Nigeria’s uneasy equations

Jonathan Power (Power’s World)

23 February 2012

The governor of the northeastern Nigerian state of Yobe, Ibrahim Geidam, where the extremist Boko Haram movement had its origins, told me that the situation is now “under control”.

He pointed to the recent arrest of its spokesman and the way he was cooperating with his interrogators. He also told me of the splits that had developed in the movement. President Goodluck Jonathan in a rare one-hour interview told me much the same. But he added a caveat. Boko Haram still has plenty of destructive power. “Who is to know if they have infiltrated major institutions, even here in the presidential compound? It might be a cook, a cleaner or a driver, waiting for their moment to explode a bomb.”

In his opinion the movement gets support in both ideology and arms from Al Qaeda’s North African affiliate and the extremist movement in Somalia. However, when I talked to former president Olusegun Obasanjo, he told me that the evidence for that was not watertight.

Wole Soyinka, the Nobel Laureate for Literature, has said that the situation is not dissimilar to the one that existed during the civil war of the 1960s when oil-rich Biafra in the east attempted to secede from Nigeria. He points to the years of insurgency, the recent blowing up of the UN mission.

Defeating it is a tricky business, to say the least. The police have often used violent tactics. This has led to a backlash, recruiting more members for the movement. 

Some observers compare this with the insurgency that until recently terrified the people of the Niger Delta, including the expatriate oil workers they kidnapped for ransoms. The fighters made themselves rich on stealing oil. Jonathan and his predecessor, Umaru Yar’Adua, managed to win a truce and awarded the fighters handsome “scholarships” so they could train for skilled work. For the most part it seems to have worked.

But Obasanjo decries this. “Once the principle of buying off is established the blackmail will continue and other radical groups like Boko Haram will demand the same. Jonathan disagrees. “One cannot compare the two movements”, he argues. “The Delta militants had to be part compensated for the large amounts they were making from oil bunkering”. “Buying off” will not be used with Boko Haram, an ideological movement not a gangster one.

Most of Nigeria is unaffected by the movement. Despite the departure of frightened Christians to the south most of the country is not perturbed. When the killings have taken place in the north Muslims moved to protect churches and the Christians reciprocated by sending people to protect mosques.

Neighbouring countries have also helped. Cameroon has been a haven for the militants to escape to. Now Chad and Niger are cooperating with the Nigerian police. Besides this the Americans have sent bomb disposal experts and are clearly prepared to do more if asked.

The Muslim north is much poorer than the Christian south, held back for over a century by conservative clerics and leaders. Education is poor and health clinics are scarce and youth unemployment is high. One does not find the rip-roaring economic progress prevalent in the south. Without the drag of the north Nigeria would have double-digit economic growth rate.

The poverty has contributed to the rise of Boko Haram, although the president makes the valid point that there are many countries with dire poverty, including Muslim ones where there is no political violence.

It will take years to defeat Boko Haram, just as it did to defeat the insurgency of the Delta. The country is already judging Jonathan by his ability (lack of it, critics say) to get on top of the situation. It will certainly test the metal of the president who otherwise is making great strides with his domestic economic and social policies. We will see.