Tue, Jan 8th, 2013 Opinion
In
an article two years ago that appeared in various online magazines
titled; “Nigeria as the New Center of World Terrorism” this writer tried
to call the attention of policy makers around the world to the danger
terrorist activities in the Nigerian state poses to the world community.
Today that warning remains valid. Islamic terrorism finds conducive
atmosphere in Nigeria for some reasons as we shall explain.
United
States Africa Command (AFRICOM) headed by General Carter Ham is based
out of Germany. AFRICOM is a US military outfit designed primarily to
respond in African situations that pose danger to American interests
anywhere. It is based in Stuttgart, Germany because it is alleged that
no African country would grant it a base in Africa. The contention being
that African countries feared that allowing such bases in their
territories would open them up to a new kind of foreign imperial
domination and manipulation. So right from the onset it appears that
opposition has trailed the organization and its intentions in Africa.
Some who are strongly opposed to it have called for the dismantling of
AFRICOM altogether saying that it will only work against the overall
interests of Africans. These people argue that what Africa needs is
economic investment and not military or any other form of aids.
It
is in recognition of this opposition that the US government tries to
use any available opportunity to explain its real intentions about
AFRICOM to any African audience. One of those opportunities presented
itself during the just concluded Chinua Achebe’s Colloquium at Brown
University in Providence, Rohde Island in the United States. Ham
addressed a plenary session on the second day of the two day event. The
colloquium took place between 7 and 8 of December, 2012. In the audience
were many international scholars and members of the diplomatic corps.
In his address Ham explained AFRICOM’s mission in Africa to the
audience. This writer was in the audience and heard him tell of how it
is the intention of American government, through AFRICOM to work as
partner with governments in Africa to tackle the various domestic
security issues of the African states especially in the area of rapidly
rising incidents of Islamic insurgencies.
Of
course the ultimate concern of United States as Ham clearly stated is
the danger that these terrorist activities might and do pose to US
citizens and business interests anywhere within the African continent.
Only recently Islamic insurgents attacked, burned US Consulate and
killed four Americans in Benghazi, Libya. Because the Libyan attack took
place on September 11, 2012 some people have speculated that the
terrorists were reenacting the 2001 September 11 attack on the World
Trade Center in New York City. The Benghazi attack killed the US
ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens and three other Americans. Without
trying to overstretch the issue Islamic insurgents’ activities in the
various African countries pose real danger to not just Americans and
their interests within Africa and beyond, other Westerners too are
increasingly being targeted. This can be better understood in the light
of the name of one of the radical organizations. We refer to the
Nigerian Boko Haram. A literal translation of the group’s name is “book
is forbidden”. In this instance, Western books and ideas that in Islam
are considered to be negatively influencing and corrupting pure Islamic
knowledge and sharia.
In
the just concluded year of 2012 there were various incidents of
kidnapping and killing of many Westerners in Nigeria and around the
Continent. A British and an Italian, construction workers were kidnapped
in Kebbi State and murdered in Sokoto in March 2012 by Islamic
extremists in Northern Nigeria. The two Europeans Chris McManus, 28, a
British citizen, and Italian Franco Lamolinara 27, were murdered by
their captors after being held for nearly one year. Then there was the
German Edgar Raupach killed by the jihadists in May of the same year in
Kano Northern Nigeria. The group that killed the German is said to have
kidnapped him to use and bargain for the release of the wife of an al
Qaeda operative in Germany. Both husband and wife had been jailed in
Germany for violent Islamic jihad activities in that country. Al Qaeda
affiliates in Nigeria abducted the German engineer with the intention of
freeing him in exchange for the jailed woman but killed him when an
attempt to free him by security forces failed. The 2009 Nigerian
Underwear Bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab who attempted blowing up
Northwest Airlines Flight 253 over the Detroit airspace in the United
States also claimed to be working for and under inspiration from al
Qaeda network.
