‘The only good jihadist is a dead jihadist’:Boko Haram and de-radicalization around Lake Chad

ABSTRACT

This article discusses the shortcomings of the “de-radicalization doctrine” in sub-Saharan Africa. The issues raised are illustrated by the war against Boko Haram, which involves Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Cameroon. Relying on interviews with security officers, insurgents, civil servants, displaced people, humanitarian workers and Muslim and Christian clerics in Nigeria, Niger and Chad since 2005, the investigation shows that the four states focused on repression rather than demobilisation programs in prison or outdoors. The Boko Haram crisis is mainly a story of mismanagement. The article thus challenges the assumptions of the “de-radicalization doctrine” in Muslim Africa South of the Sahara. First, attempts to de-radicalize jihadi terrorists tend to focus too much on religious fanaticism and the exegesis of the Quran. Secondly, they are neither feasible nor efficient. Finally, they obscure priorities that are more important to counter extremism and demobilize insurgents.

KEYWORDS:

• Boko Haram
• de-radicalization
• Nigeria
• Niger
• Chad
• Cameroon

Notes

1. Bjørgo, Tore & Horgan, John (eds.) (2009). Leaving Terrorism Behind: Individual and Collective Disengagement, London, Routledge, 308p.; Horgan, John [2009], Walking Away from Terrorism: Accounts of Disengagement from Radical and Extremist Movements, London, Routledge, 186p.

2. Pluchinsky, Dennis [2008], ‘Global Jihadist Recidivism: A Red Flag’, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism vol.31, n°3, pp.182–200.

3. El-Said, Hamed (2015) New Approaches to Countering Terrorism: Designing and Evaluating Counter Radicalization and De-Radicalization Programs, New York, Palgrave Macmillan, p.254.

4. Allan, Harriet et al. [2015], Drivers of Violent Extremism: Hypotheses and Literature Review, London, Royal United Services Institute, 65p.

5. For instance, it is argued that the narrative of a prosperous country explains why the civil war in Ivory Coast did not turn into a genocide, unlike the case of Rwanda. See Straus, Scott [2015], Making and Unmaking Nations. War, Leadership, and Genocide in Modern Africa, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 386p.

6. UNDP [2017], Journey to Extremism in Africa: Drivers, Incentives and the Tipping Point for Recruitment, New York, UNDP, p.79.

7. The nickname Boko Haram was coined by local journalists and spread during the uprising of July 2009, especially on Radio Kaduna. Before, the sect bore no name and was sometimes called Yusufiyya, after its founder. Under the leadership of Abubakar Shekau, it then claimed to be the ‘Sunni Community for the Propagation of the Prophet’s Teachings and Jihad’ (Jama’atu Ahlis-Sunnah Lidda’awati Wal Jihad). In March 2015, one of the factions of the group paid allegiance to Daesh and decided to be called the Islamic State in West Africa (Wilayat Gharb Ifriqiyah).

8. According to the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) quoted in the Daily Trust of 5 October 2015, 308 teachers were killed in Borno, 75 in Adamawa, 18 in Yobe, 25 in Kaduna, 120 in Plateau, 63 in Kano and two in Gombe. See: http://www.dailytrust.com.ng/news/education/600-teachers-killed-by-boko-haram-19-000-displaced-nut/113731.html#Qiq7ge2JV74mDCuk.99.

9. The insurgents, for instance, targeted the oldest primary school in Northeast Nigeria, Yerwa Central Primary School, which was located close to Mohammed Yusuf’s mosque and had been established in Maiduguri in 1915. The University of Maiduguri (UNIMAID), a federal institution, was also attacked several times. However, it always remained open during the crisis, unlike universities in Southern Nigeria which were closed because of strikes, non payment of salaries or students’ riots. See The Daily Trust dated 21 March 2016.

10. This includes 910 schools destroyed and 1500 closed in North-East Nigeria between 2009 and 2015. In the region of Diffa in the Republic of Niger, 150 schools were closed and 12,000 pupils were left stranded at the end of 2015.

11. In one case, it was the locals who invited soldiers to lodge in their school to protect them. They were then attacked specifically because of the presence of the army. See Segun, Mausi [2016], ‘They Set the Classrooms on Fire’. Attacks on Education in Northeast Nigeria, New York, Human Rights Watch, p. 57.

