The insurgency, which has claimed more than twenty thousand lives, with a further two million people internally displaced and crippled the socio-economic life of the people of the north east geo-political zone, has often been misunderstood. Beginning from 2010, the Boko Haram insurgent and terror group has engaged the Nigerian government in a protracted war of attrition. The fundamental misunderstanding of the terror group and misinterpretation of its motive by the various interest groups and stakeholders concerned have aided and abetted, if not strengthened the group and the result has been an intractability of the war.
In the early days of the insurgency, the Boko Haram terror group apparently enjoyed some form of legitimacy among a significant section of the people of Borno State and its immediate environs because their doctrine of rejecting Western education and lifestyle was simply a continuation of an already existing religious sentiment preached and taught among the predominantly Muslim populace of the area; that was why their grouse was initially viewed as a result of local religious issues, which found expression in politics involving principally the former governor of the state, Alli Modu Sheriff. Following the security crackdown on the group and the killing of Mohammed Yussuf, their leader, in the process, the stage was set for an endless war. Beginning with isolated terror acts targeted at political allies and followers of Sheriff, their avowed enemy. The predominantly Muslim populace of Borno saw this as a direct confrontation between the Boko Haram sect and Sheriff and sympathised with the group, which appeared to be oppressed by the state. When the group graduated to attacking security agencies and other government targets, this fitted well into the already pre-existing anti-government sentiments prevalent among the populace. When again the group expanded its violent activities to Christians and their places of worship, it was received with indifference because that also fitted into the religious bias, intolerance and resentment of people of other faiths that is pervasive among the predominantly Muslim populace of the region. Therefore, the sympathy and legitimacy the group enjoyed, helped to nurture it to violent maturity.
Enter former President Goodluck Jonathan, who had the misfortune of becoming president and commander- in-chief shortly after the Boko Haram insurgency broke out, following the death of former president Umar Musa Yar’Adua in May 2010. Goodluck Jonathan’s re-election bid in the 2011 presidential election, pitted him against the northern political elite both within and outside then ruling PDP, because his ambition violated the zoning arrangements, agreed to and endorsed by all relevant stakeholders drawn from all geo-political zones of the country. Goodluck Jonathan’s less than gentlemanly act of violating the gentleman agreement that was the PDP zoning arrangement, which sought to oscillate presidential power between the North and the South, left a lot of northerners disappointed. The feeling that Jonathan was a taking the turn of the North, was a bitter one. When all efforts to stop him at the PDP presidential primaries failed under the powerful influence of power of incumbency, the North massively voted for then CPC candidate, Muhammadu Buhari. Following the loss of Buhari, there were widespread violent protests by riotous youths throughout the North. This widespread post-election violence was a reflection of the frustrations of the northern political establishment. Leading political figures in the North had made certain statements, which might have incited their followers to violence. Lawal Kaita, former governor of old Kaduna State, was reported to have declared making Nigeria “ungovernable” if Goodluck Jonathan emerged the president and former vice president Atiku Abubakar, who contested and lost at the PDP primaries against Jonathan, was quoted, as saying “those who make peaceful change impossible make violent change inevitable”. The post-election violence coincided with steady rise of the Boko Haram terror group to a formidable and bloody insurgency machine that would eventually become the most deadly group in sub-Saharan Africa.
•To be continued next week