Beneath the Tamarind Tree

by Isha Sesay

  What made the Chibok attack so significant was the large number of girls taken at once, not the fact that Boko Haram had been engaged in the business of kidnapping. That much was known, even if broadly overlooked by large swathes of the Nigerian public. The events in Chibok were unique because they brought the group’s expanding operational capabilities to light and, perhaps most critically, demonstrated the Nigerian military’s struggle to fight successfully against this resilient homegrown insurgency, and the government’s persistent inability to accurately assess the threat posed by the terror group. This ultimately meant that the Nigerian state continued to fail at its most fundamental duty: protecting its people.

  From the very beginning of Boko Haram’s rise to power, the federal government was slow to recognize the threat it posed. The group was founded in Maiduguri back in 2002 by a charismatic young preacher called Mohammed Yusuf. This band of insurgents, widely known today as Boko Haram—which in Hausa, the region’s dominant language, means “Western education is forbidden”—had no name for years, and was simply referred to as Yusufiyya, or “Yusuf’s ideology.”

  At the time of the group’s inception, northeastern Nigeria was a region defined by vast disillusionment, particularly among its youth, due to economic stagnation, widespread unemployment, and the clear signs of government corruption. Yusuf was among those who fervently believed sharia law, or law based on the Qur’an, was the required remedy for all social ills. As such, he threw his support behind political aspirants running on sharia platforms in fiercely contested statewide elections, supporting candidates like Ali Modu Sheriff, who won his race to become the governor of Borno state in 2003.

  But what came next wasn’t the sweeping overhaul Yusuf had expected. Instead, a moderate form of sharia law crept into place and failed to deliver the changes that many hankered for, leaving the chasm between the haves and the have-nots as wide as ever, and public discontent on the rise. The outcome of the political process led Mohammed Yusuf to conclude that politicians like Sheriff embraced religiosity simply for political gain. Yusuf, a lackluster theologian but captivating public speaker, now filled with a sense of grievance, began to preach against Western education, arguing it was incompatible with the teachings of the Qur’an. In addition, he declared working for the Nigerian government a sin, haram.

  Yusuf’s following grew in Maiduguri and beyond, primarily among the marginalized youth population of the northeast. These mostly poor young men, weary of government neglect, social inequities, and the lack of economic opportunity, clung to the Boko Haram leader’s dissident antigovernment message. His denouncement of democracy, rejection of government corruption, and dissemination of powerful imagery depicting persecuted Muslims around the globe stoked their inherent disaffection for Nigerian society and those who governed it.

  In a sermon delivered by Mohammed Yusuf in Maiduguri in 2006, he preached, “The infidels must be killed. They’re not worthy of trust. Most of them are people who can’t keep their word. They’re sinners, they don’t know the truth. A high-ranking officer will tell you: “We want peace and tranquility so we’re going to protect you. We are Christians. They brought us here to protect you.” But that’s not true! In fact, he came to kill us, to hurt us.”

  The mosque where Yusuf preached—Ibn Taymiyyah, which sat by the Maiduguri railway station—became an increasingly critical lifeline for the town’s poor, who flocked to the strategically located center to take advantage of its myriad community support programs, which included feeding orphans and providing free Islamic education. Meanwhile, Yusuf became increasingly emboldened. He took his sermons on the road, traveling across Nigeria’s northeast and drawing large crowds, sometimes numbering in the hundreds. State politicians and local religious leaders, including Yusuf’s former mentor, Sheikh Ja’afar Mahmoud Adam, took issue with his incendiary rhetoric and viewed his growing influence with dismay. As criticisms of his message and actions grew louder, local police began to harass Yusuf, arresting him multiple times. But Yusuf continued delivering his fiery public sermons, leading many to believe he had powerful patrons at the highest levels of the Borno state government protecting him. Regardless of who his political allies were, Mohammed Yusuf used his encounters with the police to stoke mistrust of government security forces among his followers and to entrench his favored narrative, that jihad may be required to end the persecution they and Muslims everywhere faced.