The
most recent incident is the kidnapping of the 63 year old French
national in Katsina State Northern Nigeria in what the French President
François Hollande said is probably linked to the North Africa’s branch
of al Qaeda network, AQIM. A radical Islamist group known as Ansaru has
since claimed responsibility for the kidnapping of the French engineer
Francis Colump this last December of 2012. Ansaru is said to have links
with Boko Haram and the international al Qaeda network as well as the
dreadful al Shabab of Somalia. The group claims it is holding Colump and
other four French nationals who were kidnapped in Nigeria’s neighboring
country of Niger Republic because of the role French government is
playing in trying to dislodge the Islamists from Northern Mali. They
also said that they are protesting the “law (in France) outlawing the
use of Islamic veil by Muslim women, which is an infringement on (the
women’s) religious rights.” In a statement a few weeks ago British
government described Ansaru as a “Nigeria-based terrorist organization
which is aligned with al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, AQIM”. Boko Haram
and many of the other extremist groups operating in Nigeria are also
said to be connected with the Somali al Shabab and al Qaeda in the
Maghreb in North Africa. A new offshoot of the Boko Haram group has
recently emerged and it is just as deadly. It goes by the name Jama’atu
Ansarul Muslimina fi Biladis Sudan, JAMBS. The name roughly translates;
Vanguards for the Aid of Muslims in Black Africa (VAMBA).
On
August 1, 2012 the spokesperson for Boko Haram Abu Qaqa restated the
aim of the group. His declaration also represents those of the other
active groups operating within the country:
“We
want to stress that in our struggle, we only kill Nigerian government
functionaries, security agents, Christians, and anyone who pretends to
be a Muslim but engages in assisting security agents to arrest us. We
are responsible for the attacks in Bauchi and at the residence of Namadi
Sambo in Zaria as well as the one in Damaturu where we bombed a patrol
vehicle. We wish to extend our profound gratitude to Almighty Allah for
giving us the opportunity to fulfill the promise we made on launching
spontaneous attacks in Sokoto. We have reasons for all our activities
and we only kill those who wronged us. We attacked Sokoto because many
of our brethren have been incarcerated there.”
Clearly,
from the afore mentioned and many other incidents, there is every
reason for United States and Europeans to be concerned about the
security of their citizens and business interests in Nigeria and other
parts of Africa. Undoubtedly it is in attempt to do something about
these threats that informed the recent move by the US AFRICOM. A news
report has it that AFRICOM is preparing to send military personnel and
equipment to as many as 35 African countries (including Nigeria) to help
train and equip the countries’ military. It is aimed at increasing the
capacities of these countries to respond effectively to the scourge of
Islamic terrorism originating from their localities. By any standard,
this is an elaborate project that seems to be misdirected for several
reasons. It is bound to exert a lot of pressure on both the African
states and the United States from different quarters. Citizens of the
African countries are going to ask questions and express concerns. There
will be a considerable financial cost may be some wastes, on the United
States treasury. Many critics will use this as evidence in arguing the
point on why they believe that the US is only out to exploit the
Continent to her benefit.
To
effectively counter and eventually defeat the jihadists’ problem in
Nigeria and all over the Continent it will be more appropriate to take
time and understand its origin and correctly assess the challenges. The
jihadists engage in it as a struggle that has, for them ideological or
cultural and physical aspects. “. . . in our struggle, we only kill
Nigerian government functionaries, security agents, Christians, and
anyone who pretends to be a Muslim but engages in assisting security
agents to arrest us.” Islam is basically political as well as religious.
In its religious aspect it strives to control and dictate the religious
and cultural standards for its adherents. And to do it effectively it
must struggle to create and control a space that is exclusively for
Muslims where they can practice their religion. When trying to counter
such a phenomenon, it becomes harder to win when the focus is solely on
military equipment and tactics. Here is one reason why; “Despite a heavy
military and police presence, the sect’s adherents have continued to
launch frequent attacks.” That is how the Associated Press recently
reported on one incident of the numerous intransigencies of Islamic
terrorism in Nigeria.
We
want to believe that AFRICOM efforts are not simply to impress the
Africans with the military might of the United States. So, let’s take
for granted that there is genuine intention to solve the menace of
Islamic terrorists in Nigeria and throughout Africa. Using Nigeria as
the model we know that the cause of the religious tension and most of
the other problems there is the direct effect of the colonial state
structure of the country. The same is applicable to the other parts of
the Continent. Nigeria’s Boko Haram and the rest insurgents’ problems in
African can be solved through the use of dialog. Talking of dialog, no
one is suggesting negotiating with terrorists. The kind of negotiation
that will work here is to dialog to renegotiate the issue of the
colonial state boundaries in Nigeria and the other parts of Africa.
