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A wave of attacks in northern and central Nigeria have been attributed to the Islamist organisation Boko Haram. But the true extent of their capabilities and goals remain something of a mystery, explains Murray Last. This article was first published on the Royal Africa Society's African Arguments blog. Political assassination is new neither in Nigeria nor in the history of Islam (nor indeed in Christian histories). But, in the large northern-Nigerian metropolis of Maiduguri, Boko Haram’s current campaign of assassination, both to intimidate systematically all opposition to it and to revenge itself on the authorities who sought to destroy it in 2009, is indeed new. I refer to the group as “Boko Haram” (or BH) because “Boko Haram”, though that is just its Hausa nickname, has now come to signify more than just a set of unconventional religious ideas. It is important to view the current campaign as both political and religious; though there is a religious dimension, it would be wrong to write off BH as religious ‘cranks’. Theirs is also an insurgency against the local Nigerian state which, in the eyes of BH, is secular (or at least not properly Muslim). It is their politics that make them dangerous. The majority of those assassinated in Borno and Bauchi have been agents of governments at all levels – local dignitaries or their less protected younger brothers (the Shehu of Borno’s; the former governor’s), policemen and now soldiers have been shot. But the campaign has also, in the name of Islamic righteousness, targeted ‘ulama who criticised BH as well as drinkers in bars, and markets where beer was sold. Assassination is done in daylight, in public, usually with impunity; it’s not surreptitious, being done with guns (AK-47s) and explosives (IEDs, car-bombs, ‘grenades’), often by men driving-by on motorbikes or riding in buses. Some targeted assassinations, however, have been carried out in private houses, by men entering on foot; an early (2007) assassination was of an imam even during dawn prayer inside his mosque (in Kano). The recent death toll is put at 150 or more. Attacks or fears of attack have now spread widely: not only in Bauchi and Adamawa but also in southern Kaduna and Abuja, in Niger and Kogi states; even Lagos has tried screening all bus passengers as they board, and major bridges (such as those near Lokoja) are under guard all night. |
The Carrot As the Nigerian constitution allows citizens to believe in whatever religion (or version of religion) they like, mere membership of BH, if it is treated as a religious group, is technically not illegal. Hence the courts cannot convict people of merely belonging to or supporting BH; at worst they release them on bail or hold them indefinitely ‘awaiting trial’. In consequence the police and army tend to shoot the men they suspect as ‘terrorists’ rather than arrest them. In doing so, civilians who happen to be ‘in the way’ are apt to get hurt too. The new Terrorism (Prevention) Act may make it easier for the police to class BH as a terrorist organisation, but till recently the police are reported to have been trying “de-radicalisation” and “moral suasion” (whatever that might entail) on some hundred suspects they took in raids. This is presumably the ‘carrot’ of the president’s “carrot and stick” policy towards Boko Haram. How far it will work is of course uncertain, since it is permissible, Islamically, to feign submission in order to survive. At root, however, it is not the business of the Government to convert BH to the ‘true faith’; it is to bring an end to the violence. |
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