Boko Haram

by Mike Smith

  The following day, Patience Jonathan was accused of ordering the arrest of at least one woman who had been protesting to call for the government to take action to free the girls. The woman had been accused of pretending she was one of the mothers of the girls during a meeting with the first lady and was arrested at the presidential villa, according to protesters, who said she was only representing mothers who could not attend the meeting.23

  From there, the story gathered momentum globally. On 5 May, the first claim of responsibility for the kidnappings arrived in the form of a video purportedly featuring Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau.24 Over the course of the 57-minute recording, the man identified as Shekau justified the taking of ‘slaves’ and made the shocking threat to sell the girls on the market – a claim to be treated with scepticism, however, since he would clearly be able to demand much more in ransom money in exchange for their freedom.

  The first images of Shekau, or whoever this man was, showed him holding a rifle, his other hand raised in the air, exhorting his followers – a more ruthless, blood-thirsty and battle-scarred version of his predecessor, Mohammed Yusuf. As with Yusuf, they responded to him with shouts of ‘Allahu Akbar’, and he fired his gun into the air as if to punctuate his speech. The video then cut to another shot of Shekau, now standing on the ground, repeatedly firing his rifle as if he were engaging in target practice. He later spoke, reading from a piece of paper, while standing in front of two armoured vehicles and a truck, six men with their faces covered on either side of him.

  ‘My brethren, you should cut off the necks of infidels. My brethren, you should seize slaves’, he said in the video.

  I abducted a girl at a Western education school and you are disturbed. I said Western education should end. Western education should end. Girls, you should go and get married [...] I abducted your girls. I will sell them in the market, by Allah. There is a market for selling humans. Allah says I should sell. He commands me to sell. I will sell women. I sell women.

  He sought to justify his group’s actions, saying: You arrested and threw people in prison. What is your justification? You do yours but you are saying we should not follow Allah’s command [...] Jonathan, I will sell you when I seize you. Obama, I will sell you. Bush, I will sell you. I will put you [up] for sale. Your price will be low. Don’t think I’m joking. 25

  Later, speaking in broken English, Shekau repeated his bizarre habit of naming dead world leaders as his enemies, and this time he travelled far back in history: In every nation, in every region, now has the decision to make. Either you are with us – I mean real Muslims [...] or you are with the Obama, François Hollande, George Bush, Bush, Clinton. I forgot not Abraham Lincoln. Ban Ki-moon and his people generally, and any unbeliever. Death, death, death, death [...] This world is against Christians. I mean Christians generally.

  Shekau’s threat to sell the girls in the market led to horror globally and began a brief period when the tragedy commanded the world’s attention. The #BringBackOurGirls hashtag was used by celebrities and politicians intending to show concern, and Western nations faced pressure from their own citizens to act, particularly in the United States. Given the awfulness of the crime, it was understandable that the world wanted to help, but options were always going to be limited given the state of Nigeria’s armed forces. Areas where nations with advanced military equipment and expertise could potentially assist included deploying drones for surveillance along with hostage negotiators. But comments from some in the United States were at times ridiculously jingoistic. Senator John McCain, declaring that he would send US Special Forces into Nigeria with or without approval from the country’s government if the girls were located, said, ‘I wouldn’t be waiting for some kind of permission from some guy named Goodluck Jonathan.’26

  The main problem with providing military assistance to Nigeria related to the country’s mismanagement and the behaviour of its armed forces. Working closely with a military accused of such horrible human rights abuses could signal approval of its tactics, while bailing the Nigerian government out of a problem to a large degree of its own making would remove pressure on it to act on its own and look harder at the causes and potential solutions to the insurgency. Beyond that, even if Western nations could help, Nigeria’s government must accept the assistance. Nigerians are suspicious of US military intentions and would not want to see their country turned into another battleground in the ‘war on terror’. ‘It does seem that Nigerians are caught in the difficult position of having to welcome the help and be deeply wary of it’, Nigerian journalist Tolu Ogunlesi wrote in an opinion piece on CNN’s website.

