Humanitarian Displacement and Boko Haram in Nigeria 3030997839, 9783030997830

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Humanitarian Displacement and Boko Haram in Nigeria Medinat Abdulazeez Malefakis

Humanitarian Displacement and Boko Haram in Nigeria

Medinat Abdulazeez Malefakis

Humanitarian Displacement and Boko Haram in Nigeria

Medinat Abdulazeez Malefakis ETH Zurich Zurich, Switzerland

ISBN 978-3-030-99783-0 ISBN 978-3-030-99784-7 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99784-7 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Professor Jan Patrick Heiss who supervised my Ph.D. thesis which was the original manuscript for this book. Thank you, Jan, for also being the best guardian with the kindest of hearts. To Dr. George Amale Kwanashie, for the guiding lines and unwavering belief, thank you phenomenon. Francesca Rickli, Raphael Schwere, and Richard Ibu, the best academic colleagues turned friends, the best companions I could ever have hoped for, thank you. To all the staff and students at the Institute of Social Anthropology and Ethnology, University of Zurich, Switzerland, thank you for your warm hospitality, and a delightful stay. To Amila Eleni, for being the easiest of new-borns and letting mommy work on maternity leave, thank you. To Alexios Abdulkareem Malefakis, for shining my light better than me, for seeing me in ways that I see not, for believing in competencies that I strive day and night to make better, for everything words cannot express, thank you, CG.

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Contents

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Nigeria: Conflict, Conflict Management, and Humanitarian Aid Emerging ‘in Convenience’ and ‘as Convenience’ Nigeria’s Conflict Landscape The Nigerian Civil War (1967–1970) Humanitarian Aid Intervention During the Nigerian Civil War Humanitarian Crisis as ‘Cause Celebre’ Counterwar and Counterinsurgency Affecting Principled Humanitarian Action (Independence, Neutrality, and Impartiality) Aid misappropriation Misrepresentation, Manipulation, and Data Distortion Bibliography Boko Haram, Why the North? Terrorism in Northern Nigeria: Boko Haram’s Revolving Foundations Islamic Religion, Its Fragmentation, and Religious Fundamentalism Influence from Past Insurgencies Poverty, Inequality, and Failure of Government

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Government’s Lack of Political Will to Tackle Insurgencies Inefficient Security Forces Bibliography

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Boko Haram, the First Victimization Evolution Boko Haram’s Ideology and Claims to Truth Emergence and Trajectory: From Insurgency to Terrorism Attractions and Membership Organization, Mode of Operation, and Funding International Dimensions to Boko Haram Insurgency Boko Haram, the First Victimization Bibliography

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Humanitarian Displacement from Boko Haram and Concrete Living Conditions of Displaced Persons The Boko Haram Displacement Situation Numeric Data Matrix Internal Displacement Camp Types and Structure Displacement Management in Nigeria Internal Displacement Guiding Principles Concrete Living Conditions of Displaced Persons Accommodation and Shelter Food and Nutrition Health and Hygiene Security Sexual and Gender Based Violence (SGBV) Education Organizational/Management Units and Emergent Criminogenic Patterns Coping Mechanisms of Displaced Persons Bibliography

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(Mis)management of the Displacement Situation: The ‘Re-victimization’ Nigerian Government and State Apparatuses The Temporary Approach to Displacement Lack of Adequate Displacement Management Resources

85 85 88 91 93 96 98 99 106 110 114 116 118 120 125 128 133 134 134 142

CONTENTS

International Actors, and Donor/Aid Organizations Funding Inadequacies Misconceptions About Traditional African Hospitality and Africa’s Displacement Burden Right Plans, Zero Coordination Focus on Emergency Rather Than Development or Rehabilitative Aid Host Countries Violation of ‘Non-Refoulement Policy’ Complicating Displacement Management Bibliography Index

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List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 Fig. 4.1 Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig.

4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 4.8

Fig. 5.1

Map of Nigeria showing the 19 northern states (Source Sarki and Babangida) IDP camp locations in Bornu State (Bukbuk et al. 2016) (Note Dotted points by author) NYSC IDP camp environment (Author’s archive) Interior of hostel in NYSC IDP Camp (Author’s archive) Tent shelters in NYSC IDP camp (Author’s archive) Lavatories in NYSC IDP camp (Author’s archive) Dump site in NYSC IDP camp (Author’s archive) Camp clinic at NYSC IDP camp (Author’s archive) IDPs engaged in small scale businesses in the NYSC IDP camp (Author’s archive) UNOCHA funding trend for Boko Haram emergency 2012–2022 (Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs [OCHA] 2022b)

20 86 100 101 102 104 105 111 126

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CHAPTER 1

Nigeria: Conflict, Conflict Management, and Humanitarian Aid

Emerging ‘in Convenience’ and ‘as Convenience’ Lady Flora Shaw, foremost journalist, and later wife of Lord Frederick Lugard (Governor-General of Nigeria between 1914–1919) suggested the name ‘Nigeria’ for the colonial territories held by the British Royal Niger Company. In her article for The Times of London on January 8, 1897, Lady Shaw stated: the title ‘Royal Niger Company’s Territories’ is not only inconvenient, but to some extent is also misleading, it may be permissible to coin a shorter title for the agglomeration of pagan and Mohammedan states which have been brought, by the exertions of the Royal Niger Company, within the confines of the British Protectorates, and thus need for the first time in their history to be described as an entity by some general name. (Enaholo 2014)

And so it began, that a conglomeration of more than 250 ethnic groups, and about 500 languages were given a name (Nigeria) to avoid the inconvenience of its colonial leaders having to use a longer version of what the country would have been called. But bestowing the name ‘Nigeria’ was not the only thing that had been done for colonial convenience. As destinies of the African population were decided on European conference tables, so also was Nigeria partitioned to the British crown at the Berlin conference in 1884/1885. At this time, the area which © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 M. Abdulazeez Malefakis, Humanitarian Displacement and Boko Haram in Nigeria, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99784-7_1

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would become Nigeria was home to different African civilizations, such as the Nok and Igbo Ukwu cultures. It comprised kingdoms, empires, and city states that dated back many centuries like the Oyo empire, the Kanem-Borno empire, the Songhai empire, the Hausa city states, the Benin Kingdom, the state of Ile-Ife, and the Igbo city states. These different linguistic, cultural, and religious groups existed as autonomous entities with sophisticated political, economic, and social structures, interacting through trade and political alliances. It was the attempt at colonial governance that necessitated the British to pull together the autonomous kingdoms as protectorates in the nineteenth century, and the unified entity developed by the colonialists was intended for administrative convenience suiting the needs of only the imperialist system. The people living in the Nigeria area would not renounce their unique ethnic, cultural, or religious features, and no attempt was made by the colonialists to either harness the diversity for integration or accommodate the differences amongst the people in the protectorates. Instead, colonialists undermined and dismantled existing political structures, creating mistrust and cleavages amongst different groups (Eke 2015). In northern Nigeria for instance, indirect rule through existing emirs was appropriated by the British to continue the authoritarian religious and political system which had been hegemonized by the Sokoto caliphate rule, and which left the northern population perpetually at the subservience of the Emirs and appointed district heads. The democratic rule of the autonomous Igbo communities was weakened by colonialists, destroying erstwhile community-based decision-making processes, and replacing them with vested authority in a colonially appointed representative or king. Colonialists restructured emirates like Ilorin to facilitate easy economic access from northern to southern Nigeria in the 1900s (Eke 2015). They “restricted the political activities of southern allies in the north and manipulated elections against them to guarantee that winners were those sympathetic to the British crown” (Sklar 1963). They adopted separate administrative structures and voting criteria for the different protectorates and regions (Suberu and Larry 2003). They even went as far as “cracking down on some ethnic groups using police officers of other ethnic groups” (Ananaba 1969). What all these colonial actions succeeded in doing was highlighting the differences amongst the various cultural and linguistic groups in the respective regions, and breeding disunity amongst them.

