The peace of the morning of Friday August 26, 2011 was disturbed when an explosive-laden car, driven by a suicide bomber smashed into the United Nations building in the capital city of Nigeria, Abuja, knocking down two gates in its path before detonating.
We didn’t have to look far off to see who was responsible for the act. There is a popular saying that the witch cried at night and the baby died in the morning. One doesn’t need divination to know the cause of death.
The Boko Haram group didn’t leave us guessing for long, they reportedly issued a statement claiming responsibility for the attack same day.
The resulting bang and the havoc it left behind, including the many lost lives and the scars, is one that will not only take a long time to heal, especially for those who were direct victims, but also one which has radically changed the tone of discourse on terrorism, and the approach to handling it in Nigeria.
Boko Haram, is the radical Islamic sect that had declared war on the Nigerian state in an effort to bring about the adoption of extreme forms of Sharia law in the country. The group is also known for attacking Christians and bombing mosques and churches.
Since its founding in 2001, the jihadists have been responsible for between 3,000 to 10,000 deaths. In the town of Maiduguri, where the group was formed, the residents dubbed it Boko Haram.
The term "Boko Haram" comes from the Hausa word boko figuratively meaning "western education" (literally "alphabet", from English "book"), and the Arabic word haram figuratively meaning "sin" (literally, "forbidden"). The members of the group do not interact with the local Muslim population and have carried out assassinations in the past of anyone who criticises it, including Muslim clerics.
In a 2009 BBC interview, Muhammad Yusuf, then leader of the group, stated his belief that the concept of a spherical Earth is contrary to Islamic teaching and should be rejected, along with Darwinian evolution and the concept of rain originating from water evaporated by the sun.
Before his death, Yusuf reiterated the group's objective of changing the current education system and rejecting democracy. This controversial cleric had a graduate education, spoke proficient English, lived a lavish lifestyle and drove a Mercedes-Benz.
The attack on the UN Building was a new threshold in what has been a rapidly increasing spate of attacks by the sect in Nigeria.
The group which says they are against western education has rapidly turned from an obscure group of extremists based mainly in the North Eastern part of the country particularly in Maiduguri (Borno State) that could be easily ignored, to one that has capacity to cause large-scale destruction and must be handled more pragmatically.
The group has changed over time. Between 2003 and 2009, the movement launched mass uprisings against police in the northeast, but suffered hundreds of casualties when security forces violently put down the rebellions. During the 2009 uprising, their leader, Muhammad Yusuf, was extra judicially killed in police custody, and the movement went underground for over a year.
Under new leadership, the group resurfaced in 2010, carrying out terrorist attacks, shootings and bombing in the Northern parts of the country, particularly in Borno and Bauchi, raiding police stations and conducting jail breaks to free their arrested comrades. Notable incidents were the bombing of military barracks in Abuja and Bauchi, and the targeting of pubs and open drinking joints in Maiduguri and other parts of the North. Perhaps the boldest move by the group until the UN Building episode was the suicide attack on the Police Headquarters in Abuja. The Nigerian government responded by initiating full-scale military action in Maiduguri and some other states, like it did in 2009, but this recent bombing has shown that military action has hardly weakened the group.
How did Nigeria get here?
In recent years, terrorist networks have evolved, moving away from a dependency on state sponsorship; many of the most dangerous groups and individuals now operate as non-state actors. Taking advantage of porous borders and interconnected international systems – finance, communications, and transit – terrorist groups can reach every corner of the globe. While some remain focused on local or national political dynamics, others seek to affect global change.
The experience of the US on September 11, 2001, shocked the international community, changing global perspectives on both the threat of terrorism and the tools required to prevent it. Although multilateral instruments against terrorism have existed since the 1960s, the unprecedented reach and potential of terrorist networks such as al-Qaeda and its affiliates, and the threat they constitute, became a global issue for the first time. Despite the death of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in May 2011, the world is still – many years after September 11 – looking for an effective way to respond to the global terrorist threat.
When, on the eve of Christmas 2009, a Nigerian youngster Farouq Abdulmutallab attempted bombing of a passenger plane in the United States and the US put Nigeria on the list of terrorist Nations, there was an outcry by Nigerians, stating that they were not terrorists and that the young man was indoctrinated abroad. The truth, however, is that bombings are not entirely alien to us.
In March 2012, it was reported that Boko Haram had taken a strategy to simulate convoys of high-profile Nigerians to access target buildings that are secured with fortifications. Boko Haram has also reportedly attacked Christian worship centres to "trigger reprisal in all parts of the country," distracting authorities so they can unleash attacks elsewhere.
It was gathered that the group uses the internet to propagate its activities and enhance its radicalisation and circulation of extremist ideologies. Boko Haram is reportedly planning to greatly increase its following in many states. Boko Haram has been involved in a recruitment drive, and they are allegedly targeting Muslims between ages of 17 and 30, and have also been recruiting freed prisoners through prison breaks. The group is also known to assign non-Kanuri’s on suicide missions.
The fear of Boko Haram is now the beginning of wisdom for Nigerians … what a shame.
