Boko Haram: America’s profound misjudgment

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THE background to a potentially catastrophic foreign policy push is gradually evolving in Washington, United States, as the political establishment there shapes its official response to the activities of Nigeria’s violent Islamic sect, Boko Haram.

At different fora, Under Secretary for Africa, Johnnie Carson; Under Secretary for Political Affairs, Wendy Sherman; and former President Bill Clinton have dismissed the notion of terrorism, preferring rather to categorise the serial bombings, shootings and killings by the sect as “insurgency” arising from “social inequities.”

This is dangerous. Carson has argued for increased US development assistance to “Nigeria’s restive Muslim-majority North,” citing purported disparities in revenue flows to the North and South.

He wants President Goodluck Jonathan’s government to forge “a new social compact with northern citizens” because, as he put it, “Nigerians are hungry for progress and improvement in their lives, but Northern Nigerians feel this need most acutely.” Sherman was as emphatic: “In Northern Nigeria, it is critical that the government address the social and economic disparities that have contributed to the Boko Haram crisis.” Taking his misinformation further, Carson has suggested that the Nigerian government should consider creating a Ministry of Northern Affairs or a development commission similar to what it did in response to the Niger Delta crisis. In Lagos, on February 13, 2012, ex-President Clinton had reasoned: “You can’t just have this level of inequality persist. That’s what’s fuelling all this stuff.”

There are several things wrong with these remarks.

The US State Department needs a dispassionate analysis of all relevant facts about the origin and ideology of the Islamic group, as well as the patterns and prime targets of its attacks, to attain a level of understanding that is credible and higher than what is available to Carson, Sherman and Clinton.

A bi-partisan report recently produced by the Sub-Committee (of the US Congress) on Counter-Terrorism and Intelligence, titled, “Boko Haram: Emerging Threat to the US Homeland,” is a safer working document for the American government because it captures the essential spirit and preoccupations of Boko Haram.

Confessedly jihadist in the mould of Al Qaeda, Boko Haram – from the meaning of its name to its press statements online and in print and through video clips – has made no pretensions about its mission.

The bloodthirsty group rejects the Nigerian state, its Constitution and political institutions, and insists on imposing an Islamic theocracy reminiscent of the model espoused and institutionalised by the Taliban sect in Afghanistan between 1996 and 2001. Its preferred method of achieving its aims is terrorism – mass killings and bombings.

As far back as the mid-1990s, Muhammed Yusuf, the group’s early leader, had called upon Muslims to remove, by force if necessary, Nigeria’s secular government and replace it with an Islamic state.

In line with the meaning of its name (Western education is a sin), places of worship, state institutions, groups, individuals and edifices associated with western civilisation, have been the prime targets of its vicious bombing campaigns and shootings, which have claimed hundreds of lives since July, 2009 and crippled businesses.

Poverty and every other component of the economic malaise highlighted by pro-Boko Haram propagandists are not restricted to the North.

The situation in the North is “grim,” as observed by Carson, primarily because of wrong priorities by state governments.

 Like the immediate past Governor of Kano State, Ibrahim Shekarau, who reportedly spent over N10 billion on sponsorship of Muslim pilgrims between 2003 and 2011, northern politicians squander state resources on programmes and projects that enhance their personal image, but contribute little to the general well-being of the people. Worse still, several have politicised religion and polarised their communities.

The absurd policy options being canvassed by Carson, Sherman and Clinton are not unexpected, because the Americans are hooked onto cynics within the Nigerian community who would exploit the weaknesses of political leadership to advance their own ill-digested and ill-conceived schemes.

With 60.9 per cent of the entire population living on less than $1 per day and the government evidently directionless, opportunists could latch on to socio-economic factors to further their ends. There are many good reasons to worry about poverty, and to take action to alleviate it. But ending terrorism is not one of them.

What creates and sustains mass killing is hate. It is difficult to ascribe factors that fuel other violent crimes to terrorism.

Most of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were middle-class Saudi Arabians and many were well-educated. And Osama bin Laden himself was from one of the richest families in the Middle East.

The Americans should remember that Umaru Abdulmutallab, whom they have jailed for life, did not decide on bombing the American jetliner because of the economic situation in Nigeria. He is the son of a multi-millionaire and had a privileged upbringing.

The link between poverty and terror is a myth. A Harvard professor, Albert Abadie, disclosed in the Harvard Gazette of October 2004 that the “freest countries experienced little terrorism; and the same was true for the most oppressed.

 It was in the middle – where politics was unsettled and evolving and governments were often weak – that suffered the most.”

In 2003, Alan B. Krueger and Jitka Maleckova concluded in Journal of Economic Perspectives that “little reason for optimism that a reduction in poverty or an increase in educational attainment would meaningfully reduce international terrorism. Any connection between poverty, education and terrorism is indirect, complicated and probably quite weak.”

The Federal Government should see in the sharply contrasting approach of the US government to counter-terrorism in Yemen and elsewhere sufficient cause to reject the advice by Carson and his group. Our government must remain focused on efforts to crush Boko Haram and to expose and disgrace its sponsors and promoters. As the Vice-President, Namadi Sambo, says, Boko Haram members are just “people that have terrorist activities in their mind.”

Culled from The Punch...Editorial Board.

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