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ABSTRACT
This article challenges the ways in which much scholarship on terrorism and insurgencies have been ‘a-mobile.’ It addresses this problem by drawing on the ‘new mobilities paradigm’ to explore analytically how the decade-long Boko Haram insurgency in north-eastern Nigeria have developed around the system of automobility and have simultaneously been transformed by it. The analysis extends to the impact of the violent insurgency and state regulation on populations whose livelihoods are rooted in mobility. Foregrounding automobility as a lethal weapon, an instrument of power, the article recasts the evolution and mutation of Boko Haram in light of how the group weaponizes transportation/mobility, and how it interacts with differently and differentially mobile others. This article should be seen as a first attempt to insert the subject of (auto)mobility into the rapidly growing literature on Boko Haram, contributing to our meagre understanding of how movement and stasis influences the group’s tactics and choice of targets. It brings together qualitative data collected through in-depth interviews, focus group discussions, media reports, and hours of observations at roadblocks and control posts operated by a local security assemblage of police officers, paramilitaries, and soldiers.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on contributor
Daniel E. Agbiboa is Assistant Professor of African and African American Studies at Harvard University. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Oxford and an M.Phil. from the University of Cambridge. He is the author of Transport, transgression and politics in African cities: the rhythm of chaos (2018). His works have appeared in major journals including African affairs, the Journal of modern African studies, Review of African political economy, and Third world quarterly.
Notes
1 Automobility may be defined as a ‘complex amalgam of interlocking machines, social practices, and ways of dwelling, not in a stationary home, but in a mobile, semi-privatized, and hugely dangerous capsule’ (Sheller and Urry Citation2000, p. 739).
2 Okada was the name of Nigeria's first (and for a time, largest) private airline. Only the elite could afford to travel on ‘Okada Airlines.’
3 Author’s interview with Alhaji Bulama Kawu, Gubja LGA, Yobe State, November 2017.
4 Author’s interview with local residents, Wulari area of Maiduguri, 08 December 2017.
5 Author’s interview with Ibrahim in Hausari ward, Maiduguri, December 2017.
6 Author’s interview with Ibrahim in Wulari area of Maiduguri, 12 December 2017.
7 Author’s interview, Maiduguri, January 2018.
8 Prior to the insurgency in 2009, northeastern Nigeria did more trade across national borders than it did with the rest of Nigeria. Today, there is little to no trade as borders remain closed (Mercy Corps Citation2017, p. 1).
9 “Nigeria’s Living Standard Measurement Study-Integrated Survey on Agriculture, 2012–2013.” World Bank, Available from: http://surveys.worldbank.org/lsms/programs/integrated-surveys-agriculture-ISA.
10 Author’s interview with IDPs at Abadam town, Borno State, December 2017.
11 Author’s interview, Mubi local government area, Adamawa State, January 2019.
12 Among the most strategic roads closed are the Konduga-Bama, Bama-Gowza roads, the Maiduguri-Dikwa-Gamboru roads, and the Maiduguri-Damboa road, and the Maiduguri-Baga road.
13 Author’s interview with a group of yan gora along Maiduguri-Damaturu-Kano road, December, 2017.
14 Author’s interview, Adamawa State, January 2018.
15 Author’s interview, Adamawa State, January 2018.
16 Author’s interview with Abdullahi Haruna, Yola, Adamawa State, January 2018.
17 Keke napeps were originally introduced in Nigeria in 2000 as an intervention tool for job creation and poverty alleviation.
18 Author’s interview, Mubi area of Adamawa State, January 2017.
19 Author’s interview, Maiduguri, December 2017.