  On the one hand we know, from the evident helplessness of our government, that we’re at the point where we cannot make any progress without the skills and knowledge and technology that Western countries will bring to this battle. On the other hand, there are questions (running the gamut of conspiracy theory to reasonable concern) about America’s motivations, and its track record. 27

  It was also a question of pride. Nigeria sees itself as a regional power in its own right that can handle its own affairs. In this case, it is also worth asking whether Nigeria’s government was reluctant to let the world in because it hoped the story would simply fade from public view.

  The complications were on display in hearings before the US Senate’s foreign relations committee. A senior official from the US Defense Department said allegations of rights abuses had made it extremely difficult for the US military to find Nigerian soldiers it could train without violating American law. A US law prohibits foreign military assistance for units suspected of serious human rights violations. Beyond that, the United States was careful about the kind of intelligence it shared with Nigeria out of fears that it could be used against civilians. It did not end there. The official, Alice Friend, acknowledged there were concerns over whether Boko Haram sympathisers had infiltrated Nigeria’s military, but the larger issue involved something more basic.

  ‘I’d say an even greater concern is the incapacity of the Nigerian military and the Nigerian government’s failure to provide leadership to the military in a way that changes these tactics’, Friend, the defense department’s principal director for African affairs, told the committee. ‘The division in the north that mainly is engaging with Boko Haram, the 7th Division, has recently shown signs of real fear.28 They do not have the capabilities, the training or the equipping that Boko Haram does. And Boko Haram is exceptionally brutal and indiscriminate in their attacks. And so, as heavy-handed as the forces on the Nigerian side have been, Boko Haram has been even more brutal.’

  She later spoke of corruption contributing to the decline of the Nigerian military. ‘Another concern [...] is that the Nigerian military has the same challenges with corruption that every other institution in Nigeria does. Much of the funding that goes to the Nigerian military is skimmed off the top, if you will.’29

  In the end, Nigeria accepted assistance from a handful of countries, including Britain, the United States, France, Israel and China, which essentially sent advisers, such as hostage negotiators and intelligence experts, and surveillance planes or drones. The US response was perhaps the most significant given its potential long-term implications. It deployed drones and manned aircraft to conduct surveillance, while stationing some 80 personnel in the neighbouring nation of Chad.30 The choice was intriguing given the United States had recently opened a drone base in Niger, which also borders Nigeria, as part of efforts to battle Islamist extremists in Mali. It was never made clear why Washington did not simply use the same base or whether it intends to keep the base in Chad open over the long term, further expanding its drone programme on the continent.31 Nigeria also had its own drones purchased years earlier from an Israeli firm – but they went unused. They had apparently not been maintained and were not operational.32

  In any case, the hunt for the girls was now an international effort, at least in name, though foreign nations would stick to an arm’s-length approach. It would
not be wise to engage in on-the-ground operations with Nigeria’s military given how badly such moves could end. Its reputation for ruthlessness was well known, and no nation would want the blood of hundreds of girls on its hands. Foreign forces would also face a lack of knowledge not only of the terrain, but also of the identities of those involved in the insurgency were they to become more directly involved. In Nigeria, things are very often not what they seem.

  The first proof that at least dozens of the girls were still alive would occur on 12 May, nearly a month after they were kidnapped. Another video was distributed, and this one purported to show the students themselves. They were dressed in drab grey or black hijab-like outfits and sat in a tight group on the ground while others stood behind, including two who held a black jihadi flag. They all recited part of the Qur’an in Arabic together, as if it were a school lesson, and two of the girls said on camera that they were Christians who had been converted to Islam. A third girl interviewed on camera said that she was Muslim.33 Shekau also spoke on the video, declaring that the girls had been liberated because they were now Muslim, and that they would never be released as long as Nigerian authorities were holding Boko Haram members. ‘I will sell them. I repeat again. And by Allah you will never get them until the day you release our brethren you arrested [...] And the women you humiliate. There is a woman you held and her infant is still with you but you released her.’