12. In Borno in 2013, for instance, local civil servants fired by the government allegedly supported the insurgents and attacked some schools to avenge the sacking of an educational officer who had been accused of pocketing the salaries of 4000 ghost teachers. They operated by night to avoid being recognized by their community. Interviews in Maiduguri, October 2015.

13. For instance, a study of 45 adult male detainees in Kuje prison, near Abuja, has shown that Boko Haram suspects had a very rudimentary understanding of religion; many of them had actually never seen a Quran! These findings have been confirmed by larger samples and interviews conducted by the author with 51 Boko Haram alleged members in the Republic of Niger in 2015. See Barkindo, Atta & Shane Bryans [2016], “De-Radicalising Prisoners in Nigeria: developing a basic prison based de-radicalisation programme”, Journal for Deradicalization n°7, p.17; UNDP [2017], Journey to Extremism in Africa: Drivers, Incentives and the Tipping Point for Recruitment, New York, UNDP, 112p.; Pérouse de Montclos, Marc-Antoine [2018], “De la propagation des insurrections djihadistes au Niger et au Nigeria: une analyse à partir du cas de Boko Haram”, in Apard, Elodie (ed.), Islam et circulation des idées entre Niger et Nigeria, Ibadan, IFRA, Leiden, African Studies Centre, Waposo Series n°4, forthcoming.

14. Pérouse de Montclos, Marc-Antoine [2018], L’Afrique, nouvelle frontière du djihad ? Paris, La Découverte, 239p.

15. Masud, Muhammad Khalid [1990], ‘The Obligation to Migrate: The Doctrine of Hijra in Islamic Law’, in Eickelman, Dale & Piscatori, James (ed.), Muslim Travellers: Pilgrimage, Migration, and the Religious Imagination, Berkeley, University of California Press, p.41.

16. Ansar al-Sunna al-Muhammadiyya was founded in Egypt in 1926 and Sudan in 1939. In Chad, it was officially disbanded and its activities were banned by decrees dated 31 March 2015 and 27 April 2016.

17. Thurston, Alex [2016], Salafism in Nigeria: Islam, Preaching, and Politics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p.15.

18. Lewis, Bernard [2012], Notes on a Century: Reflections of a Middle East Historian, London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 388p.; Said, Edward [2003], Orientalism, London, Penguin books, 396p.

19. Roy, Olivier [2016], Le djihad et la mort, Paris, Seuil, 166p.; Kepel, Gilles [2008], Terreur et martyre: relever le défi de la civilisation, Paris, Flammarion, 365p.

20. Atran, Scott [June 2016], ‘The Devoted Actor. Unconditional Commitment and Intractable Conflict across Cultures’, Current Anthropology vol.57, Supplement, pp.192–203.

21. According to a survey conducted in Northern Nigeria in 2013, for instance, a large majority of almajirai considered that foreign cultures corrupted Islam. See Centre for Regional Integration and Development [2013], Exploratory Survey Report on the Introduction of Peace and Vocational Education into Islamiyyah and Qur’anic Schools in Nigeria, Abuja, U.S. Institute of Peace, p. 147.

22. Yusha’u, M.A., A.K. Tsafe, S.I. Babangida, and N.I. Lawal [2013], ‘Problems and Prospects of Integrated Almajiri Education in Northern Nigeria’, Scientific Journal of Pure and Applied Sciences 2(3): 125–134.

23. Baba, Nasir Mohammed [2012], ‘Between the State and the Malam: Understanding the Forces that Shape the Future of Nigeria’s Qur’anic Schools’, Journal of Law, Religion & State n°1, p. 104.

24. Nigeria Education Data Survey (NEDS) on Religious Schooling in Nigeria, 2010.

25. Ibid., 2010.

26. Lubeck, Paul [1986], Islam and Urban Labor in Northern Nigeria: The Making of a Muslim Working Class, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 362 pp.

27. Van Dalen, Dorrit [2016], Doubt, Scholarship and Society in 17th-Century Central Sudanic Africa, Leiden, Brill, p.103.

28. Pérouse de Montclos, Marc-Antoine [2017], ‘Boko Haram: A Jihadist Enigma’, in Hentz, James & Solomon, Hussein (ed.), Understanding Boko Haram: Terrorism and Insurgency in Africa, London, Routledge, pp.19–40.

