Nigeria’s insurgency has to be tackled at the roots

The kidnapping nearly a month ago of more than 200 schoolgirls in Nigeria’s northeastern Borno state is not only a tragedy in itself but also a timely reminder of a growing threat.

Boko Haram, which has claimed responsibility for the abductions, is in the fifth year of an insurgency that has cost at least 4,000 lives and displaced half a million people. About 1,500 have been killed this year alone; the group has also started popping up in neighbouring countries.

In the early days Boko Haram eschewed violence, and aimed to create a strict Islamic state in the north. After years of increasing hostility towards the government, the sect launched an armed insurgency in 2009. To begin with it targeted state security services to avenge, it said, the killings of its founder, Mohammed Yusuf, and other comrades in an uprising in December 2009. In parallel, the group has assassinated politicians whom it accused of corruption and bad governance.

Lately, however, its motives have become more nebulous. It has expanded its campaign of violence, targeting Christians, critical Muslim clerics, traditional leaders, suspected collaborators and UN agencies. It has also started going after softer targets, including students at secular state schools, gatherings in market places and health workers involved in polio vaccination campaigns.

The group’s modus operandi now resembles those of other terrorist groups on the continent such as Somalia’s al-Shabaab and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. It has become bolder in its methods, graduating from shootings to improvised explosive devices and suicide attacks, while at the same time seeking to stir sectarian conflict.

The government’s response to the insurgents has been overwhelmingly military. The security forces – widely viewed as ill-equipped, corrupt and predatory – have proved singularly unable to deal with the movement’s asymmetric campaign, and their excesses have further stoked grievances in the northeast. A more nuanced response is needed, embracing socio-economic reform and addressing poor governance.

As the authorities’ counter-offensive has intensified, so too has Boko Haram’s response. In the face of heavy losses, the group has been able to recruit from a huge pool of unemployed, alienated youth. They are aggrieved by a lack of economic opportunity, bad governance and rampant corruption by officials who apparently enjoy impunity from prosecution. The rebels have, however, also recruited by force.

Now Boko Haram even seems to be copying Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army. Having threatened, however implausibly, to sell the kidnapped girls as slaves, Abubakar Shekau, Boko Haram’s leader, then offered to free the captive children in return for the release of the group’s imprisoned fighters. Whether this was triggered by the prospect of international intervention or a desire to obtain the largest possible ransom remains to be seen.

International assistance, including surveillance and intelligence gathering, is a welcome step. The most urgent priority is obviously to secure the release of the girls. But we should recognise that, when these girls are free, the problems that led to their taking will remain. A military intervention, if one is attempted, also risks stoking the violence.

Boko Haram is now a regional problem. Niger and Cameroon harbour a number of its fighters, largely because of ethnic affinities, and there are signs that the group is expanding its activities beyond Nigeria. The international community should do more to co-ordinate a regional strategy and response.

However, while outsiders have a role, Nigeria remains the key. Abuja needs to address the underlying problems that led to Boko Haram’s birth and sustain its fighters’ grievances – systemic corruption, bad governance, decaying infrastructure and massive unemployment. Without a clear commitment to do that, international assistance will amount to little more than placebo.

Comfort Ero is International Crisis Group’s Africa programme director.

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