  In February 2009 at Ibn Taymiyyah Mosque, Maiduguri, Yusef preached: “The lesson to be learned here is that if Allah tells you to do something, you must do it. If you ask for compromises, you’re lost. . . . You see, here, in this town, they shout, they say we’re idiots: they say a lot of things about us. They came looking for me. They arrested me. . . . They want to arrest me while people love me. I swear to you: We’re not ashamed, neither afraid.”

  In turn, Boko Haram members increasingly responded to their critics with threats and low-level violence, which eventually morphed into general criminality and targeted assassinations; it has long been rumored that the killing of Sheikh Adam is an example of the group’s handiwork. The famed Islamic scholar met the Boko Haram leader in the northwestern Nigerian city of Kano, just as the 1990s drew to a close. Back then a young Mohammed Yusuf was still striving to deepen his knowledge of the Qur’an and find a doctrinal home within Islam. The charismatic Adam drew him close and into the ranks of the Izala movement—a congregation of Sunni Muslims whose faith is shaped by Salafism—the belief in the literal reading and application of Islam’s holy book to all of society’s challenges, in concert with the Sunna, the traditions of the Prophet Muhammed and the examples of the first three generations of Muslims (the Salaf). Most notable is their vehement objection to other denominations of Islam, in particular, the Shia and Sufism (a mystical approach to the religion). The two men eventually fell out as Yusuf took off down a path of radicalization, which in turn gave rise to his rejection of Western-style education and denouncements of Nigeria’s constitutionally mandated secular government. Sheikh Adam became increasingly alarmed by the words out of his mentee’s mouth and by the aggressive actions of Yusuf’s growing band of followers. He soon felt compelled to add his voice to the chorus of public criticism loudly condemning Yusuf and Boko Haram. On April 13, 2007, Sheikh Ja’afar Mahmoud Adam was gunned down while leading early-morning prayers in his Kano mosque. It is widely believed that his stance against Mohammed Yusuf cost him his life, though to this day there have been no claims of responsibility for the attack and no one has ever been prosecuted.

  The escalating tensions between Boko Haram and the Nigerian authorities reached their climax on February 20, 2009, when a group of Mohammed Yusuf’s followers, on their way to bury one of their own, clashed with local police during a routine traffic stop, leaving a number of Boko Haram members dead and others injured. As far as Yusuf was concerned, the episode was a game changer. He promptly escalated his attacks on the government, while calling for his followers to prepare for jihad.

  The government requested that Yusuf travel to the capital, Abuja, for questioning. He refused and chose open conflict instead. Armed Boko Haram members took to the streets of Maiduguri and engaged in a pitched battle with Nigerian security forces. In response, the federal government launched a brutal crackdown on the group, going door-to-door in search of the dissidents. When it was all over, hundreds of people were dead and the Nigerian authorities faced widespread allegations of extrajudicial killings and collective punishment of innocent civilians.

  On July 30, 2009, local police took a handcuffed and half-naked Mohammed Yusuf to the police station in Maiduguri for questioning, much of which his interrogators filmed on mobile phones. He was killed during a transfer involving the paramilitary branch of the Nigerian police. Much to the horror of his followers, gruesome images of their slain leader were widely circulated online. His bullet-ridden body, handcuffed, half-naked, and lying on the ground, was there for everyone to see. To Yusuf’s followers, he’d been martyred
, and his death was proof of the state violence he’d constantly talked about. The government, meanwhile, not satisfied with rounding up every follower of Mohammed Yusuf they could find, bulldozed his mosque. The remaining members of Boko Haram were driven underground. The federal government patted itself on the back for stamping Boko Haram out of existence—oblivious to the fact that its actions had set in motion something entirely different and more deadly.

