interfere with traditional Islamic education. Boko Haram has also been known to kidnap girls, who it believes should not be educated, and use them as cooks or sex slaves.

In 2014, Boko Haram kidnapped 276 female students from the Government Secondary School in the town of Chibok in Borno. Fifty-seven of the schoolgirls managed to escape over the next few months and some have described their capture in appearances at international human rights conferences. A child born to one of the girls and believed by medical personnel to be about 20 months old also was released, according to the Nigerian president’s office. Newspaper reports have suggested that Boko Haram was hoping to use the girls as a negotiating pawns in exchange for some of their commanders in jail. In 2016, one of the missing girls, Amina Ali, was found. She claimed that the remaining girls were still there, but that six had died. As of January 2017, 195 of the 276 girls were still in captivity. Furthermore, thousands of other children have disappeared in the nearby regions. Despite the high-profile campaign #BringBackOurGirls, international efforts to free the kidnapped girls have failed.

The photograph shows three men in a crowd crying and praying.

Parents of some of the victims of the 2014 Chibok kidnapping mourn their losses. Parents and others took to social media to complain about the government’s perceived slow and inadequate response. The news caused international outrage against Boko Haram and the Nigerian government. On April 30 and May 1, 2014 protests demanding greater government action were held in several Nigerian cities. Most parents, however, were afraid to speak publicly for fear their daughters would be targeted for reprisal.

Government’s Response

The Nigerian military is, in the words of a former British military attaché speaking in 2014, “a shadow of what it’s reputed to have once been.” They are short of basic equipment, morale is said to be low, and senior officers are alleged to be skimming military procurement budget funds intended to pay for the standard issue equipment of soldiers. In 2013, the Nigerian military shut down mobile phone coverage in the three northeastern states to disrupt the Boko Haram’s communication and ability to detonate improvised explosive devices (IEDs). The shutdown was successful from a military-tactical point of view but it angered citizens in the region and engendered negative opinions toward the state and new emergency policies. While citizens and organizations developed various coping and circumventing strategies, Boko Haram evolved from an open network model of insurgency to a closed centralized system, shifting the center of its operations to the Sambisa Forest. This fundamentally changed the dynamics of the conflict.

In mid-2014, Nigeria was estimated to have had the highest number of terrorist killings in the world over the past year, 3477 killed in 146 attacks. The governor of Borno, Kashim Shettima noted in 2014: “Boko Haram are better armed and are better motivated than our own troops. Given the present state of affairs, it is absolutely impossible for us to defeat Boko Haram.”

In 2015, it was reported that Nigeria had employed hundreds of mercenaries from South Africa and the former Soviet Union to assist in making gains against Boko Haram. U.S. efforts to train and share intelligence with regional military forces is credited with helping to push back against Boko Haram, but officials warn that the group remains a grave threat. As of March 2017, Boko Haram continues suicide bombings and other terrorist strategies.

The conflict has also seen numerous human rights abuses conducted by the Nigerian security forces in an effort to control the violence as well as their encouragement of the formation of numerous vigilante groups. Amnesty International accused the Nigerian government of human rights abuses after 950 suspected Boko Haram militants died in detention facilities run by Nigeria’s military Joint Task Force in 2013. Furthermore, the Nigerian government has been accused of incompetence and supplying misinformation about events in more remote areas.

Human Rights Watch has also reported that Boko Haram uses child soldiers, including 12-year-olds. According to an anonymous source working on peace talks with the group, up to 40 percent of the fighters in the group are underage. The group has forcibly converted non-Muslims to Islam.

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