Tide of suffering in an unholy war

As the Islamist group Boko Haram is said to be surrounding the city of Maiduguri in the latest stage of its campaign of violence against Christians and Muslims alike, an expert on the country considers why the authorities are powerless to halt its progress

Boko Haram’s founder, Mohammed Yusuf, was killed in a police station in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state in Nigeria’s far north-east, on 30 July 2009, and at the time, the public in Nigeria and elsewhere were indifferent. He was just another bad guy done away with. The photo of his badly battered half-naked corpse, his hands still in cuffs, was shared quickly on social media and internet sites.

One of the few who spoke out against this unlawful killing was the Archbishop of Abuja, John Olorunfemi Onaiyekan, today a cardinal, who, predicting wisely that violence would attract more violence, said: “In a state that respects the rule of law, criminals should be taken to court, not killed without a trial.”

Five years later, the movement Yusuf founded – officially called the Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati Wal-Jihad (“Sunni Community for the Propagation of the Prophet’s Teachings and Jihad”) but popularly referred to as “Boko Haram” (“Western education is forbidden”) – is known globally as one of the world’s most terrifying terrorist organisations. Yet, Yusuf’s initial group, while definitely radical in its concept of Islam and its rejection of Western democratic values and corrupt “bad” Muslims, was never violent.

After local politicians and army leaders decided to crack down heavily on Boko Haram in 2009, destroying its headquarters and mosques in central Maiduguri and killing scores of its members, the group was eventually scattered. But it soon re-emerged under the leadership of Abubakar Shekau and started a violent campaign against the Nigerian establishment, which it considered corrupt and un-Islamic.

The insurgents attacked police stations, prisons, schools and other state symbols. It attracted international headlines in August 2011 when it claimed responsibility for a suicide-bomb attack against the United Nations headquarters in the federal capital, Abuja, killing more than 20 people, and again when it attacked a Catholic church on the outskirts of Abuja on Christmas Day that year. But real and lasting international attention and public outcry came only when the group abducted nearly 300 schoolgirls in the remote city of Chibok in April this year. A few of the girls managed to escape in the days that followed but most are still missing. The insurgents released a video, with Shekau, looking more insane than ever, threatening to sell the girls as slaves. According to some unconfirmed sources, a deal is in the making to exchange the girls for captured Boko Haram members.

In recent weeks, Boko Haram has been poised to take back Maiduguri with its militias surrounding the city of more than a million inhabitants. Most Christians have relocated to safer areas, but some have stayed.

“The few Catholics that remain still go to churches for Masses. They are bold and courageous,” said Catholic Bishop Oliver Dashe Doeme, a courageous pastor himself who remains with his flock without any kind of personal protection. More than half of his diocese, which also covers the northern part of neighbouring Adamawa state, is now under the control of Boko Haram.

The conditions the bishop described are dire: “We have our members who have been killed, those who have been abducted, among whom are men and women as well as children. There are those who are forced into marrying Boko Haram members, some have no houses to lay their heads. Also many have no food to eat nor do they have clothes to wear.”

The Nigerian army cannot protect the people and, in recent weeks, many soldiers have surrendered to the insurgents.

“The military is not well equipped. That is why most times, when the soldiers confront the Boko Haram members, the sect members easily overrun them,” Bishop Dashe told me, identifying corruption as the major cause of troops’ low morale. “We cannot deny the fact that the money allocated for security hardly reaches its destination. The Government does not deal decisively with the corrupt officers. And so corrupt practices continue unabated.”

What Boko Haram really is and really wants remains largely unclear today. In Nigeria, there are many rumours and conspiracy theories, but few facts and figures, and even fewer serious scholarly studies. Many Christians believe that the “insurgency”, as it is called today, is aiming to create a purely Islamic state, wiping out all Christian presence and influence. But according to Amnesty International, until now two-thirds of the acknowledged victims of Boko Haram (this year alone already more than 4,000) are Muslims, not Christians.

True, the group from time to time attacks churches and other Christian targets, perhaps in part because it has discovered that this attracts more international publicity. But they also kill a lot of Islamic clerics who criticise the insurgents for their un-Islamic behaviour or other non-cooperative Muslims, thereby terrorising the population.

Many sources in Nigeria believe that Boko Haram receives tacit financial and moral support from political and military leaders in the north of the country keen to recapture the presidency in the 2015 elections. It is in their interest to show the apparent weakness of the incumbent president, Goodluck Jonathan, a Christian from the south.

In Western media analysis, Boko Haram is often referred to as a part of a would-be global jihadist movement, linking up with Islamist groups including the Islamic State (IS) in Iraq and Syria. Shekau himself has expressed support for IS, but it was more a matter of copying tactics and goals, eventually announcing last month the founding of a “caliphate” in the freshly captured city of Gwoza, near the border with Cameroon.

There is scant evidence of global collaboration, and most specialists are convinced that Boko Haram remains – for the time being – mainly a Nigerian phenomenon with a local agenda. Is there any way out of this infernal tunnel of violence? This question was key at a conference held on 8 September in Antwerp, Belgium, during the interfaith peace meeting, “Peace is the Future”, organised by the Community of Sant’Egidio.

Marc-Antoine Pérouse de Montclos, a professor at the French Institute of Geopolitics in Paris and a major expert on Boko Haram, made the case for a different approach, including the start of serious negotiations with the less radical wings of Boko Haram, de-radicalisation programmes and the protection of civilians and key persons.

According to de Montclos, a military response alone will not suffice. Not only are local police and federal soldiers often less motivated and less well-equipped than the insurgents, their brutal and reckless behaviour alienates local people, sometimes even driving them into the arms of Boko Haram.

Armed with footage of extra-judicial mass killings, Amnesty International has already accused the Nigerian army of war crimes and serious human rights violations. According to de Montclos, the Nigerian army should be trained to effectively protect the population, in full respect of the rule of law.

Cardinal Onaiyekan, who also spoke at the meeting, went even further saying that a serious dialogue should also include an amnesty for repentant Boko Haram militants. “Why would anyone be willing to lay down arms, if he is then to be killed? You have to offer those boys something.”

Tackling the Boko Haram insurgency requires clear political will on the government’s side and a change of tactics. It remains to be seen whether the presidential elections, set for February 2015, will create the political dynamics for such an approach. In the meantime, a harmless and innocent population, Muslims and Christians alike, women and men together, remain caught between the hammer and the anvil.

Jan De Volder is political editor of the Belgian Catholic magazine Tertio, and a specialist writer on Nigeria.