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Engagement With Boko Haram: The Invalid Method By Najeeb Abdulhamid Gambo
University of Aberdeen Let me quickly make it clear to you that as I am penning this piece, I am still not clear about who this Boko Haram are? Are they in reality the students of the late Muhammad Yusuf or some sort of undercover group in the name of Boko Haram? Be that as it may, I still want opine that the military operation in Borno will not serve as a panacea to this perplexing problem.
It sufficed here to state my reasons before addressing the matter at hand. As someone who takes an exception from the Chinese legal maxim of an ‘accused is guilty unless proven otherwise’ and someone who is fully aware that criminals are every now and then employing tactics to cover their nefarious activities, it will certainly take a long time for me to accept that some particular groups are indeed the real Boko Haram without clear cut proof.
For those who keep their ears to the ground, I believe the case of Conrad Zdzierak who disguised himself as black to robbed six banks in Ohio will perfectly fit our situation. Conrad as in the words of Jacquelyn Carpentar explores the fact that “black men, generally speaking, are considered by a broad spectrum of society (in the USA) to be the worst of any race in terms of crime, violence, attitude, and laziness. So it should come as no surprise that a black man robs a series of Ohio banks, right? Wouldn’t that sound typical? No need to even spit out your coffee upon hearing that morsel of information. What’s so different? Well, Conrad Zdzierak is white; he wore a mask of a black guy, complete with matching gloves for his hands and forearms, to hold himself out as African-American Yep, you heard it correctly! Zdzierak, a white man, chose to be black??? Oh, Conrad Zdzierak chose to be black just to commit a crime? What a Perfect cover!”
Secondly, my skepticism increases when I read Segun Adeniyi’s ThisDay back page column on ‘The Days of the cabal II” when he was narrating his encounter with Isiah Balat. Hear him “Segun, this Cabal thing, were you really a member?”, and the conversation continues “Before I could respond, Mr. Nasir el-Rufai interjected: “There was no cabal, we created the myth to neutralize Turai”. From the foregoing, one could draw an inference that with the manner newspapers are over sensationalizing their stories which sometimes are bereft of meticulous, painstaking and objective investigative journalism, it is possible that some people might find the situation very fertile to execute their ungodly evil in the name of Boko Haram.
The last aspect has to do with the Ted Shackley thesis of deception and misinformation as expounded in his Spy Master- My life in the CIA which argues that many a time’s people with criminal intention use deception and misinformation approach to divert people attention.
Be that as it may, if at the long run the Boko Haram in question are those students of the late Muhammad Yusuf, it is therefore pertinent to state that their approach is a direct antithesis to the teaching of the prophet (SAW) they claimed to be following and stand condemnable.
Coming back to the matter at hand, I am of the opinion that what is happening in Borno require a complete new approach and strategy.
Looking at the manner in which the insurgency turned, where security personnel could not identify the insurgents – if you like it boko haramians or haramites- it is imperative for them to understand open confrontation will certainly be counterproductive.
For any counter insurgency operation to be successful in the word of Kilkullen in his treatise ‘Counterinsurgency’ published by Oxford University Press, “The first is to understand in detail what drives the conflict in any given area or with any given population group. This implies the need to constantly update that understanding as the environment shifts, to develop solid partnerships with reliable local allies, to design, in concert with those allies, locally tailored measures to target the drivers that sustain the conflict and thus to break the cycle of violence. The second is to act with respect for local people, putting the wellbeing of non-combatant civilians ahead of any other consideration, even—in fact, especially—ahead of killing the enemy. Convincing threatened populations that we are the winning side, developing genuine partnerships with them, demonstrating that we can protect them from the guerrillas and that their best interests are served by cooperating with us is the critical path in counterinsurgency because insurgents cannot operate without the support—active, passive, or enforced—of the local population”.
From the foregoing, it is perfectly clear to say that the second rule was not considered in tackling the case since going by BBC Hausa ‘ra’ayi riga’ a lot of people alleged that soldiers killed, maimed and raped innocent citizens. To buttress this fact, the BELT itself has angrily called on the immediate withdrawal of the troop. As cited by Kilkullent, violence against non-combatant civilians by security forces, whether intentional or accidental, is almost always entirely counterproductive. Besides being simply the right thing to do, protecting and defending local non-combatant civilians is a critical component of making them feel safe, and is thus one of the keys to operational success since it is instructive from available historical evidences that brutality and violence against local populations was a key reason for the German defeat.
Our reasons for labelling the approach to counterinsurgency through the deployment of soldiers as invalid (to Maiduguri) without any prejudice to the Nigerian Army is that; our soldiers are primary not trained in quelling civil issues and their poor outing has depicted that. If people of Borno are not happy with the presence of security operatives that are supposedly there to protect them, I wonder how they could successfully gather the intelligence required to tame the insurgents since Insurgents need the people to act in certain ways (sympathy, acquiescence, silence, reaction to provocation, or fully active support) in order to survive and further their strategy. Unless the population acts in these ways, insurgent networks tend to wither because they cannot move freely within the population, gather resources (money, recruits), or conduct their operations. But without access to a mass base, an insurgent movement suffocates, so cutting the insurgent off from the population is a critical task in counterinsurgency.
But in our case, the action of our soldiers will; if care is not taken help the insurgents to gain sympathy from the local people.
For the government to successfully tackle this menace a new approach must be employed which must include among other thing the covert operation to infiltrate the ranks and file of the insurgent even if it warrant employing the Byzantine’s Army General approach, withdrawal of soldiers and substituting them with well smart and motivated plain cloth police with complete assurance of promotion and welfare. The motivation that will trigger them to creatively unearth the missing link, the motivation that will quell the fear of commissioner’s regret of N50,000.00 from the mind of the drafted officers (money sent to bereaved in the event of officer’s death on duty –and probably the last before they were driven out from the official quarters).
The next step is for the government to establish confidence and necessary cover to the affected community to the extent that people could come out and volunteer information and at the same time consider the need for dialogue and possibility of granting amnesty to the repentant ones.
Above all, government must reflect on the reasons why people are every now and then becoming disenchanted with project Nigeria. One of these reasons is the inability to recognise the fact that Nigeria is a confederation of people whose background, orientation, faith, values and tradition are not the same. Hence, there is need for the government to come to terms with these; mistaking unity for uniformity will only aggravate our problems.
Lastly, the security operative must transparently convince us that those people arrested have case to answer, since we are aware in our country, innocent people may be rounded up and sacrifice as members of the Boko Haram in order to impress both the gullible public and superior officers that security operatives are on top of the situation. Government must also establish a commission of inquiry to investigate killings, raping, and arsons alleged to be perpetrated by the security operatives with the view to come up with the truth of the matter. |