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The multi-lingual, multi-ethnic, and multi-religious entity set up for colonial convenience bred a population that learnt to rely on their own identities to not only survive the colonial administration, but also lobby colonial authorities for access and share of resources (Agbiboa 2012). Political, economic, social, and cultural interactions became defined by continuous struggles of polarized ethnic and religious identities. Nigeria’s social fabric in this way consists of a complex and dynamic web of layering identities, divisions, and subdivisions, intertwined so tightly sometimes, and in other times, so loosely. At independence in 1960, Nigeria was termed a “nation in name only, existing as a political and legal entity, not as an effective and emotive identity; a country that is not a nation in the sense of community and common character but a state encompassing many ethnic nations, each claiming their own separate heritage, separate language, and separate culture” (Nwiwu and Davis 2001). The north of Nigeria was predominantly Muslim, was the seat of the Sokoto Caliphate, and has Hausa and Fulani as its major ethnic and linguistic group. Nigeria’s south is dominated by the Yorubas, and other mostly Christian population who, due to their open-door policy towards Christian missionaries (also the harbingers of western education) were more ‘formally literate’ than the north. Literacy in northern Nigeria was defined in Arabic, and in the knowledge of the Hausa Ajami script. The Igbos are the biggest population inhabiting Nigeria’s east, with minority groups that include the Itsekiri, Urhobo, and Ijaw. These disparities and the antagonisms they cultivated reflected the country’s description as ‘a mere geographical expression because each of the groups in the country existed as a nation by itself, and there was as much difference between them as there is between Germans, English, Russians, and Turks’ (Nwiwu and Davis 2001). It was not long before the pent-up composite would erupt into perennial conflicts. And even though colonialism cannot be ascribed the sole cause of the ensuing conflicts, it, and the adjoining processes that it entailed generated tensions amongst different ethnic groups, between majority language groups and minority ones, and amidst different religious groups. Colonialism’s primordial conditions and the British divide and rule system required sharp ethno-religious differentiation amongst Nigerians, made religion and ethnicity the preeminent markers of identity and pushed exclusionary identity politics into the political arena (Ochonu 2014). It is however worthy to state here that much as colonial convenience laid the foundation for polarized identities and cemented ‘otherness’ in

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Nigeria’s social fabric, post-colonial rulers and elites consolidated such polarized identities ‘as convenience’, and even sustained them. After independence, appeals to regional identity, ethnicity, and religion became the most salient means used by post-colonial rulers and elites to mobilize support. The political elites who inherited power from colonialists “regarded the state as the instrument of their political will, privatized the state, exploited the state for their own benefits, and used the state as a convenient tool to oppress the populace”, as Claude Ake puts it: even after independence, the state in Africa has not become a reassuring presence but remains a formidable threat to everybody except the few who control it. It is largely regarded as a hostile force to be evaded, cheated, defeated, and appropriated as circumstances permit. (Abubakar 2016)

All of these would breed new sets of enmities, disunities, and scrambles for control. When these reached boiling points, the conflicts hit hard.

Nigeria’s Conflict Landscape Just after independence, and without the forceful, colonizing glue holding the newly emerging African giant together, things began to fall apart. As Moses Echonu explains, “the jarring effects of arbitrary colonial unification manifested as seemingly irreconcilable differences of aspirations, priorities, and visions” (Ochonu 2014). Religion, land politics, majority-minority relations, inequality, environmental degradation, politics, ethnicity, elections, governance, and other forces of socialization became individual causal factors for conflicts. However, religion and ethnicity alone accounts for more conflicts than any other factor, as fears of domination by different religious or ethnic groups continuously make Nigerians to seek solace in their closest religious or ethnic identity setting. For instance, consternations on state institutions being Christianised or Islamised are constantly fuelled by identity by religion in Nigeria, which is said to be the highest in the world (Ruby and Shah 2007). 91% of Christians and 76% of Muslims say that religion is more important to them than their identity as Africans, Nigerians, or members of an ethnic group (Ruby and Shah 2007). Ethnicity on its part is both a source of conflict and a tool of conflict (Deng 1997). The fear that identity by religion and ethnicity could escalate conflict is a major reason why censuses in Nigeria are mostly inconclusive, with an equal number of Muslims and

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Christians declared for the over 200 million population. The cleavages in religious and ethnic identities are also reflected in the spatial geography of the country, with most people in the south of Nigeria prone to define themselves with their ethnic groups, while those in the north often define themselves based on their religious identities. This seeking of solace ethnic and religious settings has restricted the space for tolerance, understanding of differences, or even peaceful coexistence, as generalizations on negative vices are made on entire ethnic and religious groups. For instance, the Boko Haram insurgency has been termed a ‘northern’ problem, ascribing the insurgence toga to the Hausa-Fulani residing in the north, even though Boko Haram’s longest serving leader, Abubakar Shekau was from the minority Kanuri ethnic group in Nigeria’s northeast. The conflict landscape of Nigeria is consequently a medley of singular or interconnected conflict causes. In the Niger Delta, Nigeria’s oil-rich south-south region comprising of 6 states, land use, and resource allocation have been the major harbingers of conflict. Militias and armed groups have crystallized agitations for equitable use of, and access to oil resources, with the kidnap of expatriate oil workers and attacks on oil installations. Demands for compensation due to environmental degradation caused by oil exploration are other popular reasons for sporadic violence. Land use is also at the heart of the farmer/herder conflicts in Nigeria’s Middlebelt, spreading from the north of Nigeria towards the Mambila Plateau and southwestern Yoruba communities in Ondo and Ekiti. The desertification of the Sahara and gradual reduction of arable farmland and water sources is necessitating a southward migration by farmers all year round. Encroachment on farmlands has constantly been a conflict trigger, trampling on the age-long symbiotic relationship that existed between farmers and herders: farmers allowed herders to graze their cattle for fodder on untilled farmlands, while herders allow their cattle dung on these lands to be used as fertilizers. As land and water became scarce commodities for both herders and farmers, violent tussles emerged between both groups in their quest to navigate the changing climate landscape. Unresolved legal issues of land rights and grazing rights between both, the failure of government forces to provide security in ungoverned spaces, and lack of satisfaction at the seemingly politicization of the conflict led to the emergence of fringe groups and bandits who now terrorize communities. The emergence of bandits has spiralled the farmer/herder conflict from the northcentral to the northwest (each comprising 7 states each). Bandits and non-state armed groups (NSAGs)

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operating in these areas carry out thefts, armed robberies, shootouts, cattle rustling, kidnapping, rape, and armed attacks on entire villages in affected areas, threatening food security, corporate existence, peace, and stability of the entire country. The role of religion in sparking confrontation in Nigeria’s conflict landscape has been manifold. In some instances, the rise of ‘alien, nonacceptable’ religious ideologies perceived as threatening to ‘nominal’ adherents of a specific religious group could incite violence. This was the case in the 1980s with the rise of Maitatsine, an Islamic ideology deemed extremist and heretic. The uprising of Maitatsine and his followers between 1970 and 1980 led to clashes with authorities and consequently the death of many people. Contestations between Christians and Muslims have also ended in conflicts. These contestations range from disputes over places of worship and worship proceedings as was the case in the Kano Anglican Church Crisis of 1982 and the Reinhard Bonke Riot of 1981; control of an economic resource like the relocation of the market which sparked the Zangon Kataf Crisis in 1992; misrepresentations of one religious’ group by another as demonstrated when a Christian journalist’s writing about the Prophet Muhammed sparked the 2002 Miss World riots in Kaduna; rivalry and fear of domination which were essentially the reasons for the protests that resulted in the Sharia crisis across northern Nigeria in the 2000s. Ethnic conflicts have been rampant leading to various episodes of intercommunal violence. Many of these have roots in competition for political, economic, and social supremacy, especially in areas where resources are scarce, and state bureaucracy guarantees access to such scarce resources. In 1953, fighting broke out between northerners who opposed Nigeria’s demand for independence, and southerners (Igbos and Yorubas ) who believed Nigeria was ready for self-rule. However, the elemental cause of the riots in Kano was ethnically based, as the more literate, financially viable, and civil service dominating Yoruba’s and Igbos were more prepared for self-rule than the Hausa-Fulani populated northern Nigeria. Settler/Indigene dynamics have also been the bane of many ethnic conflicts. Some ethnic conflicts are intra-ethnic, accruing between communities with homogenous language and societal structures. The 1995 crisis between Igbo speaking Aguleri and Umuleri communities in Anambra state in eastern Nigeria, and the 1997 Ife-Modakeke Crisis in Nigeria’s Yoruba-dominated southwestern state of Osun are both examples of this. Inter-ethnic conflicts on their parts have involved actors

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of different lingua descents. The constant tussles between Hausas and non-Hausa speaking communities in Kaduna and Jos, Fulani herders and Hausa farmers in Nasarawa, between the Tivs in Benue state and Jukuns in Taraba state, all of these appertain to inter-ethnic violence in Nigeria’s conflict landscape. One conflict however stands out in scope, in agglomeration of causal factors, in the magnitude of humanitarian aid expended on it due to the precariousness of human suffering it generated, and in the humanitarian displacement resulting therefrom. This conflict is Nigeria’s civil war.