Majority of Nigeria’s terrorist problems have their root in the
structural defects of the Nigerian state.
Though
on several occasions some commentators, including the United States
State Department have cited some other issues such as poverty and
political corruption as being the reasons for the problem, but those are
mere effects of the underlying problem. Islamic insurgences in Nigeria
and the other parts of Africa compare to a hydra headed monster. We can
succeed through military force to cut off a few heads like Boko Haram,
Ansaru or any other group. But that will just be a temporary victory in
which so much human and material resources would have been wasted to
achieve very little result that would not last. The monster will regrow
those militarily wounded heads. When it heals enough it will tend to be
more vicious and devastating. Terrorist monster of Northern Nigeria and
the entire continent will not die by merely cutting off some of its
heads. That had been done before. What is needed is to apply a lasting
solution to the problem. Nigeria’s terrorist problem can be solved if we
decide to go after it at the root rather than the reactionary approach
as is the case right now.
One
important observation that policy makers in this matter should not
overlook is the fact that the killings are actually one sided. The
killers are killing only the people whom they consider to be the
impediment on their way to establishing their ideal Islamic state: “We
only kill Nigerian government functionaries, security agents,
Christians, and anyone who pretends to be a Muslim but engages in
assisting security agents to arrest us.” In Nigeria it’s neither a
religious nor an ethnic fight in the conventional sense of it. The other
parties getting killed, apart from the government are not engaging
their attackers. The intention of the killers as they have stated many
times, is to ethnically/religiously cleanse that part of the country of
the people and structures that impede their desire to establish an
Islamic state in Northern Nigeria. The truth is that the North of the
country which is largely Islamic wants to be left alone. They want a
state of their own free of Christians and believer of other religions.
Nigeria’s unity is forced on the various parts of the country by the
British colonial rulers and ever since has created the endemic clash of
non-compatible peoples and cultures. For anyone who has followed the
pattern of events and killings, it’s not difficult to observe that the
attackers have been consistent. They attack and eliminate those targets
they consider to be representative of or aid the obstacles to their
goal. They target Igbo people and Western nationals because they
consider them as local representatives and foreign assistants
respectively of the Islam polluting agent: Christianity.
It
is suggested that AFRICOM and other Western interest groups should
approach the problem bearing in mind the terrible effect of the
defective colonial state structure in Nigeria and all over the
Continent. They should instead aid Nigeria and other African countries
in adopting a multi-state solution to solve the seemingly endemic
problem. With this approach, Africans and their political leadership
will not need to be afraid of any imperialistic threat from the United
States or any other Western power. And with that as the case, the only
real foreign domination and manipulation that should concern Africans
and their political leaders is clearly the dysfunctional effect of the
extant foreign-imposed state boundaries on their sociopolitical
existence. This has created so much unnecessary tensions that have
depleted and dissipated any creative energy that Africans need to create
conducive environment that enables growth, security, stability and
prosperity. Once this problem is solved through the 2011 Sudan solution
then the problem of bad governance, poverty, youth unemployment,
corruption, dearth of functional social utilities and infrastructures,
lack of accepting responsibilities for matters of personal and
collective concerns and most of all Islamic religious intolerances and
extreme jihadist insurgencies will cease or reduce to manageable
proportions. Religious extremism of the kind going on in Nigeria and
other parts of Africa thrives better in a chaotic or dysfunctional state
than it does in a poverty stricken society. It is chaos that creates
such monster and not poverty. Poverty might help it to grow after but
chaos and indoctrination are the initiators.
United
States or any other government does not need to expend any of the
resources as are being budgeted to train and equip African national
armies. In a multi-state solution the governments can achieve very
positive short and long term results at a very minimal cost and record
time. Because in the heart of the religious insurgences in Nigeria and
other parts of Africa are the incongruent colonial state boundaries, it
will make more sense if AFRICOM and Africans can redraw the African
political map rather than retrain and reequip African Armies.
Source: Osita Ebiem.
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