  Shekau also again claimed there was justification in the Qur’an for taking slaves. ‘I will seize a slave. The only person who is not a slave is he who believes in “there is no God but Allah and Muhammad is His Prophet” and accepts faith and lives by all its dictates. This one is not a slave.’34

  The video set off shockwaves and made it far more difficult for supporters of the government to make the claim that the abductions were a hoax or a conspiracy. However, it would by no means dispel such talk completely. For one, Shekau never appeared in the same frame as the girls.

  On the day after the video became public, Borno state governor Kashim Shettima arranged for a group of parents and relatives, as well as some of the students who escaped, to travel to Maiduguri with the aim of having them watch it and identify the girls. They gathered in a room in a state government compound and went about the grim task, and by the end, 77 girls had been identified.35 ‘We went to Maiduguri and they showed us on a projector’, Lawan Zanna, who was able to identify his daughter, told me, his voice sorrowful over the phone. ‘She’s not OK. She looks so sad [...] I was not happy when I saw her.’ There were allegations later that some of the girls in the video could not have been students as they seemed to be much older. Shettima, however, told journalists that all of those in the video were students from the school, though it was unclear how he could know since only 77 of the more than 100 shown were identified. In any case, with many of the girls now identified, a clear claim of responsibility and foreign nations assisting with intelligence gathering, it would have seemed that the government and military would be poised to finally move quickly. If they did, there was little sign of it, and certainly there were no results to point to. The world would inevitably begin to lose hope and interest.

  Indeed, international attention toward the kidnappings seemed to already be waning by the following weekend, when France organised a summit of leaders from Nigeria and its neighbours to discuss battling Boko Haram. The gathering was mocked by many who saw it as too reminiscent of the colonial era, with a European power summoning African leaders to discuss a problem that concerned Europe. At the same time, the reality was that France continued to hold strong sway over its former colonies in the region, including Cameroon, Niger and Chad, all of which bordered north-eastern Nigeria and were contending with Boko Haram members who navigated back and forth across the frontier. The aim of the summit was to encourage the countries to share intelligence and cooperate on defeating Boko Haram, and there would notably be an intensification of military raids targeting extremists in north-western Cameroon afterwards. However, the summit also resulted in a certain amount of overblown rhetoric, including President Goodluck Jonathan’s claim that Boko Haram had transformed into ‘Al-Qaeda in West and Central Africa’ – an assertion many who were familiar with the situation did not take seriously. Portraying the problem as global rather than a local one that Nigeria had failed to address would allow it to duck blame. In fact, it was Nigeria’s inability to tackle the insurgency and gain the trust of its people that had allowed Boko Haram to grow into something larger, albeit no Al-Qaeda for West and Central Africa. ‘Boko Haram is no longer the local terror group with some religious sentiment that started in Nigeria in 2002 to 2009’, Jonathan said.

  From 2009 to date, it has changed and it is operating clearly as an Al-Qaeda organisation. It can better be described as Al-Qaeda in West and Central Africa. It’s no longer the Boko Haram that came with the sentiments that Western education is prohibited and that women must not go to school – nobody should attend a formal institution based on Western education.

  He also sought to portray Nigeria as doing all it could to find the missing girls:

  We are totally committed to ensuring that these girls are found wherever they are, and make sure that they join their families. We will do all our best. Presently Nigeria has 20,000 troops in this part of the country, the northern part of the country, the north-eastern part of the country, where we have these terrorists. We’ve been scanning the areas with surveillance aircrafts and of course also using local intelligence sources. 36

  But as the days passed following the summit, there were still no results, and the government seemed to lose patience with the criticism it was facing. Meanwhile, as the fate of the kidnapped girls dominated coverage of the insurgency, more deadly attacks were occurring, including in areas near Chibok.