The Nigerian Civil War (1967–1970) The civil war fought between the Nigerian government and the proclaimed Republic of Biafra has a plethora of relevance to the understanding of conflict and conflict management in Nigeria. It not only provides the best example of a conflict with large-scale internal and external displacement, but also introduces international humanitarian conflict management into Nigeria’s conflict landscape. More importantly, it provides analogies to the study on the management of the humanitarian displacement caused by Boko Haram which we will examine at the end of the chapter. As to the causes of the civil war, Murzik Kobo believes “the neglect of Nigeria’s colonial powers to bring together the different territories they conveniently and forcibly amalgamated under a semblance of nationstate” is one major cause (Kobo 2020). The political imposition of colonial representatives without input from the population they were expected to govern was deemed a major flaw. The inadequacies of these colonial representatives, known as the ‘native authorities’ especially in eastern Nigeria further truncated any attempt at colonial unification of the country. The role played by post-colonial elites in the years leading to the civil war, and the leadership of bureaucrats who inherited power from colonialists is explained by Margery Perham: The leaders may have designed their own constitution, but the unity and authority upon which it rested had been drawn from Britain. Now they had to look down and draw their authority from a politically inexperienced population, for most of whom their first, if not their only, loyalty was to the tribe. They had agreed upon a federation of three regions (north, south, and east). A tripod is neither physically nor politically a very stable basis, and when first one leg and then another weakens, collapse is unavoidable.

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Of the three major regions with which Nigeria began independence, the West was represented at the centre as an embittered opposition while the East and North ruled together in a basically incompatible alliance until, in 1964, they broke apart. I remember the shock with which, a few years before independence, I noted that the Northern premier, the Sardauna of Sokoto, was ruthlessly pushing the educated Southerners, mainly lbo, out of the Northern administration and heard the Western leader, Chief Awolowo, declare, in the same context, that he would have no outsiders in his police force. (Perham 1970)

Ethnic divisions were hence a prominent undertone in the causes of the civil war. Early pointers of this included the inability of all 3 majority ethnic groups (Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba) to agree unanimously on the content and provisions of the 1951 pre-independence constitution. The constitutional conference ended with the incorporation of most of the positions canvassed by the delegates from the north (with a population supremacy), thus provoking criticism from the leading politicians and elites of both east and west (Garba and Garba 2005). The formations of ethnically conscious political parties based in all 3 regions, the nonunified demand for self-rule based on regional readiness, the increasing demands by minority ethnic groups for recognition and participation, the constitutional and civil crisis that greeted the newly independent country between 1962–1965, all of these led eventually to a military coup in 1966, after mutinous officers assassinated the prime Minister Tafawa Balewa (from the north), the premier of northern Nigeria Sir Ahmadu Bello, the premier of western region Ladoke Akintola, and many others. On the assumption that only northern leaders were killed in the January 1966 coup, northern officers carried out a ‘countercoup’ in July 1966 killing the Igbo Military head of state, General Aguiyi Ironsi, and other prominent military officers (Siollun 2009). General Yakubu Gowon from Nigeria’s middle belt became the military head of state. Unfortunately, the coup, countercoup, and governance crisis unleashed ethnically motivated pogroms, first of Igbos and people of southern Nigerian origins who then fled en masse back to eastern and western Nigeria, and then of northerners in eastern cities (Last 2005). Consequently, when the Republic of Biafra was declared by the military governor of the eastern region, Lt. Colonel Odumegwu Ojukwu as a secession of the Igbo people away from the Nigerian federation in 1967, it was a response to these ethnically motivated political and societal imbalances.

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Humanitarian Aid Intervention During the Nigerian Civil War Aid during Nigeria’s civil war was precipitated by the morality of humanitarian intervention, vested political interest, as well as the perceived standing of Nigeria in international politics and diplomacy. Before, during, and after independence, the stature of the country grew as the most populated country in Africa, and as an economic powerhouse with the discovery of crude oil. This accentuated her importance to African and international powerplays. When the civil war broke out (concurrently at the time of rife cold war politics), erstwhile colonialists and freshly minted superpowers intervened in various ways. Britain, the Soviet Union, and all other African countries except Gabon, Cote d’Ivoire, and the white-minority regime of Zimbabwe (then Northern Rhodesia) supported the Nigerian federal government, while France, Israel, and the afore-mentioned African countries were on the side of Biafra (Kobo 2020). After declaring the republic of Biafra in May 1967, both warring factions failed, negotiation after negotiation to reach an agreement on equitable distribution of aid to affected population. Even after it was imminent that Federal Military Government (FMG) troops were guaranteed victory after the capture of oil-rich Port Harcourt and other coastal cities in 1968, as well as the declaration of land and aerial blockade which resulted in mass starvation and the brandishing of genocidal claims, no agreement on aid was reached. The issues surrounding this inability ranged from the FMG insisting on inspecting relief supplies, the Biafran government declining this on the basis that such inspection was a challenge in its sovereignty, non-agreement over which humanitarian organizations’ aid would go into the Biafran enclave, and many more issues which led certain observers to believe that both sides placed more value on political goals than human lives (Heerten 2017). The emergent motifs that surrounded not just the war, but the management of its humanitarian situation has remained present in Nigeria’s humanitarian disaster management. These motifs further provide both direct and reticent parallels to the management of Boko Haram’s humanitarian displacement. Some of these include but are not limited to:

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Humanitarian Crisis as ‘Cause Celebre’ Just as it is happening now with Boko Haram’s displacement crisis, the spate of international attention generated by the civil war was enormous and unprecedented. While Boko Haram’s terrorist insurgence was a major factor in according its displacement crisis a cause celebre status, it was famine that brought Biafra to such negatively infamous limelight. The inability of warring factions to agree on aid distribution inexplicably allowed aid to be funnelled into Biafra at night, illegally, and without permission from the FMG. The circumstances that encouraged this blatant disregard for the FMG’s right (bestowed by Geneva conventions) to inspect and permit aid supplies entering Biafra was the famine being recorded in the war-ravaged areas, both during the war, and immediately after it ended. Described as so brutal that people ended up engaging in acts of cannibalism (Bennet 2020), famine in Biafra was the first major famine to be addressed through media images of starving Africans (Montclos 2009). Pictures and videos of children with bloated stomachs hinged on malnourished skin bones pilfered through television screens and newspapers in America, Britain, Ireland, France, Switzerland, Germany, and other parts of the world. These images galvanized international governments and humanitarian aid agencies. Spurred by media sensationalism of the Biafran famine, many legislatures, civil society organizations, and even citizens pressured their governments into action, and in certain cases, inaction, for while some aid organizations in the United States overtly or covertly operated in Biafra, the American government at the start of the war officially adopted a neutrality stance (Shapiro 2011). The Biafran civil war thus was the first real test of the West’s response to the crisis in post- colonial Africa. It was one of the largest disaster relief efforts of its kind in history, unsurpassed in terms of logistical achievement but it also simultaneously raised serious questions about the structure and operation of the global humanitarian industry (O’Sullivan 2016), and It “redefined modern humanitarian-aid” (Achimba 2000). The Civil War “highlighted humanitarianism as a basic factor in the relationship between post-colonial Africa and the West” (Desgrandchamps 2018), “reinforcing the ‘othering’ of the empire/colony relationship which was transformed into an imagining of Biafra—and, by extension, Africa—as a place of disaster, famine, and war” (O’Sullivan 2016). Boko Haram seems to be following in these footsteps, with the amount of humanitarian aid interventions it has garnered (which will be discussed further in subsequent

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chapters). The unending humanitarian displacement caused by Boko Haram for the past 13 years likewise risks buttressing the tendency to view the peoples of the Third World as near-perpetual victims (O’Sullivan 2016) needing the salvaging of external/foreign help. Counterwar and Counterinsurgency Affecting Principled Humanitarian Action (Independence, Neutrality, and Impartiality) The question about how much efforts at stopping a war or countering an insurgency impinges on principles of humanitarian action dots Nigeria’s conflict management vista. It was prominent in the Biafra war and is a current dilemma with Boko Haram’s insurgency. In fact, it is a common belief that the enactment of the humanitarian ‘right to protect’ and ‘responsibility to protect’ were by-products of trampling the 3 humanitarian principles during the Nigerian civil war. On the basis that humanitarian organizations practising the principles of neutrality and impartiality are indirectly bolstering Boko Haram’s terrorist activities, the Nigerian military (and by extension the Nigerian government) imposed control, restricted, stifled, and in some cases, shutdown aid organizations in the northeast. The military prevents humanitarian organizations from operating outside garrison towns, limiting them to garrison towns and areas where the Nigerian army’s super camps are located, thereby “geographically making the humanitarian space in the northeast identical to the military space” (The Soufan Centre 2020). The Nigerian government accused aid agencies of being spies for terrorists, of feeding the terrorist enterprise through bribes for access to affected communities, and of unabated cash use/movement which could make funds handy for insurgents. In 2018, UNICEF’s operations were suspended, and offices of Mercy Corps and Action Against Hunger were shut down. Humanitarian personnel believe that the actions of the military were turning aid workers into targets for non-state armed groups: “‘We feel trapped. On one hand, we have the obligation to operate only in military-controlled areas, and on other hand, armed groups see us as accomplices of the Nigerian military and government” (The Soufan Centre 2020).’In response, certain aid organizations opined that creating a disabling environment for principled humanitarian action was the Nigerian army’s way of hiding the insurgency’s scale of impact, as well as their counterinsurgency shortcomings, both of which are made public by aid organizations working in the northeast (Kazeem 2019). More importantly, aid organizations believed