29. Inks, Lisa, Rebecca Wolfe & Iveta Ouvry (ed.) [2016], Motivations and Empty Promises: Voices of Former Boko Haram Combatants and Nigerian Youth, Portland (Orgeon), Mercy Corps, p. 16.

30. Botha, Anneli & Abdile, Mahdi [2016], Getting behind the profiles of Boko Haram members and factors contributing to radicalisation versus working towards peace, Vienna, King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz Centre for Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue (KAICIID), 7p.

31. For similar results, see also Inks, Lisa, Rebecca Wolfe & Iveta Ouvry (ed.) [2016], Motivations and Empty Promises: Voices of former Boko Haram Combatants and Nigerian Youth, Portland (Orgeon), Mercy Corps, p.24.

32. In 1981–82, for instance, Biu, Hawul, Kwaya Kusar, and Shani local governments in southern Borno had a total primary enrolment of 36% of school-age children in the state, against 6% in Kukawa, Gubio, Damasak, Abadam and Nganzai, which were predominantly Kanuri in the north. In the same vein, it was estimated that less than 13% of Kanuri children in Maiduguri attended primary school. See Gubio, Bulama Mali [1983], Kanuri Resistance to Western Education: Causes and Implications for Socio-Economic Development of Borno State, Kano, Bayero University, Master, p. 114–5.

33. This in contrast with the negotiation that started in Algeria in 1997 and ended with a peace agreement in 2005, allowing for 7000 militants of the Islamic Salvation Front to be pardoned and liberated during 2 amnesty programmes in 1999 and 2000.

34. Ashour, Omar (2009). The De-Radicalization of Jihadists: Transforming Armed Islamist Movements, London, Routledge, 205p.

35. Galtimari, Usman Gaji (ed.) [Oct. 2009], Report of the administrative committee of inquiry into the Boko Haram insurgency in Borno State, Maiduguri, Borno State, 5 vol. The author has a copy.

36. See the testimony of a Sheikh of a Sufi brotherhood, the Tijjaniyya, which is opposed to the Salafi doctrine of Boko Haram: Abulfathi, Khalifa Aliyu Ahmed [2016], The Metamorphosis of Boko Haram: A Local’s Perspective, Maiduguri, polycop., 11p.

37. Pérouse de Montclos, Marc-Antoine [Oct. 2016], ‘A Sectarian Jihad in Nigeria: The Case of Boko Haram’, Small Wars & Insurgencies Vol.27, n°5, pp.878–95.

38. For instance, only 19 of the 318 pages of a federal report on the North East dealt with governance issues, with a few remarks on civic education, reforming the penal system, and the use of videos to promote reconciliation and de-radicalize Boko Haram members in prison. See PINE [2014], The PINE Long-Term Economic Reconstruction and Redevelopment Plan 2015–2020: Initiatives, Strategies and Implementation Framework, Abuja, Presidential Initiative for the North East, 318 pp.

39. Galtimari, Usman Gaji (ed.) [Sept. 2011], Final Report of the Presidential committee on Security Challenges in the North-East Zone of Nigeria, Abuja, Federal Government of Nigeria, p. 13.

40. In the whole country, only 5 rehabilitation centres still worked out of the 10 (including one in Maiduguri) that had been opened following the recommendations of a White Paper released in 1974. See Daily Trust 14 May 2017, p.45.

41. ICG [2017], Boko Haram au Tchad: au-delà de la réponse sécuritaire, Brussels, International Crisis Group, p.29.

42. ICG [2016], Cameroun: faire face à Boko Haram, Brussels, International Crisis Group, p.25.

43. Since independence in 1960, penal codes had been domesticated at the local level and important divergences had developed after the break-up of the former Northern Region in 1967. For civilian affairs, the objective of the reform in 2016 was also to reduce the cost for plaintiffs and make magistrate courts more attractive compared to Sharia and customary courts.

44. A total of 145 individuals were involved according to official sources. See: http://abonnes.lemonde.fr/afrique/article/2017/04/16/niger-la-victoire-sur-boko-haram-ne-sera-pas-que-militaire_5112184_3212.html.

45. Out of 168 detainees to be de-radicalized in the small town of Goudoumaria in November 2017, for instance, only 42 were true combatants. See Centre pour le Dialogue Humanitaire [2017], Rapport de profilage des ex-membres de Boko Haram « repentis » internés à Goudoumaria, Genève, CDH, 9p.

