OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
In Nigeria, Boko Haram
Is Not the Problem
By JEAN HERSKOVITS
Published: January 2, 2012
GOVERNMENTS and newspapers around the world attributed the
horrific Christmas Day bombings of churches in Nigeria to “Boko Haram” — a
shadowy group that is routinely described as an extremist Islamist organization
based in the northeast corner of Nigeria. Indeed, since the May inauguration of
President Goodluck Jonathan, a Christian from the Niger Delta in the country’s
south, Boko Haram has been blamed for virtually every outbreak of violence in
Nigeria.
But the news media and American policy makers are chasing an
elusive and ill-defined threat; there is no proof that a well-organized,
ideologically coherent terrorist group called Boko Haram even exists today.
Evidence suggests instead that, while the original core of the group remains
active, criminal gangs have adopted the name Boko Haram to claim responsibility
for attacks when it suits them.
The United States must not be drawn into a Nigerian “war on
terror” — rhetorical or real — that would make us appear biased toward a
Christian president. Getting involved in an escalating sectarian conflict that
threatens the country’s unity could turn Nigerian Muslims against America
without addressing any of the underlying problems that are fueling instability
and sectarian strife in Nigeria.
Since August, when Gen. Carter F. Ham, the commander of the
United States Africa Command, warned that Boko Haram had links to Al Qaeda
affiliates, the perceived threat has grown. Shortly after General Ham’s
warning, the United Nations’ headquarters in Abuja was bombed, and simplistic
explanations blaming Boko Haram for Nigeria’s mounting security crisis became
routine. Someone who claims to be a spokesman for Boko Haram — with a name no
one recognizes and whom no one has been able to identify or meet with — has
issued threats and statements claiming responsibility for attacks. Remarkably,
the Nigerian government and the international news media have simply accepted
what he says.
In late November, a subcommittee of the House Committee on
Homeland Security issued a report with the provocative title: “Boko Haram:
Emerging Threat to the U.S. Homeland.” The report makes no such case, but
nevertheless proposes that the organization be added to America’s list of
foreign terrorist organizations. The State Department’s Africa bureau disagrees,
but pressure from Congress and several government agencies is mounting.
Boko Haram began in 2002 as a peaceful Islamic splinter
group. Then politicians began exploiting it for electoral purposes. But it was
not until 2009 that Boko Haram turned to violence, especially after its leader,
a young Muslim cleric named Mohammed Yusuf, was killed while in police custody.
Video footage of Mr. Yusuf’s interrogation soon went viral, but no one was
tried and punished for the crime. Seeking revenge, Boko Haram targeted the
police, the military and local politicians — all of them Muslims.
It was clear in 2009, as it is now, that the root cause of
violence and anger in both the north and south of Nigeria is endemic poverty
and hopelessness. Influential Nigerians from Maiduguri, where Boko Haram is
centered, pleaded with Mr. Jonathan’s government in June and July not to
respond to Boko Haram with force alone. Likewise, the American ambassador,
Terence P. McCulley, has emphasized, both privately and publicly, that the
government must address socio-economic deprivation, which is most severe in the
north. No one seems to be listening.
Instead, approximately 25 percent of Nigeria’s budget for
2012 is allocated for security, even though the military and police routinely respond
to attacks with indiscriminate force and killing. Indeed, according to many
Nigerians I’ve talked to from the northeast, the army is more feared than Boko
Haram.
Meanwhile, Boko Haram has evolved into a franchise that
includes criminal groups claiming its identity. Revealingly, Nigeria’s State
Security Services issued a statement on Nov. 30, identifying members of four
“criminal syndicates” that send threatening text messages in the name of Boko
Haram. Southern Nigerians — not northern Muslims — ran three of these four
syndicates, including the one that led the American Embassy and other foreign
missions to issue warnings that emptied Abuja’s high-end hotels. And last week,
the security services arrested a Christian southerner wearing northern Muslim
garb as he set fire to a church in the Niger Delta. In Nigeria, religious
terrorism is not always what it seems.
None of this excuses Boko Haram’s killing of innocents. But
it does raise questions about a rush to judgment that obscures Nigeria’s
complex reality.
Many Nigerians already believe that the United States
unconditionally supports Mr. Jonathan’s government, despite its failings. They
believe this because Washington praised the April elections that international
observers found credible, but that many Nigerians, especially in the north, did
not. Likewise, Washington’s financial support for Nigeria’s security forces,
despite their documented human rights abuses, further inflames Muslim Nigerians
in the north.
Mr. Jonathan’s recent actions have not helped matters. He
told Nigerians last week, “The issue of bombing is one of the burdens we must
live with.” On New Year’s Eve, he declared a state of emergency in parts of
four northern states, leading to increased military activity there. And on New
Year’s Day, he removed a subsidy on petroleum products, more than doubling the
price of fuel. In a country where 90 percent of the population lives on $2 or
less a day, anger is rising nationwide as the costs of transport and food
increase dramatically.
Since Nigeria’s return to civilian rule in 1999, many
politicians have used ethnic and regional differences and, most disastrously,
religion for their own purposes. Northern Muslims — indeed, all Nigerians — are
desperate for a government that responds to their most basic needs: personal
security and hope for improvement in their lives. They are outraged over
government policies and expenditures that undermine both.
The United States should not allow itself to be drawn into
this quicksand by focusing on Boko Haram alone. Washington is already seen by
many northern Muslims — including a large number of longtime admirers of
America — as biased toward a Christian president from the south. The United
States must work to avoid a self-fulfilling prophecy that makes us into their
enemy. Placing Boko Haram on the foreign terrorist list would cement such views
and make more Nigerians fear and distrust America.
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Jean Herskovits, a professor of history at the State
University of New York, Purchase, has written on Nigerian politics since 1970.