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that the government’s action masked their attempts at using hunger and starvation as a tool of war, just as they did with the civil war. Starvation was the FMG’s biggest counterwar weapon during the civil war targeting not only combatants, but the whole population in eastern Nigeria. A blockade was imposed on Biafra restricting food, arms, medical supplies, and cash inflow into the area. The blockade affected a population of over nine million people lumped in the Igbo heartland who could be starved to death if the Biafran government was not ready to surrender (Nwaka 2013). When the oil-rich port city of Port Harcourt was captured in May 1978, Biafra was landlocked, surrounded by territories under the control of the FMG. The war was ‘unofficially’ lost. However, the war would continue for another 2 years when ‘humanitarian neutrality as instrument of achieving humanity lost its value in Biafra’ (Nwaka 2013), and concurrently, when there was the introduction of what Marc Antoine Perouse de Montclos refers to as the “military impact of relief operations,” where humanitarian organizations provided vital supplies to the Biafran Army including arms, prolonging not just the suffering of local populations, but the war itself: Relief (humanitarian aid) was a matter of discussion during and just after the war. At the end of the 1960s, the Cold War and the superpower rivalry did not allow the United Nations to circumvent state sovereignties and to organize peace enforcement operations without the consent of all. So humanitarian actors had to rely on themselves and the media to break up the Nigerian blockade against the secessionists. It then appeared clear that the main funders of the Joint Church Aid (JCA) consortium, namely the Catholic Caritas and the Protestant WCC (World Council of Churches), were far from being neutral and had deliberately supported the rebels. Critics suggested that the initials WCC stood for ‘War Can Continue’. Yet the humanitarian workers denied their strategic involvement and continued to claim they were apolitical. Most of them refused to admit any responsibility in the conflict. At best, an official of the WCC raised doubts about JCA ‘because of its political effects ... which include exposing the churches to charges of prolonging the war and adding to the suffering of the people’. As we can see, humanitarian actors were more concerned about their reputation than about the military use of their aid. (Montclos 2009)

In similar fashion as with Boko Haram, Caritas and some other aid organizations who participated in the night flights relief program were

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accused of aiding Biafrans, mounting a religious war against Nigeria, buying and shipping arms for insurgents, and recruiting mercenaries from Gabon to fight against the FMG (Nwaka 2013). When the Red Cross attempted to breach the blockade by delivering un-inspected aid to Biafra, the FMG reacted by shooting down the plane (Heerten 2017). The practice of humanitarian neutrality (which implies that actors would desist from all controversies of racial, religious, political, and ideological nature to be allowed access to the victims [Nwaka 2013]) and its juxtaposition with counterwar and counterinsurgency is consequently an habituative reoccurrence in Nigeria’s conflict management. Its major impact is a deep mistrust of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and aid agencies by reason of a general scepticism and suspicion which has trailed international relief aid operations in Nigeria since the civil war. After Biafra fell, there was a diplomatic cold war between the FMG and the governments who had directly or indirectly aided in sending relief to Biafra. Further foreign intervention was stopped, and Caritas, JCA, the French and Nordic Red Cross, as well as the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) were barred from assisting in post war relief operations (Heerten 2017). The current relationship which the Nigerian government has with over 70 aid agencies operating in the northeast of Nigeria is also reflective of this mistrust, further damaging the credibility of NGOs, jeopardizing humanitarian workers’ lives, and inhibiting the distribution of life-saving assistance (Moloney 2020). Aid Misappropriation Misappropriation of aid is further tied to the issue of neutrality and impartiality. When aid workers know, see, or suspect that relief work, and the logistics involved therein are being misappropriated, questions arise as to if this constitutes a justifiable reason to stop or withdraw humanitarian programs altogether. Beginning with the Biafran war, and continuing with the Boko haram insurgency, relief operations in Nigeria’s conflict landscape have the tendency to be misappropriated by beneficiaries on one hand, governmental agents on another, and relief organizations on yet another hand. On the side of relief organizations, there are instances where there is a ‘reluctance’ or ‘refusal’ to admit that aid is being misappropriated, diverted, misused, or even withheld. This reluctance is fuelled by fears that admitting misappropriation of aid in some crisis contexts might mean the end of humanitarian work in such contexts. Faced with

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a Catch-22 situation, some argue that diverted aid is not likely to result in measurable development, yet the recipient country would fail without continued donor support (Montclos 2009). Likewise, there is an unsaid assumption that misappropriation of aid reflects badly on the reputation on relief agencies which may affect funding and donor relationships. In some cases, misappropriation of aid is ignored by relief agencies to ensure the safety of personnel in crisis areas. All these humanitarianism dilemmas do not underscore the point that while aspiring to good, humanitarian work can have bad consequences (Kennedy 2004) when aid misappropriation is ignored. In the case of Biafra, allowing humanitarian airlifts to also be a conduit for the transportation of weapons into blockaded Biafra was justified by organizations involved in it as a ‘necessary evil’ if they were to reach the affected population with the needed relief and non-relief items. Refusing to accept that these actions have political implications, ICRC and the consortium that made up the JCA inadvertently prolonged the Biafran war, and relief appeared to do more harm than good (Montclos 2009). Relief beneficiaries have also been known to misappropriate aid. The economic windfall and the means to get weapons to continue fighting were misappropriated advantages that Biafran leaders encouraged with relief operations, especially as some organizations and their governments (The French and its red cross) made no pretext about providing these support (Desgrandchamps 2018). Diverting aid to Biafran soldiers, to the detriment of the staving population also fuelled conjectures that the publicized famine and pictures of starving children had either been invented or deliberately created for humanitarian propaganda (Heerten 2017). In 2004, the Nigerian authorities managing the humanitarian situation arising from the Plateau state religious conflict were accused of misappropriating and politicizing aid (McGoldrick 2007). As the analysis of Boko Haram’s humanitarian displacement will show, government agencies and its representatives have been involved in aid misappropriation, diversion, and concealment, and the reluctance of humanitarian organizations to acknowledge aid misappropriation for any of the reasons stated above continues to influence humanitarian crisis management in Nigeria. Misrepresentation, Manipulation, and Data Distortion Veritable data to analyze and make policy decisions on humanitarian crisis management in Nigeria is hard to come by. Population census in

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Nigeria was last conducted in 2006, with claims and counterclaims about the results. The census pegged Nigeria at a population of 140 million, but recent World Bank estimates say the country has about 200 million people by the end of 2019 (World Bank 2019). This shows that baseline data for analysis of population, population affected by conflict, and conflict-displaced population is unavailable. Internal and external displacements are difficult to track due to their temporal nature. During the 2004 religious’ conflict in Plateau state, international donors criticized the Nigerian authorities for the absence of a proper IDP registration system (McGoldrick 2007). Unavailable camp structures for displaced persons, and host communities’ absorption of temporarily and permanently displaced persons make monitoring and recording of their number problematic. Added to all of these is the misrepresentation of figures for affected persons by various parties involved in humanitarian crisis management. Such misrepresentations for vested interests were noted early in the civil war. Wiseberg stated that the figure being touted globally for the number of people affected by famine in Biafra was so important to almost every side in the conflict that they sought to manipulate the figure: ‘Biafran officials were well aware that they could use famine for political advantage, and therefore “had good cause to bias their figures upward. British and American officials favouring a unified Nigeria, on the other hand, sought to downplay the extent of the crisis”’ (Wiseberg 1975). Consequently, there were different figures from different actors. Relief agencies posited 1,000 deaths occurred daily from famine; the FMG reported 200–300 deaths every day, while ICRC cited as high as 10,000 deaths per day (World Peace Foundation 2015). The management of Boko Haram’s humanitarian displacement crisis has also been plagued by data distortion due to manipulated and misrepresented numbers. As will be explicated further, such misrepresentations hover on more than the provision of relief and non-relief materials. National and international humanitarian organizations have been known to misrepresent data to justify their own commitment and highlight the shortcomings of their peers (Desgrandchamps 2018). Number of IDPs have been inflated to blow the humanitarian crisis out of proportion. People in affected communities have been brought into camps to swell the number of displaced persons when important government personalities intend to visit the camps. Government officials have downplayed the numbers of affected population to minimize conflict impact and

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position themselves as being ‘in control’ of crisis management. Certain humanitarian organizations do not do due diligence on data they utilize for needs assessment and program implementation, leading to underbudgeting, over-budgeting, and mis-budgeting. Some organizations also stand indicted of wrong reporting of positive or negative impacts of programs implemented, as well as non-evaluation of programs to maintain donor commitments and continued funding. This is mostly done to achieve the ‘permanent emergency’ principle which is the act of reproducing the humanitarian movement via consistent crisis (O’Sullivan 2016).