46. Interviews with the préfet of Kaya in Baga Sola, Dimouya Souapebe, and former combatants of Boko Haram in Koulkime Trois, June 2017.

47. Shankar, Shobana [2016], Who Shall Enter Paradise ? Christian Origins in Muslim Northern Nigeria, ca. 1890–1975, Athens, Ohio University Press, p.140.

48. In the same vein, he claimed that he lost the 2015 presidential elections because of a conspiracy between the American President Barack Obama, British Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Francois Hollande. See Adeniyi, Olusegun [2017], Against The Run of Play, Lagos, Kachifo Ltd, 221p.

49. Thurston, Alex [2017], Boko Haram: The History of an Africanist Jihadist Movement, Princeton, Princeton University Press, pp.185 & 203.

50. Western powers did not help either. While Human Rights Watch cautioned against an amnesty in 2013, the US, the UK, and the UN declared Boko Haram to be a terrorist group, a move that encouraged military repression and closed the doors of negotiation in Nigeria. They even decided to freeze the foreign bank accounts of a group that had no assets and supporters abroad! Such declarations were only discursive and meant to endorse the idea that military repression was the only solution.

51. Some of these prisoners resettled in the northeast and were allegedly involved in riots in Maiduguri in October 1982, just after their release, then in Yola in March 1984 and Gombe in April 1985.

52. In Borno, the press office is thus located within State House and the journalists’ access to Internet depends on the goodwill of the authorities. Interviews by the author with journalists in Maiduguri in 2016 and 2017.

53. Barkindo, Atta & Shane Bryans [2016], “De-Radicalising Prisoners in Nigeria: developing a basic prison based de-radicalisation programme”, Journal for Deradicalization n°7, p.18.

54. Some Boko Haram prisoners were also allegedly ‘de-radicalized’ and kept in detention. Disputed figures go from 1000 in Gombe and 30 in Kuje near Abuja, the federal capital. In one case, a former Boko Haram bride left the programme in 2017 and went back to the group on the Sambisa Forest. See: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nigeria-boko-haram-women/disappearance-of-boko-haram-bride-sparks-concern-about-return-to-militants-idUSKBN1961YT.

55. Many of these organizations don’t seem to be professional and bear funny names. Launched in Chad in 2018, the Centre d’études pour le développement et la prévention de l’extrémisme can for instance be understood in French as a center that aims both to develop and to prevent extremism.

56. Of course it does not mean that more developed countries never recorded failures. Former detainees in Guantanamo such as Said al-Shihri and Ibrahim al-Rubaish thus went through a Saudi rehabilitation and reintegration programme. After their release in 2008, however, they ran away to Yemen and founded Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). See Pluchinsky, Dennis [2008], ‘Global Jihadist Recidivism: A Red Flag’, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism vol.31, n°3, pp.182–200.

57. Out of 79 jihadi prisoners in Northern Sudan in 2007-2008, a few were released, some got financial support for their rehabilitation, and 6 returned to violent groups in Sudan or Somalia; in Mauritania, 11 out of 60 jihadi prisoners refused to participate to de-radicalization programs, 35 were released during a presidential amnesty in 2010 and one of them returned to AQIM. See El-Said, Hamed (2015) New Approaches to Countering Terrorism: Designing and Evaluating Counter Radicalization and De-Radicalization Programs, New York, Palgrave Macmillan, pp.209 & 128.

58. Interviews of the author with residents of the region of Diffa, 2017.

59. Out of 79 jihadi prisoners in Northern Sudan in 2007–2008, a few were released, some got financial support for their rehabilitation, and 6 returned to violent groups in Sudan or Somalia; in Mauritania, 11 out of 60 jihadi prisoners refused to participate to de-radicalization programmes, 35 were released during a presidential amnesty in 2010 and one of them returned to AQIM. See El-Said, Hamed (2015) New Approaches to Countering Terrorism: Designing and Evaluating Counter Radicalization and De-Radicalization Programs, New York, Palgrave Macmillan, pp.209 & 128.

60. See General Bruno Clément-Bollée quoted in Guillaumont Jeanneney, Sylviane (ed.) [2016], Allier sécurité et développement pour le Sahel, vol.1, Clermont-Ferrand, FERDI, p.55.