  *   *   *

  What appeared to have been a coordinated effort to strike back began in late May. The problem was that the target was not Boko Haram, but those demanding action from the government. Daily protests of around 100 or so people wearing red had been occurring in Abuja, organised by civil society activists and others, including some with links to the opposition. The demonstrations had been peaceful and restrained, mainly led by Oby Ezekwesili, the former World Bank official and ex-minister whose speech in April was said to have led to the #BringBackOurGirls hashtag. At each of the gatherings, Ezekwesili would marshal the crowd with a single-minded set of call-and-response chants: Ezekwesili: ‘What are we demanding?’

  Protesters: ‘Bring back our girls, now and alive.’

  Ezekwesili: ‘What are we asking?’

  Protesters: ‘The truth. Nothing but the truth.’

  It all appeared well-meaning, but seemed unlikely to start a mass movement among Nigerians. Nevertheless, on 26 May, they would begin to be targeted, and whoever was pulling the strings seemed to be following the crudest and most unsophisticated dirty-tricks playbook. A new group of ‘protesters’ would appear, a rowdy collection of young men and women driven to their meeting point aboard buses.37 Many people instantly saw it for what it almost surely was: a paid-for crowd designed to provoke, intimidate and sow confusion. On the first day of their protest, they marched holding placards in support of the military and were greeted by a delegation that included the country’s chief of defence staff, Air Marshal Alex Badeh, who used the occasion to make an extraordinary claim. He told a handful of journalists present that he knew where the abducted girls were located, then seemed to indicate that the government would negotiate a deal to free them, contradicting earlier statements that it would not bargain with Boko Haram. ‘The good news for the girls is that we know where they are, but we cannot tell you, OK. We cannot come and tell you military secrets here. Just leave us alone. We are working. We will get the girls back’, Badeh said. After referring to the kinds of weapons being seized from the Islamists that he said could not have come from Nigeria’s armed forces, he hinted at conspiracies and agreed with President Jonathan’s assessment that Boko Ha
ram had become Al-Qaeda in West Africa. ‘There are people from outside fuelling this thing. That’s why when Mr President said we have Al-Qaeda in West Africa, I believe it 100 per cent, because I know that people from outside Nigeria are in this war. They are fighting us. They want to destabilise our country, and some people in this country are standing with the forces of darkness.’38

  Addressing the crowd, he said that using force to rescue the girls would put their lives in danger, and the ‘protesters’ responded in support of him.

  ‘We want our girls back. But I can tell you we can do it [...] But where they are held, can we go with force?’ Badeh asked. ‘No’, the protesters said in response.

  ‘If we go with force, what will happen?’, Badeh asked. On cue, the crowd responded: ‘They will die.’

  ‘So nobody should come and say the Nigerian military does not know what it is doing’, Badeh explained. ‘We can’t go and kill our girls in the name of trying to get them back.’

  The comments were obviously intended to deflect criticism from the military, but days later, news emerged that an Australian negotiator who had previously helped mediate in the conflict in the Niger Delta was in Nigeria and seeking to broker a deal to free the girls. Stephen Davis told journalists that he had arrived in the country around the beginning of May at President Jonathan’s request and had travelled to the north-east. In comments in early June, Davis said he believed that most of the girls had been taken over the border into Cameroon, Chad or Niger and separated into three different groups. He told Britain’s Channel 4 that he had come close to negotiating a deal three times, but that ‘vested interests’ sabotaged the talks. He did not provide details on whom he meant, and it was also not clear which Boko Haram ‘commanders’ Davis had been in touch with.39 Attempting to talk to Boko Haram would be a formidable challenge for anyone. It has never been clear whether anyone can truly represent the group and speak on its behalf given its lack of a clear structure. Davis may have indeed been speaking with someone, but whether they were truly Boko Haram ‘commanders’ was another question.