Bibliography Abubakar, Dauda. 2016. Ethnic Identity, Democratization, and the Future of the African State: Lessons from Nigeria. African Issues 29 (1–2): 31–36. Achimba, Chibuihe Obi. 2000. The History Nigeria is Fighting to Erase. Arrow Smith. 11. Accessed 17 September 2021. https://www.arrowsmithpr ess.com/biafra. Agbiboa, Daniel Egiegba. 2012. Ethno-Religious Conflicts and the Elusive Quest for National Identity in Nigeria. Journal of Black Studies 44 (1): 3–30. Ananaba, Wogu. 1969. The Trade Union Movement in Nigeria. Benin: Ethiope Publication Corporation. Bennett, Jack. 2020. Civil War and United States Humanitarianism in Nigeria. Retrospect Journal. 26 April. Accessed 15 September 2021. https://retrospectjournal.com/2020/04/26/civil-war-and-united-sta tes-humanitarianism-in-nigeria/. Deng, Francis M. 1997. Ethnicity: An African Predicament. Brookings. Desgrandchamps, Marie-Luce. 2018. Biafra: At the Heart of Postcolonial Humanitarian Ambiguities. Humanitarian Alternatives 1 (9): 8– 19. https://alternatives-humanitaires.org/en/2018/11/12/biafra-heart-pos tcolonial-humanitarian-ambiguities/. Eke, Surulola James. 2015. “Good Policy” Gone Bad: Institutionalized Ranking of Citizens and Identity Conflicts in Nigeria. India Quarterly: A Journal of International Affairs 71 (4): 1–17. Enaholo, Patrick. 2014. Birth of the Nigerian Colony, The Centenary Project. January. Accessed 11 October 2021. https://artsandculture.google.com/exh ibit/birth-of-the-nigerian-colony-pan-atlantic-university/ARi_MKdz?hl=en. Garba, Abdul-Ganiyu, and Kassey P Garba. 2005. The Nigerian Civil War: Causes and Aftermath. In Post-Conflict Economies in Africa, edited by Augustin Kwasi Fosu and Paul Collier, 99–108. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

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Heerten, Lasse. 2017. The Biafran War and Postcolonial Humanitarianism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kazeem, Yomi. 2019. Nigeria’s Military is in a Battle with Humanitarian NGOs in the Country’s Troubled Northeast. 26 September. Accessed 26 October 2021. https://qz.com/africa/1716064/nigerian-army-shuts-mercycorps-ngos-amid-boko-haram-crisis/. Kennedy, David. 2004. The Dark Sides of Virtue: Reassessing International Humanitarianism. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Kobo, Ousman Murzik. 2020. “No Victor and No Vanquished” - Fifty Years after the Biafran War. January. Accessed 8 September 2021. https://origins. osu.edu/milestones/nigerian-civil-war-biafra-anniversary. Last, Murray. 2005. Poison and Medicine: Ethnicity, Power and Violence in a Nigerian City, 1966–1986. African Affairs 104 (417): 710–711. McGoldrick, Claudia. 2007. Internal displacement in Nigeria: an urgent challenge. 5 February. Accessed 15 September 2021. https://www.fmreview.org/ sites/fmr/files/textOnlyContent/FMR/23/21.htm. Moloney, Rachel. 2020. Borgen Magazine. 13 November. Accessed 15 September 2021. https://www.borgenmagazine.com/nigerias-humanitarianaid-problem/. Montclos, Marc-Antoine Pérouse de. 2009. Humanitarian Aid and the Biafra War: Lessons not Learned. Africa Development 34 (1): 69–82. Nwaka, Jacinta C. 2013. When Neutrality Looses Its Value: Caritas Airlift to Biafra, 1968–1970. Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria 22: 63–81. Nwiwu, Azubuike Kalu, and Thomas J. Davis. 2001. Education, Ethnicity and National Integration in the History of Nigeria: Continuing Problems of Africa’s Colonial Legacy. The Journal of Negro History 86 (1): 1–11. O’Sullivan, Kevin. 2016. Biafra’s Legacy: NGO Humanitarianism and the Nigerian Civil War. Learning from the past to Shape the Future Lessons from the History of Humanitarian Action in Africa 10: 1–13. Ochonu, Moses. 2014. The Roots of Nigeria’s Religious and Ethnic Conflict. Boston: The World, 10 April. Accessed 17 September 2021. https://www. pri.org/stories/2014-03-10/roots-nigerias-religious-and-ethnic-conflict. Ofem, Ofem, and Inyang Bassey. 2014. Livelihood and Conflict Dimension among Crop Farmers and Fulani Herdsmen in Yakurr Region of Cross River State. Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences 5 (8): 1–8. Perham, Margery. 1970. Reflections on the Nigerian Civil War. International Affairs 46 (2): 231–246. Ruby, Robert, and Timothy Samuel Shah. 2007. Nigeria’s Presidential Election: The Christian-Muslim Divide. 21 March. Accessed 19 October 2021. https://www.pewforum.org/2007/03/21/nigerias-president ial-election-the-christian-muslim-divide/.

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Shapiro, T. Rees. 2011. Odumegwu Ojukwu, 78: Rebel leader who broke Republic of Biafra away from Nigeria. 29 November. Accessed 8 September 2021. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/odumegwu-oju kwu-78-rebel-leader-who-broke-republic-of-biafra-away-from-nigeria/2011/ 11/28/gIQAdVcHAO_story.html. Siollun, Max. 2009. Oil, Politics and Violence: Nigeria’s Military Coup Culture (1966–1976). New York: Algora Publishing. Sklar, Richard. 1963. Nigeria Political Parties. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Suberu, Rotimi, and Diamond Larry. 2003. Nigeria: The Challenges and Travails of Governance. In Comparative Governance., edited by Philips Shively, 108– 159. New York: McGraw-Hill. The Soufan Centre. 2020. Northeast Nigeria’s Growing Insecurity Threatens Humanitarian Aid Workers and Civilians. 19. August. Accessed 25 January 2022. https://thesoufancenter.org/intelbrief-northeast-nigerias-growing-ins ecurity-threatens-humanitarian-aid-workers-and-civilians/ Wiseberg, Laurie. 1975. The Statistics Jungle: Measuring War, Plague, Fire, and Famine. Society 12 (5): 53–60. World Bank. 2019. Nigeria. Accessed 1 November 2021. https://data.worldb ank.org/country/nigeria. World Peace Foundation. 2015. Mass Atrocity Endings. 15 August. Accessed 13 September 2021. https://sites.tufts.edu/atrocityendings/2015/08/07/ nigeria-civil-war/.

CHAPTER 2

Boko Haram, Why the North?

The north of Nigeria, or Arewacin Najeriya in Hausa language is as much a geographical description, as it is a historical one. It broadly refers to the area beginning from Nigeria’s borders with Chad and Niger and ending in the middle straits of communities along the Mambilla plateau, down to Nigeria’s capital Abuja, and then into the savannah belts of Kogi state leading into south-eastern and western Nigeria. This geographical delineation is however problematic because states strewn along this plateau now prefer to be addressed as ‘middle belt’ states. This profiling elevates their status as minority states desiring autonomy from the HausaFulani populated north. The middle belt appellation has been now being subsumed, and these areas are now called ‘northcentral’. Historically, Nigeria’s north became a distinctive designation for the people who came under the suzerainty of the caliphate after the Sokoto Jihad of 1804. For want of a cohesive description, the designation of northern Nigeria will refer to the geographical description stated above. The area in contemporary Nigeria covers nearly two-thirds of the country’s landmass—approximately 711,828 square kilometres (Nigeria Bureau of Statistics 2013) which is double the size of Germany. In 2020, the population of Nigeria was 206.1 million (Statista 2021). The most recent data on the population of northern Nigeria is from the last population census conducted in the country in 2006. The figure from this census puts Nigeria at a population of 140 m, and northern Nigeria at 75 million, © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 M. Abdulazeez Malefakis, Humanitarian Displacement and Boko Haram in Nigeria, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99784-7_2