  Boko Haram remained out of sight for nearly a year, only to reemerge in June 2010 with a new leader, Abubakar Shekau, Mohammed Yusuf’s former deputy. In an introductory video, Shekau announced the group’s rebirth and new official name, Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati wal-Jihad, which translates to “People Committed to the Propagation of the Prophet’s Teachings and Jihad.” One thing was immediately clear: Shekau understood the power of media and the impact of the words and images he put out. Rather than continue Yusuf’s habit of sermonizing, Shekau focused on delivering messages loaded with threats of approaching violence, words delivered with all the zeal and theatricality of a madman, to an audience far broader than his predecessor ever contemplated. While Mohammed Yusuf had been focused on speaking to his fellow Muslims, Shekau was more interested in exporting a message of terror to the entire world. He often directly addressed the Nigerian president and other world leaders in his statements, as he did on January 11, 2012: “This is a message and an appeal to Goodluck Jonathan, the Christian leaders, and all the others. We are the Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati wal-Jihad, those they call Boko Haram. Thanks to Allah, we have circulated information, and all we had to say has been said. . . . This my first appeal to you. Convert, Christians. This is my call to you. The work we do is not ours; it is Allah’s work.”

  While under the direction of Mohammed Yusuf, Boko Haram’s attacks had primarily focused on state and federal targets, but with Shekau at the helm this changed. Now the terror group expanded its scope of violence to include ordinary Nigerians, who suddenly found themselves targeted in churches, mosques, schools, bars, and markets. In time, the chaos extended beyond Nigeria’s borders to disrupt the lives of civilians in Cameroon, Niger, and Chad. The group not only became exponentially more violent, its methods for delivering chaos to terrified local communities grew more sophisticated. Car bombs, improvised explosive devices (IEDS), and suicide bombers all became frightening new additions to Boko Haram’s repertory of death.

  “Know that for me,” Shekau stated on March 25, 2014, “there are two categories of people in the world: those who are with us, and the rest. I’ll be happy to kill those against us every time I encounter them. This is now the main goal of my mission, the mission of Shekau, who is talking to you. Now you’ll know exactly who I am. Now you’ll know my madness. You can imagine it, but you’ll know more about it because, I swear, I’m going to slit your throats. I won’t be content until I have cut your throats. I swear, I’m going to cut your throats.”

  The terror outfit unleashed a wave of deadly attacks on a near-daily basis across northeastern Nigeria, predominantly in the states of Borno, Yobe, and Adamawa. The death and destruction carried on largely unchecked till May 2013, when Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan declared a state of emergency in those three states. Yet Human Rights Watch estimates that even with the massive deployment of troops and the imposition of a curfew, Boko Haram launched 192 attacks in northeastern Nigeria and Abuja from May 2013 to October 2014, and claimed the lives of over four thousand civilians. The government’s response wasn’t working.

  The group then opened a new front in its war against modernity and progress, destroying the education system in the northeast. Shekau and his men systematically decimated and in many cases razed to the ground hundreds of schools, killed hundreds of teachers and students, and forced thousands of education workers to flee. At the time of the attack on the Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok in Borno State, schools at all levels had been closed for months in twenty-two out of twenty-seven local government areas due to the insecurity. On March 25, 2014, less than one month before Shekau’s followers descended on Chibok, Shekau appeared on camera. During the course of his long and rambling remarks he repeated his opposition to learning: “Western education is a sin, university is a sin. Stop going to university, bastards! Women, go back to your homes!” Shekau’s rant against Western education and his unerring belief that women should remain uneducated and instead committed to a life of marriage and domesticity was the continuation of a norm established by his predecessor, Mohammed Yusuf. However, Shekau’s words should not be taken as a foreshadowing of the attack on the Chibok girls’ school. That was not a preplanned action. Details about the sequence of events on the night of April 14 and the arguments among the men regarding what to do with the girls make it clear that their abduction was a crime of opportunity. The insurgents arrived at the school primarily looking for the male students and to steal supplies. When they found hundreds of girls alone and unprotected, the occasion to disappear with them presented itself, and the men took it. It was quite simply another example of the Nigerian government’s failure to protect its own people.

