Boko Haram, a radical Islamist group founded in 2002 in northern Nigeria, has recently gained international media attention for bombings that have killed hundreds of people. The group, whose name translates as “western education is sacrilege,” has emerged as a major security threat to the Nigerian government. It’s bombings of Christian churches in Nigeria’s predominately Muslim north has heightened regional and religious tensions in the country. The group’s call for the creation of an Islamic state and equitable distribution of wealth resonates with disenfranchised segments of Nigerian society.
Brian Adeba spoke to Dr. Thomas Tieku, lead researcher at CIGI’s Africa Initiative Program, to gain an understanding of the potential implications of Boko Haram’s militant stance.
When Boko Haram started, it was a regional organization whose activities were restricted to northern Nigeria. Now it has expanded these activities beyond northern Nigeria and it has become more radical. What explains this expansion in your opinion?
Thomas Tieku: It [Boko Haram] is usually conceptualized as a religious movement but it has strong socio-political and economic undertones. That is part of the reason why it has attracted so much attention. There is so much discontent in Nigerian society and to some extent; Boko Haram is feeding on this. Its message is also resonating because there is a broader feeling among some Nigerians that society would be better off with going back to the old days of the Sokoto Caliphate. This segment thinks that moral decay, as well as economic problems, would be resolved because the Caliphate and the Islamic Shariah promoted this idea of Zakat ̶ a tenet of Islam that wealth has to be shared. This segment thinks that inequality and gross disparity between the rich and poor in Nigeria could be dealt with through an Islamic government.
The other reason why Boko Haram has spread its activities is because educated Islamic scholars from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states have returned to Nigeria, and in some cases have been criticizing old Islamic practices. There is also a widespread idea that the agreement on rotating the Nigerian presidency between Christians and Muslims has been broken. Remember President Olusegun Obasanjo? Umar Musa Yar’dua was the Muslim that succeeded him, and he was supposed to have served two terms. The idea was that Goodluck Jonathan, a Christian who was selected as Nigeria’s vice president, would then succeed Yar’dua. When Yar’dua died, Jonathan succeeded him and to some extent dismantled that gentleman’s agreement on rotating the presidency in Nigeria. The northern elite are extremely unhappy with this, especially because Gen. Buhari, a northerner and former military leader, contested the election and lost [to Jonathan]. There are strong political undertones and sometimes the northern elites are using this [Boko Haram’s activities] as a mobilizing tool to create insecurity for the Nigerian government.
So in other words, this is playing into the political fault lines of Nigeria?
Thomas Tieku: Yes, it’s playing into what some would describe as the political fault lines of Nigeria. There is also this idea among the northern elite that they are entitled to be the leaders of Nigeria because, through military coups in the past, they have produced several presidents who ruled Nigeria. The northern elite find it difficult that a southerner should be ruling the country and this discomfort is feeding into broader political trends.
Will Boko Haram’s Islamic roots and its claim to fight on behalf of the poor in Nigeria resonate with Nigerians?
Thomas Tieku: Boko Haram’s message resonates with the poor because it is touching on all the key marks. It is highlighting inequality, which is important because there is so much wealth concentrated in the hands of a few. It also emphasizes the idea of anticorruption. When President Jonathan said that the challenge posed by Boko Haram is a major threat that can be equated to the challenge posed during the Biafra war, he made that point for two reasons. The first reason is because he thinks that the message is very attractive to the ordinary people of Nigeria. The second reason is because he thinks Boko Haram’s message is also attractive to certain people in his security agency, his own cabinet and parts of the Nigerian elite.
President Jonathan also feels that Boko Haram's use of unconventional methods, whereby you cannot identify and target members of the organization with conventional military instruments, is a big challenge.
In considering Boko Haram’s message, how does its use of unconventional methods – bombings which are alien to Nigerian society - resonate with other Muslims in Nigeria?
Thomas Tieku: The message can sometimes create difficulties for Boko Haram. In addition to targeting Christians, the group is also killing a select group of Muslims it considers to be “impure.” This is very typical of the way the Jihad was conducted around the ninetieth and twentieth centuries in West Africa. Although the Yoruba area has a large Muslim population, I can’t see this spreading there because the Yoruba have succeeded in embracing the all Nigerian lifestyle.
What is the significance of Boko Haram for regional security in West Africa, which has considerable Muslim populations? Will an upsurge in Boko Haram activities inspire similar movements across the region?
Thomas Tieku: From my point of view, it might encourage pockets of resistance across parts of West Africa, in places like Mali or even Ghana. However, I think that the relationship between Christians and Muslims across West Africa is strong enough to prevent insecurity in the region.
Part of the reason why I make this particular argument is because there are a number of people ̶ elites who belong to different religious sects ̶ who have an interest in keeping the status quo [tolerance]. If you go to Ghana, for example, the vice president, irrespective of which political party wins the election, is going to be a Muslim in most cases. If the vice president is not a Muslim, the president is going to be a Muslim. In spite of that [co-existence], it [Boko Haram’s message] can create pockets of resistance and that is dangerous. Also, throughout most of West Africa there is usually a strict geographic division between Muslims and Christians. Most Muslims are located in the north and in most cases their areas are underdeveloped.
If Boko Haram’s message should spread widely, it’s going to pose a huge difficulty for the West African sub-region in two ways. First, it is going to restrict Nigeria’s ability to provide the security that it has traditionally exported to other parts of West Africa. The Nigerian military will no longer be available for peacekeeping purposes. That’s how Nigeria presents itself; it likes the idea of peacekeeping. Even in the United Nations (UN) peacekeeping missions, there’s a large Nigerian contingent.
The second thing is that Nigeria has a strong transnational network linking Islamic groups across the West African region. And therefore if Boko Haram’s message spreads, it will be difficult to contain. I don’t see it creating major conflicts among the elite, but it can create pockets of resistance within deprived areas.
Following the bombing of the UN compound last year and the church bombings in December and early this year, the Nigerian government has declared war on Boko Haram. How do you read this approach?
Thomas Tieku: Openly, the Nigerian government is using a hard line approach by resorting to the military. But behind the scenes, they are also trying to negotiate. These are the two processes going on. The Nigerian government is using the same tactics it used for rebels in the Niger Delta region, where they [rebels] were given monetary incentives to lay down their arms. The difficulty with Boko Haram is that the private compensation negotiation is not going well because there are a number of political players behind the group who are not necessarily at the table and who do not think that it is in their interest to negotiate with the Nigerian government. Until the government can cut off the political entrepreneurs, it [a deal] is going to be difficult.