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Fig. 2.1 Map of Nigeria showing the 19 northern states (Source Sarki and Babangida)

with Kano state in the north emerging the most populous state in the country with 9.4 million people, closely followed by Lagos at 9 million (Yin 2007). 19 states make up Nigeria’s northern constellation: Zamfara, Sokoto, Kebbi, Katsina, Kano, Kaduna, and Jigawa (northwest); Niger, Kogi, Benue, Plateau, Nasarawa, and Kwara (northcentral); and Yobe, Bauchi, Adamawa, Taraba, Gombe, and Bornu (northeast) (Fig. 2.1). The largest linguistic groups in northern Nigeria are the Hausa, Fulani, and Kanuri. Hausa language belongs to the west Chadic family of AfroAsiatic languages spoken in the Sahelian belt across Nigeria, Chad, Sudan, Ghana, Cote D’Ivoire, Cameroon, Sudan, and Togo. Hausa is spoken as a first language by about 35 million people, and as a second language by 15 million people in Nigeria (Ethnologue 2021). It is a language of trade, a language of interaction, and an identity marker in northern Nigeria. Hausa is, to this degree the lingua franca in Arewacin Najeriya. Fulani or Fulfude is the language of the largest pastoral nomadic/sedentary group in the world spread across Nigeria, Guinea, Cameroon, Senegal,

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Mali, Burkina- Faso, Sudan, and Chad. Fulani belongs to the NigerCongo language group and its speakers are sometimes referred to as ‘Fulbe’ or ‘Fellata’. Hausa and Fulani are often grouped together in northern Nigeria as Hausa-Fulani, but each consider themselves distinct in culture, language, economic and social practices. While nearly all Fulani in the region speak Hausa, mostly no Hausa speak Fulani (International Crisis Group 2010). Speakers of Kanuri in northern Nigeria originate from the Kanem-Bornu empire. The language is from the Nilo-Saharan stock, and speakers also abound in Niger, Nigeria, Chad, and Cameroon. Other languages spoken in northern Nigeria include Angas, Warji, Ebira, Kataf , Tarok, Birom, Eggon, Barawa, Mandara, Tiv, Igala, Idoma, Nupe, jukun, Jarawa, Yungur, and others. With a vast spread of wetlands and plateaus in the middle belt, the area is fertile for large-scale agriculture and animal husbandry. Most of the population are subsistence farmers living in rural agrarian communities. Over time, urban centres have emerged, growing to become metropolitan cities. Zungeru was the first colonial capital of the north, but it remained a small town in present Niger state. Kaduna, the second capital of the protectorate of northern Nigeria on its part grew to be a provincial city, attracting diverse people from southern and eastern Nigeria. Kaduna was especially attractive for Yoruba people who chose it as an economic migration destination for youths seeking to emerge independently from the shadows of familial ties (Abdulazeez 2008). Kano, Maiduguri, and Lokoja also have vibrant urban infrastructures and an heterogenous mix of population. Incessant rural–urban migration continues to increase population and urbanity in state capitals such as Yola, Lafia, and Gombe. Islam is the dominant religion in northern Nigeria. There are also speakers of almost 160 minority languages who are mainly Christian (Hoffmann 2014). A small part of the northern population also follow and practice ancient customary religions.

Terrorism in Northern Nigeria: Boko Haram’s Revolving Foundations The manifestation and prevalence of societal issues in Nigeria tend to be concurrent. No region or state for instance is immune to crime, corruption, nepotism, identity politics, or police brutality. What is different is the scale of impact, and the magnitude. Per contra, antecedental factors have made some events to be associated to specific regions in the country. For instance, Nigeria’s oil is found in the Niger Delta region. Violence

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and agitations for the egalitarian exploitation of oil resources have been restricted to kidnapping of expatriate workers, and destruction of oil exploration facilities in Niger Delta states. The unrests ensuing from the activities of the Independent People of Biafra (IPOB) seeking to secede from Nigeria has been restricted to the eastern region where the history and character of the civil war remain staunch. Banditry crisis began from places where the farmer/herder conflicts were rampant, before criminal elements hijacked ensuing animosities and spread kidnapping, rape, and killing to other parts of the country. What the above posits is that certain elements lay the foundations for the emergence of insurgent or rebel movements. These elements are sometimes clear-cut and peculiar to the area from which insurgency breams. IPOB builds on the Biafra civil war relics which is specific to Eastern Nigeria. Other times, these elements are either unobtrusive, lethal independently, or needing to co-exist with another. In some instances, it takes these elements re-enforcing one another for the emergence, and sustained existence of insurgent groups in a particular area. The latter is the case for Boko Haram in northern Nigeria. Elements which paved the way for Boko Haram’s emergence include Islamic religion, fragmentation and religious fundamentalism, influence from past insurgencies, poverty and government failure, lack of political will, and the inefficiency of security forces. Islamic Religion, Its Fragmentation, and Religious Fundamentalism Religion is an integral element of every Nigerian’s life as stated in the preceding chapter. Identity by religion in Nigeria is said to be the highest in the world, and Nigerians are more likely to define themselves in terms of religion than any other identity. According to a survey on religion and public life conducted by the Pew Forum, 76% of Christians say that religion is more important to them than their identity as Africans, Nigerians, or members of an ethnic group, and amongst Muslims, the number naming religion as the most important identity factor was 91% (Lugo and Cooperman 2010). Terrorism and Islamic religion in northern Nigeria are ostensibly intertwined. This connection is explicated in the way Islam spread into northern Nigeria, in the emergence of fragmentation in Islamic practice, and in the brewing of fundamentalism therefrom. Northern Nigeria first encountered Islam through trade with north Africa and the Arab world. This eleventh-century trade was in slaves, salt,

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camels, and groundnuts. Traders from Agadez, Fezzan, Mali, Tripoli, and the Tukolor empire of Senegal transported trade items back and forth in caravans along the Saharan routes connecting present-day Nigeria with Niger, Mali, and north Africa. The Kanem-Bornu empire (a Kanuri stronghold) which shares borders with Cameroon and Chad became the first to accept and practice Islam. From here, the new religion would spread to Hausa states by the fifteenth century. At this time, Islam was still practised simultaneously with syncretic aspects of traditional religion which involved “worship of the ‘Uwangona’ (goddess of agriculture) and ‘Uwandowa’ (goddess of hunting), and the new religion was merely conditioning traditional cultures ceremoniously and marginally” (Olaosebikan 2011). In 1804, a ‘crusading revolution’ began against Islam’s conditioning of traditional religion. Usman Dan Fodio, a Fulani Muslim scholar began to preach against Hausa rulers’ polytheism, un-Islamic and syncretic practices such as spirit chants (bori), consultation of magicians/soothsayers, and worshipping of ancestral gods. To establish a pristine form of Islam in this seemingly pagan area, Dan Fodio led a series of upheavals against Hausa rulers based on an Islamic jurisprudential justification for holy war (jihad) against a state if the ruler places obstacles against the practice of Islam, or mixes Islamic and pagan practices (Olaosebikan 2011). The success of the Jihadists meant an overthrow of Hausa aristocratic leadership and the emergence of a Dan Fodio led caliphate headquartered in Sokoto. Dan Fodio adopted the title of ‘Amir-al-Muminin’ (leader of the faithful) and Caliph (ruler) of the Sokoto caliphate. Territorially, the caliphate “extended …to Konni district of the present Niger Republic…reached the lower Benue valley into the forest belt and the military garrison in Ibadan and Oshogbo… and expanded westwards into eastern part of the present-day Burkina Fasso” (Mahdi et al. 1994). It became the seat of both religion and state power in northern Nigeria. Arewacin Najeriya benefitted in somewhat ways from the Jihad. Economically, short distance trade was boosted with North African traders from Morocco, Egypt, Sudan, and the Ottoman caliphate due to the consolidation of Islamic religion. This assured free movement of goods and ideas and further deepened Islamic ties with these areas. Islamic education and scholarship were boosted, and students, including women were allowed to seek knowledge at skills and scholarship acquisition centres. This search for knowledge informed large-scale movements of people, leading to urbanization and emergence of Yola, Katagum, Hadeja,

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and Ilorin as cities for Islamic scholarship. Politically, the Islamic rule of Sharia was the basis of governmental and judicial operations in the caliphate. By 1904, barely a decade after its emergence, the Sokoto caliphate had started showing signs of weakness attributed to structural imbalances, political and aristocratic decay. Abdullahi Mahdi describes it as a ‘revolution without transformation’, where the Jihad only removed Hausa rulers from power, but inherited, accommodated, and enlarged their state structures (Mahdi 1985). Mustapha Gwadabe opined that subsuming the ideals of the caliphate to feudalism, reducing the Jihad’s achievements to platforms for sustaining aristocratic power and plunder in Hausa land, open use of such aristocratic power with greed by Jihadists, and the inability of Jihad leaders to sustain the spirit of Islamic reform promised to the community as advocated by Dan Fodio, were the salient reasons why the caliphate was easily dismantled by British colonialism (Gwadabe 2015). The Jihad had unfortunately become what it intended to fight, and British colonialists exploited this to their advantage in their conquest of northern Nigeria. Aristocratic power in the Hausa states under the caliphate was so meticulously enshrined that the colonial powers adopted the existing political structures of the caliph and his subordinate Emirs, and indirectly administered the northern population through them. By this system of indirect rule, the caliph and the emirs were no longer religious leaders promoting Sharia law in their various emirates but had been transmuted into efficacious instruments of British colonialists. Under colonialism, the application of Sharia was systematically scaled down to civil and family issues. Sharia was eventually abolished on the basis that it was antagonistic to the freedom of all people in a society not populated exclusively by Muslims. When the roman writing script was introduced to replace the traditional Hausa ‘ajami’ script, Muslims in northern Nigeria became suspicious that the British may be considering an imposition of Christianity in the northern region. To avoid these tensions and ensure the success of the colonial enterprise, colonialists restricted the activities of Christian missionaries to the fringes of the northern protectorate, the southern and the eastern part of Nigeria. This singular move tilted the formal education balance in favour of southern and eastern Nigeria because Christian missionaries were also the harbinger of western education. Northern Nigeria continues to play catchup in formal literacy rates till date.

