Appraising the Nigeria’s Security Tactics against Boko Haram
By Stephen Isayinka
Boko Haram has been a major source of insecurity and terrorism in Nigeria over the past decade. According to the Global Terrorism Index (IEP, 2020), Boko Haram is one of the top three most perilous terrorist organisations in the world (IEP, 2020). According to IEP (2022), terrorist assaults in Nigeria rose by 49% between 2020 and 2021. Around 2.4 million people have been displaced from their homes in the Lake Chad Basin as a direct result of Boko Haram’s terrorist assaults (UNHCR, 2020), while over 2 million people have been forced to flee their homes within Nigeria. The loss to the country’s economy and the increased budget for security forces, with little evidence to demonstrate its success in putting an end to the conflict, are at the heart of these worries. It’s important to remember that the government’s security forces have always used cruel, ineffective methods to combat Boko Haram. Operation Last Hold, Operation Lafiya Dole, Operation Zaman Lafiya, Operation Boyona, and Operation Restore Order are only a few of the military counterinsurgency operations that the Nigerian government has authorised. Other initiatives that help supplement the military counterinsurgency efforts include the Multinational Joint Task Force by neighbouring nations in the Lake Chad region and the voluntary Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF) in Nigeria, both of which work in tandem with the Vigilante Groups.
Regrettably, the Nigerian government under President Muhammadu Buhari claims to have “technically” crushed Boko Haram, but the success of the coordinated effort is still up for debate. One major cause for alarm is the rising cost of the military campaign against Boko Haram. Example: Between 2009 and 2018, Nigeria spent about US$1.9 billion on the military. Nigeria has spent significantly more than its neighbours on the counterinsurgency battle against Boko Haram For instance, Nigeria’s total military expenditures between 2009 and 2018 amounted to $1.9 billion. Nigeria is the major financier of the counterinsurgency fight against Boko Haram, surpassing the expenditures of neighbouring nations such as Niger, Cameroon, and Chad by a wide margin.
It is noteworthy to observe that the use of extrajudicial execution as a security method of “solving” with any problem in Nigeria has tragically not only led to the rise of Boko Haram as it is known today, but also helps to keep the group alive and allows for its expansion. In addition, the police’s methods have likely made it more difficult to apprehend Boko Haram militants. People in Maiduguri and Kano are generally more afraid of the police and the army than they are of Boko Haram. Now, regular citizens are less likely to contact law enforcement about unusual occurrences in their communities. According to Campbell, a contact of his saw faithful preachers gathering people in the streets of Kano to preach Yusuf’s doctrines. When authorities build up roadblocks to stop extremists from transporting weapons, they rapidly turn such checkpoints into opportunities to extort money. Drivers are afraid to turn around once they have joined the long line of traffic that can stretch on for hours in some areas. At big roadblocks, police have been known to open fire on several occasions. Even if these episodes are tremendously disruptive to normal life, they are not nearly as harmful as the police’s aggressive pursuit of the gang.
It can be viewed severally in time past that security personnel have wrongly made large arrests at attack sites against civilians. Long after the perpetrators of an attack, whether by gun or bomb, have escaped, the police gather as many witnesses as possible at the scene. They are not interrogated, but rather threatened and extorted for money. When they do obtain intelligence about a Boko Haram stronghold, the intelligence is used to flush out the terrorists. The government security agencies’ tactics against Boko Haram have been violent and ineffective over and over again. When the police and troops converge on a suspected hideout, innocent bystanders are frequently killed in the crossfire. It’s also important to remember that police intelligence gathering is random. Almost all interactions between police and residents occur at roadblocks, where authorities accuse individuals who try to escape of wrongdoing. Relatives of suspects of Boko Haram membership have also been taken hostage. Human Rights Watch claims that, in extortion incidents unrelated to Boko Haram, police have killed detainees after failing to obtain ransom payments. Families of Boko Haram members in northeast Nigeria are probably experiencing the same thing. A doctoral candidate studying the Nigerian police, Oliver Owen, has stated that promoting basic police changes that embrace notions of community policing tactics is the only way to improve the situation. The police will be able to learn more about the group’s actions if their links within the community are expanded and they are held more accountable. The group may be appeased by reforms to the police force, but it is unclear whether or not they can be won over once they have already demonstrated such militancy. Regrettably, the group’s funding and new members come from people who are angry about these problems of poverty and corruption. Since the group’s reach is no longer limited to a few of mosques, significant changes to police tactics are required to learn more about its whereabouts and its members. In all honesty, significant reform of the police force in Nigeria is desperately needed. It’s possible that one major criticism of the organisation could be mitigated if some of the police officers responsible for ordering human rights crimes were put behind bars. A more transparent and responsive police force and a focus on community policing would benefit everyone of Nigeria, not just the north. It would be unrealistic to believe that these changes will convince the organisation to disarm and return to society at large. The region of Northern Nigeria as a whole faces serious challenges in terms of development, evidently more so than the rest of Nigeria. The child and maternal mortality rates there are extremely high, poverty and deprivation are worse than in the rest of the country, and political engagement is little beyond showing loyalty to the small group of political and religious elites that wield real power.
The only option to permanently eliminate the threat of the group is through extensive reform of northern Nigeria that enhances the living standards of northern Nigerians and gives them a greater voice in the country’s politics. The organization’s overarching goal is to establish a sharia-compliant governmental structure that will eventually rule all of northern Nigeria. Given this motivation, the group’s future course is most likely to involve deeper participation in the Jos conflict, during which it will launch attacks against the Christian indigenes who inhabit the north. It prefers attacking domestic targets in the northeast rather than taking on international targets in Nigeria or elsewhere. Moreover, the government’s seeming inability to handle the country’s socio-economic hardship has implications for national security, as elements like poverty are considered as drivers of terrorism. In effect, it creates a potential pool of recruits for terrorist organisations, particularly in the northern Nigeria region, which is particularly hard struck by poverty and has a low rate of education. In Nigeria, 40% of the population, or 83 million people, live below the poverty line, according to figures from the Nigerian National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) for the period of September 2018 through October 2019. (NBS, 2019). It is also predicted that Nigeria’s national poverty rate will rise from 40.1% in 2019 to 45.2% in 2022, which would imply that roughly 100.9 million Nigerians will be living in poverty at that time. A lot more people in the northeast of Nigeria live in poverty than in the south. Terrorists may exploit and recruit in the north because of high unemployment and low wages, according to studies, undermining the effectiveness of counterterrorism efforts by weakening the labour force.
To conclude, an extensive reform of northern Nigeria that improves the livelihoods of the indigenes in the region and gives them a stronger interest in their politics is a primary method to remove the threat of the organization over the long run. It’s important to recognize that the entire region of Northern Nigeria, possibly even more so than the rest of the country, has serious development challenges. A broad reform of northern Nigeria that improves the fortunes of the indigenes in the region is vital as it has among of the worst maternal and newborn mortality rates in the world. Furthermore, a nationwide, comprehensive reform of the police force in Nigeria is long required. It’s possible that one major criticism of the security sector could be mitigated if some of the police officers responsible for ordering human rights crimes were put behind bars. Improved police accountability and community security policing would undoubtedly be a step forward to counter terrorism in not just northern Nigeria but also Nigeria as a whole.
