For the past decade, Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation and its largest economy, has been menaced by a terrorist onslaught unprecedented in violence and savagery. Originating in the poverty-stricken north-east, it has spread like an octopus to the federal capital and beyond. More than 20,000 souls have perished.
The once mighty Nigerian armed forces have been brought to their knees. The common ranks have mutinied for being sent to the fields as cannon fodder for Boko Haram. Meanwhile, an implicit arms embargo has been imposed on the government by the faceless “international community”.
There are several conflicting characterisations of Boko Haram: there are those who regard it as a religious movement that aims to forcibly Islamise Nigeria in line with the ambitions of Global Jihad; there are others who see it as a political-ideological movement sponsored by northern elites in their desperate bid to recapture power; there are those who view it as a millenarian cult that has nothing to do with Islam or politics; and there are yet others who see it as a foreign conspiracy with the long-tem aim of dismembering our federation. The uncomfortable truth is that Boko Haram may, in fact, be all of the above.
At the heart of it is poverty. An estimated 60 percent of Nigerians live under conditions of absolute poverty as internationally defined, the majority of them in the north. Nigeria’s immense petroleum wealth has generated a small crop of billionaires who lord it over the impoverished majority. But social science provides no evidence of a statistical correlation, or even causal relationship, between poverty and terrorism. We have to link poverty to the structure of domestic politics, the dynamics of power and inter-group relations and how these are manipulated by ruling elites.
Sociological factors deriving from rapid urbanisation also contribute to spurring alienation and, ultimately, political violence. The sprawling slums of Kaduna, Jos, Abuja, Lagos and Maiduguri are cesspools of crime, prostitution and violence. When youths drift into cities and lose the traditional moorings that provided meaning to their lives, they can easily fall prey to extremist Mullahs. An estimated 9.5 million Almajiris (itinerant youths who attend traditional koranic schools) wander the streets of northern Nigeria as malnourished mendicants. They are often the reserve army for religious murderers.
Globalisation has opened up vast possibilities for wealth creation. But it has also had a dis-equilibrating impact on nations and civic communities. It has profoundly altered the character of the Westphalian territorial state as we have always known it, compounding the challenge of governance in Nigeria as elsewhere. Alienated groups are easily connected by new ICTs, enabling them to share information, strategies and tactics while disseminating propaganda materials as a means of recruitment and socialisation into their theology of death.
A country with long antecedents of political violence, civil war and dictatorship nurtures an environment that is more susceptible to terrorism. As a consequence, Nigerians are beginning to accept random violence as their lot and destiny.
Nigeria is speedily going along the trajectory of failing states. The symptoms are evident: inability to maintain law and order; random, gratuitous, nihilistic violence; cultism; failure to provide things as basic as electricity; the parlous state of infrastructures; inability to effectively patrol its borders; high level corruption; the carnage on its highways; and failure to keep the common peace and to secure the lives and property of citizens. Millions of youths wonder the streets with no hope.
Linked to this is the dysfunctional character of our ethnic politics. Given that the constitution places awesome powers on the federal centre, the titanic struggle to capture the presidency becomes the most coveted prize of all; a zero-sum game in which the winners corner the nation’s wealth for themselves and their small coterie of acolytes at the expense of everybody else.
There is also the challenge posed to the secular-constitutional order itself. There are those who romanticise about the bygone age of a Righteous Imamate that never existed. Many reject secular constitutionalism. The illegitimate 1999 Constitution created a loophole allowing states to institute Sharia law to the detriment of non-Muslims who live among them. It has been the cause of much anguish.
External factors cannot be ignored. Nigeria was often the focus of Muammar Gadaffi’s psychotic obsessions. Iran and Saudi Arabia have provided considerable financing to various groups in Nigeria. Not all the money has gone into mosques, schools and clinics. The discovery in October 2010 of 12 containers of highly sophisticated arms traceable to Iran was perhaps only the tip of the iceberg.
The attitude of the international community has been baffling. The EU has only made pious, elliptic noises. Washington has blamed the Nigerian government and the military for alleged “excesses” against Boko Haram. Most of the weapons used by the insurgents are American in provenance.
The embarrassing Wikileaks uncovered a lot of murk that we cannot ignore. From them we know that Washington regards Nigeria not as a “partner” but as an adversary. They would rather our country disintegrated so that our continent will become the playing field of empires in line with their jaundiced New Century agenda. The sad irony is that Nigerians love everything American.
There are also the duplicitous machinations of French multinational companies over the rumoured oil and gas reserves around Lake Chad. They already dominate the oil sector in neighbouring Chad. Now they want to gobble up Nigeria’s side of the basin as well. It may explain why Chadians, Cameroonians and Nigeriens constitute the bulk of Boko Haram’s murderous legions. And the silence of the Quai d’Orsay speaks volumes.
There is also Global Jihad. In their 1989 meeting in Abuja, the Organisation of Islamic States (OIC) singled out Nigeria, Kenya and Tanzania for their long-term objective of eradicating “in all its forms and ramifications all non-Muslim religions (especially) Christianity”. The military administration of General Ibrahim Babangida, who took our secular nation into the OIC by stealth, allegedly expended over $2 billion of taxpayers’ money on that obnoxious and illegal agenda.
Now is the time for Nigerians to rally together to save their country. Today, we face historic choices that transcend party and ethnicity and religion. Faced with the relentless onslaught from the Mediterranean shores of Carthage, the Roman statesman Cato the Elder used to end his oration in the Senate by declaring, “Delenda est Carthago” (Carthage must be destroyed). This is the maxim that must guide the statesman in facing up to such a historic challenge to the survival of our great country.
(Summarised text of a public lecture delivered at the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, University of Ghent, Belgium, Wednesday, 29 October, 2014).
OBADIAH MAILAFIA