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The older Kanem-Bornu empire in the northeast was weakened by the political rise of Sokoto caliphate but resisted total domination. The cost of this was the exclusion of its leaders from emerging Islamic networks of power. The opposition of the Kanuri in the northeast to subjugation under Sokoto caliphate shaped the relationship between both power structures and is an important backdrop for understanding the violent contestation for control of northeast Nigeria. During the 100-year existence of the caliphate, the hegemony of the Fulani ruling class and its interactions with the local Hausa aristocracy laid the groundwork for their combined political domination of northern Nigeria. Relics of this power relations remained after the defeat of the Sokoto caliphate and was in fact strengthened under colonialism. It also formed the basis of societal interactions between Hausa land and its neighbours in independent and post-independent Nigeria. The fall of the Sokoto caliphate was an awakening for drivers of a strict adherence and return to the norms of what Islam ‘used to be’ in the years of Dan Fodio’s reign. Under Dan Fodio, Muslims in northern Nigeria were proscribed to Sunni Islam of the Maliki School, and specifically to the Sufi Tariqa -brotherhood (Last 2014). Around the 1830s, calls for strict Islamic practice wedged certain fragmentations into Nigeria’s Islamic fabric. These became noticeable in divisions and dissensions that plagued the Muslim communities. A part of the fragmentation began from dynamics in strictness of ritual practices resulting in the dissolution of the Sufi orders into Tijaniyyah and Qadiriyyah. Yet another arose from condemnation and rejection of existing Islamic doctrinal practices which was the principal reason for the emergence of the Izala after Nigeria’s independence led by Sheikh Abubakar Mahmud Gumi. Gumi’s doctrines, drawing upon the writings of Usman Dan Fodio “insisted on the idea of Tawhid (oneness of God) and a return to strict Islamic mode of worship as perfected in the days of the Salaf al-S.¯ alih.—pious predecessors of the Prophet” (Amara 2011). Gumi regarded as Bidi’a (innovation) Sufi tenets such as suppositions of the prophet still alive and mystically transmitting instructions to particular persons, recitation of incantations or supplications (particularly salatil fatih) composed by the turuq (plural form of tariqa) saints, reverence of the saints particularly visits to their tombs, use of charms, and the drinking of Arabic writings (rubutu) washed off from the wooden slates (Amara 2011). Fragmentations emanating from internal rivalries and power struggles then creeped into Gumi’s Izala. This

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divided the group into Izala A (the old Izala brigade seen as the ‘uncompromisers’ and based in Plateau), Izala B or Yan Tawaye’ (the liberal and moderate ‘seceders’ based in Kaduna), and Izala C regarded as the neutrals (Mustapha and Bunza 2014). In the 1970s came education-influenced fragmentations. Scholars who were students at the Islamic University of Madina (Yan Madinain) and activists responsible for the formation of the Muslim Student Society of Nigeria (MSSN) in many universities began to demonstratively exhibit their contacts with new Islamic ideals by establishing strong religious followings. They included Sheikh Jafar Adam (the Islamic teacher of Boko Haram’s erstwhile founder Muhammad Yusuf), Sheikh Isa Pantami (current Nigerian minister of communications and digital economy), Abdullahi Akinbode, and Babs Fafunwa. Yan Madinain began to cultivate their followings by establishing their own Islamic organizations, individualizing Islamic practices in their mosques, and heightening competition for followership in the clerics-led ‘prayer economy’. Groups which emanated from this wave of fragmentation include the “Shi’a’s Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN) or Muslim Brothers led by Sheikh El-Zakzaky and its splinter group- Jamat al-Tajdeed al Islami (JTI), the Yoruba Muslims prominent of which are Nasrul-Lahi Fathi Society of Nigeria (NASFAT), Ansar al Deen, Nawairrudeen, Nurudeen, Umarudeen, and Ahmadiyya, and women organizations such as Federation of Muslim Women’s Association of Nigeria (FOMWAN)” (Mustapha and Bunza 2014). Stemming from this fragmented atmosphere were covertly radical Islamic fundamentalists whose ideologies opposed the liberalization of any aspect of Islam, and who advocated for the orthodox practice of religious doctrines. They adopted a microscopic and literal understanding of religious teachings especially in its relation to the direct transliteration of scriptures and insisted on the sacred perpetuation of such transliterations. The Maitatsine group which emerged in northwestern Nigeria in the 1980s and Boko Haram are classic examples of these. Others with similar underpins are Mahdiyya which sprung up in Kano, Darul Islam which started around Mokwa in Niger state, Nibrassiya Huda in Cheche village also in Niger state, the Yan Hakika led by Sheikh Baban Salma in Jos, the Qur’aniyyun, and Isawa (Mustapha and Bunza 2014). The ideologies of some of these groups included a rejection of state political authority and a refusal to co-exist in a state or country where Sharia was not the governance code.

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These emergent fragmentation in Islam expressly influenced the rise of fundamentalist religious ideologies and groups. Although it was not anticipated that fundamentalist groups would crystallize into global jihadi organizations, the crowded religious marketplace characterized by the struggle for followership and influence (Mustapha and Bunza 2014) was a breeding ground for doctrinal schisms. It encouraged the isolation of one Islamic group from another, and isolation of smaller Muslim groups from the larger Muslim body. Each group began “outright condemnation of the other and of their scholars, escalating rebellion amongst Muslim elites and youths on very minor, insignificant, fundamental, and nonfundamental issues” (Gwadabe 2015). These developments divided the Muslim Community, encouraging the establishment of separate mosques and Islamic schools owned by different sects instead of the community (Gwadabe 2015). All these fueled bitterness and enmity amongst these groups infrequently resulting in violence. The clashes between the Izala and the Sufi brotherhoods in the 1980s and the Tarika-Izala Market dispute of 1987 in Zuru, Kebbi state were believed to be the result of doctrinal disputes. Similarly, the Sunni-Shiite clashes in Sokoto and Zaria in the 1990s were essentially a conflict within Islam based on sectional differences. Having paved the way for different groups to nurture their own versions of Islam in Nigeria, fragmentation provided fortitude for fundamentalist groups. It made it impossible for consensus Islamic practice to be promoted as a united response to seemingly violent, extremist ideologies. In certain instances, fragmentation camouflaged the existence of these extremist ideologies. What stemmed from this fragmented and divisive atmosphere of Islam were covertly radical Islamic fundamentalists whose ideologies includes a rejection of state political authority and a refusal to exist or co-exist in a state or country where mainstream Islamic Sharia was not the governance code. They exploited the disunity in Islamic practice to create an ideological brand promoted as superior to any and justified by historical antecedents of Islam’s emergence in northern Nigeria. When fundamentalist groups appeared, ‘mainstream/nominal’ Muslims simply dismissed them as another unacceptable version of Islam that yet again had crawled into Nigeria’s Islamic realm. Alas, some of the views of the ‘new Islamists’ (‘sabon shiga’ or new in the religion as nominal Muslims want them to be called) were typical of the ‘Jihadi’ type of ‘Salafism’ (a puritanical offshoot of the Sunnis) who also inadvertently practice ‘Takfirsm’ (the act of branding Muslims who do not believe in their creed as ‘Kafirs ’ (unbelievers), thereby legitimizing

