Politicisation of Boko Haram insurgency, bane of Nigeria’s anti-terror fight by Lai Mohammed
Being paper delivered at Portcullis House, House of Commons, London by Alhaji Lai Mohammed, National Publicity Secretary, All Progressives Congress, APC, on Monday
SINCE the formation of our party, the All Progressives Congress, APC, our political opponents have strenuously tried (but failed) to misinform Nigerians and the international community that the APC is linked to Boko Haram, claiming ‘our actions, utterances and body language’ support or sympathise with Boko Haram.
Of course, this deliberate political misinformation and manipulation continue to flounder and fail spectacularly, not least because successive events prove these claims to be hollow, but also that it is our political opponents who are playing a ‘Boko Haram Poker Game’.
In particular the PDP and anyone for that matter (including their hired American PR firm, Levick) have failed to produce any substantial and even anecdotal evidence linking the APC with Boko Haram!
Anecdotal evidence
Alh. Lai Mohammed
Keen followers and watchers of Nigerian politics are well aware of recent revelations by Dr Stephen Davis, a renowned Australian hostage release negotiator hired by the Goodluck Jonathan government over the Chibok saga, who confirmed some few days back that indeed the sponsors of Boko Haram are nestled in the PDP and President Goodluck Jonathan government – in the persons of Alhaji Ali Modu Sheriff (former governor of Borno State) and Lt. General Ihejirika (former Chief of Army Staff). The value of this revelation is hardly about its newness, but that it corroborates previous revelations, such as those by the former NSA (late Major General Azazi Owoye) and even by President Goodluck Jonathan himself!
My task here is incomplete without providing this august gathering with logical, empirical and evidence-based explanation and accounts of goings-on about the Boko Haram ‘crisis’ in Nigeria. I emphasize that Boko Haram is a “crises” because it is no longer a single event but multiple intertwined crises.
There is the crisis of Boko Haram violent attacks, but also crisis of the PDP-President Jonathan’s inept mismanagement, crisis of Nigeria’s military response and operations, crisis of refugees and internal displacement, and crisis of insecurity in general.
Political misinformation
What I present here are hardly mine and APC’s hunches or guess-estimates or attempts at political misinformation, but logical accounts, insights and information contained in open-source materials, thus verifiable. I proceed to share this important empirical account of events about Boko Haram as detailed in media reports, academic papers and research, and even from different sections of the Nigerian government under five main headings:
•Origin of Boko Haram
•The Politics of Boko Haram
•Boko Haram and Resource Allocation
•The Boko Haram Crisis and GEJ Security Spending Spree
•New Thinking and Approaches to Ending Boko Haram: The APC’s Prescriptions.
The Origins of Boko Haram: When the sect “Nigerian Taliban”, the precursor of today’s monster called Boko Haram, started off in 2002, it was another fringe sect along the same pattern of many before it, which started off under the cloak of religion but were in real sense, in response to the widespread poverty, deprivation and the injustice that have hallmarked post-independent Nigeria.
Before now, the most remembered, for the scale of its share brutality and mass killings, was the Maitatsine Crisis in the northern city of Kano that left thousands of people dead in 1980.
A decisive response by the then Federal Government saw the crushing of the sect, which was fiercely anti-modernism. Maitaisine was the nickname of the sect founder, Mohammed Marwa, whose preaching attracted a huge number of youths, unemployed immigrants and others who felt that mainstream Muslim teachers were not doing enough for their communities. By December 1980, the group had started launching attacks against other religious figures and the police in Bauchi and Bulukuntu (Maiduguri), forcing the government to call in the military. In the ensuing clashes, about 5,000 people including the founder, died. But in the end the sect was dead and buried for good.
Messianic revivalism
Fast forward to 2009, almost three decades later, Boko Haram, a salafi-jihadi group that espouses messianic revivalism of Islamic religion and cultural practices (sharia) and which translates literally as “ Western education forbidden” was in full swing and following in the path of the Maitatsine. It is no use hiding the fact that the emergence of Boko Haram and its armed insurgency from 2009, has changed the political, economic, security and socio-cultural landscape of Nigeria.
But who and what is Boko Haram? Why and how did it come about? Boko Haram’s original name is the Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati wal-Jihad (People Committed to the Propagation of the Prophet’s Teachings and Jihad) movement. ‘Boko Haram’ when translated literarily means ‘Western education’ (Boko) is forbidden (haram), however, the group’s ideology transcends this to mean the rejection of western culture and civilization of which education is a vehicle for its transfer.
In recorded interviews by the BBC with the late founder of the group (Mohammed Yusuf), he stated that ‘western-styled education is mixed with issues that run contrary to our belief in Islam’ and ‘our land was an Islamic state before the colonial masters turned it to a Kafir (infidel) land.
Western civilisation
The current system is contrary to true Islamic belief. Another recorded interview with the group’s spokesperson clarified that ‘Boko Haram’ does not in any way mean Western education is a sin…(It) actually means western civilization is forbidden.
The difference is that while the first gives the impression that we are opposed to formal education coming from the West…which is not true…the second affirms our belief in the supremacy of Islamic culture, for culture is broader, it includes education but not determined by western education.
The emergence of Boko Haram as a movement and the evolution of its armed insurgency could be divided into five phases:
Phase One: This pertains to the earliest recorded information about the group and its ideological foundation and organizational development as a movement. There is a loose consensus that Boko Haram is an offshoot of the Nigerian Taliban Movement that was first reported in media circles around 2001-02 (following the US-led NATO military campaign in Afghanistan), that the top leadership of the group were adherents of the Ibn Taymiyyah Sect.
The group relocated (undertook Hijra) from Maiduguri city (capital of Borno State) to a remote location in Yobe State (Kanama) in 2002 to establish its own community that was governed in accordance with strict Islamic law and culture (Sharia). Following disagreements and clashes with neighboring communities over fishing rights and police action between 2003 and 2004 the group was dislodged from Kanama and it relocated back to Maiduguri in 2004.
Phase Two: This chronicles the regrouping, activities and growth of the group between 2004 and 2009. Boko Haram’s relocation to Maiduguri in 2004 led to its creation of a new base (the Ibn Taymiyyah Masjid around the railway area, north of Maiduguri). The group is alleged to have got financial support from within and outside Nigeria with which it set up businesses and started providing welfare services to the hordes of jobless, homeless and illiterate young people in Maiduguri.
Mohammed Yusuf’s recorded and live public preachings started circulating and attracting wide audience during this period. With this, the group’s membership grew astronomically and the profile of its leader (Mohammed Yusuf) increased to the extent that he was included in the Borno state committee of clerics following the introduction of Sharia Law. A known senior member of Boko Haram, Late Boju Foi, was actually appointed a commissioner by former Governor Ali Modu Sheriff.
This marked official and unofficial connections between the group and influential politicians and government functionaries that facilitated the flow of patronage, financial resources and immunity from police prosecution for Mohammed Yusuf (whenever he was arrested, he was promptly released based on intervention by influential politicians).
The fact that Boko Haram became a magnet for thousands of youth made politicians on all sides to seek to use it for election purposes. Boko Haram thereafter began spreading to neighbouring Yobe, Bauchi and Adamawa states.
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