Alexander Thurston’s 2018 book “Boko Haram: The History of an African Jihadist Movement” provides a good synopsis of our impunity thesis thus far:
“Nigeria has a de facto system of violence and impunity when it comes to rebellions and riots. When rebellions occur, Nigerian authorities pursue a straightforward process to restore order: first, deploy force (usually soldiers rather than the police) to stop or slow the disturbance; second, make gestures of reconciliation, such as granting amnesty to combatants or releasing prisoners back into normal life; and third, exhort all parties to move on in a spirit of unity. Authorities seldom make systematic efforts to hold perpetrators of violence accountable. Over the long term, this approach to conflict has left grievances unaddressed (Thurston, 2018).”
According to Thurston (2018), there are three “major players in northern Nigeria’s Muslim religious field” viz. (1) The Emirs, (2) The Sufis and (3) The Salafis. The north’s “Muslim establishment” consists largely of the emirs and Sufi sheikhs. Salafis, by contrast, are neo-establishment aspirants, from whom such groups as “Izala”, established in 1978 by Abubakar Gumi (1924-1992), “Boko Haram” by Muhammad Yusuf (1970-2009), and others emanated from. (The only tenuous connection Soyinka’s (2021) “Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth” makes to this phenomenon is the choice of the city of Jos in north-central Nigeria as a key venue for a significant part of his novel’s plot: “Izala split into two factions [in 1992 after Mr. Gumi’s death], respectively based in Jos and Kaduna,” according toThurston.)
Before Boko Haram, there was the “millenarian ‘Maitatsine’ group [which] wreaked havoc in northern cities off and on from 1980 to 1985 (Thurston, 2018).” There were also sectarian clashes between mostly Hausa and Fulani Muslims and the minority Christian population in the north-central towns of Kafanchan (1987), Zangon-Kataf (1992), Jos (1994), Tafawa Balewa (1991, 1995, 2001, and 2004), based on research by Thurston. Northern universities’ branches of the Muslim Students Society (MSS) – established in Nigeria’s southwest in 1954 –were also involved in numerous morality-based skirmishes during the late 1970s (Thurston, 2018). (One-time MSS leader Ibrahim El-Zakzaky went on to found the politically confrontational Shiite “Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN)” group while still a student at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, in northwestern Nigeria, during the period.)
The impunity enjoyed by security operatives who fail to follow the rules of engagement in many cases and the historical impunity of the purveyors of violence in our country create moral hazards all around, feeding the vicious cycle.
This is the historical context of Boko Haram’s eventual emergence as a regional menace in northern Nigeria, first as a largely open preaching movement between 2001 and 2009, with some attacks against local authorities by some members in 2003 and 2004, according to Thurston. “But the group’s decisive turn to violence occurred in 2009, when the sect launched [a failed] uprising across several northern Nigerian states” that led to the killing of its leader, Muhammad Yusuf, by security operatives (Thurston, 2018). (According to some accounts, Mr. Yusuf was first captured and then executed extrajudicially.) Under the leadership of Abubakar Shekau thereafter, Boko Haram ramped up its attacks, bombing targets as far as Abuja, Nigeria’s capital city. In Thurston’s narration, Boko Haram controlled territory in northeastern Nigeria between 2013 and 2015, the period during which it carried out the infamous kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls in Chibok town in April 2014. A full-blown assault by Nigeria’s armed forces subsequently pushed Boko Haram into the bush and forests in the northeast and further afield to the Lake Chad area, from where it planned terrorist operations. This brief history suffices for our purpose.
Read Also: Boko Haram militants: Six reasons they have not been defeated, by BBC
The conditions that allowed Boko Haram’s religious terrorism to germinate remain and have perhaps become even more entrenched. A quest for revenge under the guise of religious fundamentalism may have motivated some of the terrorist group’s members; after being manhandled by security operatives, say. The fundamental human need for prestige and economic means, especially in a job-scarce patriarchal north, is certainly a major motivation. Faced with the prospect of destitution or a short violent life of wealth and danger, many proud northern male youngsters perhaps do not see much of a choice in the matter. When that violence is clothed in religious fundamentalism as well, these antagonists actually see their lives as potentially respectable. What are the risks for the bandits and terrorists, as they see them? You either get shot, become imprisoned, or perhaps get away with it all through a government-backed amnesty. It is easy to see now how huge a problem we have in our hands. The impunity enjoyed by security operatives who fail to follow the rules of engagement in many cases and the historical impunity of the purveyors of violence in our country creates moral hazards all around, feeding the vicious cycle.
The north, as I knew it, was a vast, mostly arid but peaceful land. It is still vast. It is certainly drier now. But when once you could simply park your car on the side of the road and doze off till dawn with your eyes closed and mind at peace during a journey, you’d have to be insane, quite literally schizophrenic, to attempt such a suicidal venture in today’s scary times. In train journeys in the north these days, there is only one functional railway in any case, that between Abuja, Nigeria’s capital and Kaduna, the capital of the former Northern Region, fighter jets fly overhead to survey the route sometimes; an annoyingly justifiable diversion of scarce security resources in a highly volatile region. It recently came to light, in fact, that as Boko Haram members have reportedly been surrendering to the Nigerian armed forces, largely owing to the fear of a harder rule by ISWAP rather than contrition in my view, some members have joined forces with bandits to permeate the north-central region, especially sub-national Niger state.
Unlike the arid northwest and northeast, shrubbery north-central Nigeria has good soil, ample freshwater bodies, and a relatively smaller and introverted local population. The attraction for the terrorists and bandits is palpable. Apart from being evidence of their increasing reach and advance, it points to a deliberate and strategic effort on their part towards a long-term vision. Still, it is not a hopeless situation. But it is important not to underestimate the extreme patience and deliberation of this adversary. The victory of Afghanistan’s Taliban movement owing to a similar strategy may have been assimilated by their contemporaries in our midst.
We have allowed these violent religious extremists so much room for so long that the local populations in the north have a greater fear of them than constituted authority. They even collect taxes nowadays. The morality or wisdom of paying ransoms to kidnappers are not even a matter for debate anymore. People just pay. There were reports that some of our men in uniform who suffered such sorry fates parted with huge sums to secure their freedom too. This is the reality of many Nigerians today. We must not put up needless brave faces as if everything is okay. They are not. If our leaders seem bizarrely relaxed, it is because they have gotten away with so much for so long, especially in the north, where owing to a culture of solidarity and religious veneration for leaders, they would be hugely surprised if they hear more than just a whimper of protest. They would be fools to think themselves secure.