  To a man like Abubakar Shekau, who instinctually understood the value of images and the power of the media, the capture of the Chibok girls was a boon. The girls were not only priceless from a PR perspective, capable of transforming Boko Haram’s erstwhile profile from national to global. They also gave Shekau and Boko Haram huge leverage over the Nigerian government as they negotiated for the release of Boko Haram members long holed up in prisons across the land. The Chibok girls were essentially a gift to Boko Haram, and in the months that followed their disappearance, Abubakar Shekau relied on sound and images of the girls to press home his newfound advantage.

  Chapter Seven

  “WE SHOULD BURN THESE GIRLS!”

  “No, let’s take them with us!”

  “Why not leave them here?”

  The men were still arguing, dozens of them trading verbal blows while Saa and the other horrified girls looked on. None of the men seemed particularly troubled by the fact that the lives of almost three hundred schoolgirls hung in the balance. Amid all the yelling, the girls had been divided into groups. Each batch would burn in a different room in the school buildings that were aflame just a few feet away. Tensions were escalating when a slim man with outsize eyes suddenly appeared. Saa had never seen him before. Like many of the insurgents, he too looked young and was just as scruffy. But when he spoke, tempers seemed to cool for a moment.

  “Ah! What are you trying to do?”

  “We wanted to burn them!”

  “Why not take them with us, since we have an empty vehicle?”

  His suggestion triggered a fresh round of quarreling. The same positions were expressed, and the newcomer continued to calmly repeat his idea of taking the girls with them, till he finally got his way. The girls later discovered his name was Mallam Abba. He was a commander.

  “Follow us!” the men shouted.

  None of it made any sense to Saa. Why? To where? As the insurgents shuffled her out of the compound, she felt as if her whole life were on fire. All Saa could see was the ominous orange glow of flames consuming every one of her school buildings. With every step, the fears within her grew. She struggled to make sense of the competing thoughts throbbing in her head. This isn’t supposed to be happening. The insurgents had asked about the boys and the brick-making machine; they’d systematically emptied the school store, carrying bag after bag of foodstuffs and loading all of it into the huge waiting truck. With everything now packed away, Saa had thought the insurgents would simply let the girls go home. After all, that’s what had happened during their previous attacks on schools—they’d always let the schoolgirls go, after handing out a warning to abandon their education and strict instructions to get married. Saa had simply expected the same thing to happen once more, not this.

  She scanned the crowd of faces surrounding her; the creased brows and startled expressions of the others made it clear
that everyone was equally confused. Whatever the turmoil they were feeling, they kept it to themselves. No one said a word. Saa fell into a sort of orderly scrum with the men corralling and motioning her forward with their guns, each weapon held high and pointed straight at the girls.

  Saa and Blessing moved in unison, along with the hundreds of others, snaking along in the dark through the open compound gate, past the small guard post usually occupied by Mr. Jida, which now sat empty. Yelling came from nearby Chibok town. Saa could smell burning, then heard the sound of gunshots and people running. It was bedlam.

  Just beyond the compound walls sat a crowd of bushes. As she and the men moved out into the open, Saa felt their thorns spring forward, eager to pull at her clothing and scratch and pierce her body. Careful not to yell out in pain, she tried to keep her clothes beyond the reach of the grasping thicket with no time to pause and examine what might be broken skin.

  Saa retreated into herself and turned to the faith that had anchored her entire life. Lord, am I going to die tonight, or will I survive? Desperate to live, unspoken prayers filled her mind and she pleaded, repeatedly, God save me.

  She was still praying as they walked down the dirt path away from the flaming school. The shabby-looking men with their wild eyes gave no explanation or directions. They simply motioned with their heads and the sweep of their rifles, making it clear to keep moving. As the reality began to sink in, Saa felt her chest tightening. Her heart was going to beat its way out of her body. But she couldn’t allow herself to cry or make any sound. Any kind of display would make her a target, and who knew what these men might do?