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the spilling of their blood). Boko Haram typified all the characteristics of these ‘new Islamists’. It broke out as a doctrinal schism, splitting from the Salafiyya Izala group of Mohammed Yusuf’s teacher, Sheikh Ja’afar Adam. The group then emerged into the crowded ‘religious marketplace’ characterized by the struggle for followership and influence which Islam in northern Nigeria had grown into. What was however not expected was the crystallization, growth, support, and manipulation of Boko Haram which are some of the reasons the group metamorphosed from a discontent group led by a radical demagogue to a terrorist organization capable of taking lives to get its message across to the world and put the Nigerian government at the disadvantaged end of a negotiating table. Steeping themselves and their ideologies in radical Islamism, fundamentalists utilized a ‘return back to Sharia as the basis of their demand for an Islamic state in Nigeria’. This bedrock base was flawed at its roots because the whole of Nigeria, and more specifically the totality of the northern region had not at any point in time being governed absolutely by Sharia. For fundamentalists, however, the reintroduction of Sharia represented the enduring appeal of Islamic governance as a basis not only for ordering society but also for social and political renewal. The argument for the expansion of Sharia law was also motivated by unresolved anger at the relegation and overall influence of Islam on society since colonialism. When Sharia was signed into law following the 1999 general elections in some northern states (Zamfara led the way in 2000 followed by Kano and Bauchi), many in the Muslim community envisioned this as a panacea for the complex and messy problems of social injustice, poverty, unemployment, and political corruption. It however proved to be another case of politicizing religion, a political strategy to win votes from the people, than a stringent religious stance. The proponents of Sharia and the Ulamas (religious leaders) that believed them created the impression that Sharia would lead to a qualitative improvement in the lives of the inhabitants of Sharia states (Mohammed 2014). However, the operation of Sharia law as an adjunct with, and its subordination to the secular constitution in Zamfara was anathema to radical Islamists. Sharia proponents demanded a full complement of Sharia law as against the Zamfara model, which Boko Haram specifically ridiculed and rejected (Mohammed 2014). After the expansion of Sharia, the unchanged circumstances of many who had celebrated its signing created even more anger and disaffection towards the state governments that had

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adopted the new laws, “opening the north’s social space for extreme religious ideologies to be seeded, and for older strands of radical Islamism to be revived” (International Crisis Group 2010). Slowly, teachings to the youths by covert fundamentalists began to suggest that the promises of Sharia will never be truly realized until it is implemented by religious rather than political authorities—in other words, after the installation of an Islamic state (International Crisis Group 2010). The tinder for an ‘insurgent fire’ was thus in place and in motion in the north, and Boko Haram stoked it further to consolidate its emergence and sustain its existence. Influence from Past Insurgencies The fragmented religious terrain in northern Nigeria provided fodder for religious uprisings between and amongst religious groups. Some soon grew to become insurgencies by members of religious indoctrinations against the Nigerian state. One of the most prominent of these was the Maitatsine uprisings led by Muhammed Marwa, an Islamic preacher and teacher, who came to Kano from Cameroon in 1945. Marwa’s most important agitation was the purification of Islam after what he believed was its ‘westernization’ by the state apparatuses in Hausa land. The basis of Boko Haram’s ideology also stemmed from a rejection of westernization, and Mohammed Yusuf’s insurgency was poignantly inspired by Maitatsine. The word Maitatsine was Marwa’s title. It denotes from ‘mai tatsine’ which means ‘he who curses’ in Hausa. Marwa earned the title because he vociferously condemned the political, economic, social, and cultural excesses of the rulers. He would curse them in his sermons. His followers were called ‘yan tatsine’. Differing from nominal Islamic beliefs prevalent in northern Nigeria at this period, Marwa’s ideology alluded to teachings of the Prophet (SAW) as not being divinely sent down, but those of a mere mortal. This is how some of his followers got the name ‘yan kala kato’ which translates to ‘those who say, a mere man said it’. Through this criticism of the prophet, he besmirched aspects of the Quran and went on to proclaim himself an ‘annabi’ (prophet) sent to salvage the world. Marwa decried technological commonplace as radios, wrist watches, automobiles, motorcycles, and even bicycles (Falola 1998). Those who “use these things or who read books other than the Qur’an were condemned as hell-bound pagans” (Falola 1998). The growing

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following of Maitatsine irritated the government and its officials so much that the governor of Kano state Abubakar Rimi on November 26, 1980, issued a letter asking them to quit the state within two weeks. The events following these led to hostilities between the sect and the government. A Tribunal of Inquiry on the Kano Disturbances was set up in 1981 and its report helps to succinctly describe what followed the governor’s issuance: On December 18, 1980, the Maitatsine group went to “Shahuci” (a popular open field) to preach when the police stormed the place to prevent the sect from preaching because they did not obtain a permit. Moreover, the public had always complained of harassment by the sect whenever it was preaching. Conflict ensued between the police and the sect. Obviously, the police underrated the strength of the sect and the two police units that went for the operation were soon over-powered by the members of the sect who appeared with bows and arrows, knives and Dane guns. The sect burnt down all the thirteen police vehicles, killed four policemen and injured the rest whom they stripped off their weapons. Encouraged by the ‘defeat’ of the police, the sect marched in Kano city chanting “Yau zamu sha jinni”, meaning “today we shall drink blood”, in Hausa. By December 19, the sect took over strategic places in Kano city including the Fagge mosque, some schools, a cinema house and the Sabon Gari market. For eleven days, the police were unable to bring to control the sectarian riots. When the situation was getting out of control, ex-President Shehu Shagari had to invite the Nigeria Army to intervene. It took the army two days to dislodge the sect while their leader was killed in the operation. More than 1,000 members of the sect were arrested and detained in prison where they received agonizing treatment from the police. The crisis lasted for 11 days, claimed the lives of more than 4,179 people and hundreds of houses and shops were either torched or destroyed. (Danjibo 2009)

After the Kano occurrence, there were other Maitatsine insurrections in Bulumkutu, Kaduna, Yola, and Bauchi in 1982, 1982, 1984, and 1985, respectively. All were eventually quelled by the Nigerian security forces. The ways in which Boko Haram was inspirited by Maitatsine were obvious. Both insurgencies were championed by ‘scholars’ whose beliefs were divergent from those of nominal Muslims. The rejection of state governance not based on strict adherence to Islamic Sharia was a dominant factor in both insurgencies. The Maitatsine insurgency was structurally planned and organized, as it took military intervention to quell

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them; just as the Boko Haram is necessitating. The leaders of both insurgents were also involved in certain habits and activities that negated their stipulated doctrines. For Marwa, it was the use of charms and amulets while for Muhammed Yusuf, it was his indulgence with western technology such as cars and phones. There are however forces of distinction between the two. Marwa’s declaration of himself as a prophet distinguished him from Yusuf, whose claim was the strict application and enforcement of Islam. More so, Boko Haram revels in its ‘ties’ with international terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and ISIS but Maitatsine is not known to have international ties, other than its leader coming from Cameroon. Boko Haram is decisively more sophisticated in its use of explosives and advanced weapons of mass destruction, and cross-country in its membership. The nature of this insurgency is also idyllic making it difficult for its members to be identified especially when they escape back into the communities. Bearing in mind the similarities and inferences between both insurgencies, it is bemusing that Boko Haram and its ‘otherness’ in ideology festered as long as it did in northern Nigeria before attempts at countering its insurgencies began. Poverty, Inequality, and Failure of Government Political, economic, and social relations in Nigeria, and specifically the north constituted piles of emotion-driven frustration, pent-up anger, and resentment in the citizenry. To begin with, relics of colonial leadership patterns (which allowed formal/western education only at the fringes of northern Nigeria’s border) left educational imbalances in the regional outlook of the country. The north ended up being the area and region with the highest formal illiteracy rates. In 2010, the year in which Boko Haram re-emerged as the terrorist group we know today, northeast, and northwest Nigeria had literacy rates as low as 33% and 23%, compared to the southwest with 80% and the southeast with 75% (Statistics 2010). One of the states affected by Boko Haram is Yobe state, and in 2017, its literacy rate was 7%, while Imo and Lagos in the southeast and southwest rated 96% (Amzat 2017). By 2018, literacy rates in the southwest were as high as 89%, while the northwest and northeast had 29% and 31% respectively (Varrella 2021). 40% per cent of Nigerian children aged 6–11 do not attend any primary school, and it is northern Nigeria that has the worst school attendance rates, especially for its girls (UNICEF

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2015). The imbalance in education reflected in access to economic opportunities. Southerners controlled the civil service, and the entrepreneuring eastern region controlled vast businesses and economic resources. The north, unable to compete, made up for the unevenness by consolidating their hold on political power through heightened political participation. Educational inequality and its resultant effects nonetheless filtered into other spheres of life and intensified the disparities amongst the regions. After independence, and following the termination of the first republic, the north of Nigeria found itself out of the fray of competitive development. Although largely untouched by the destructions of the civil war, economic and infrastructural development did not emerge at par with the south or east. It seemed that development in the north was measured in terms relating to the power ascendancy of political elites, much more than urban infrastructure provision. The growth of the Nigerian economy did not trickle down to the north, and the competition for development stimulated by regional governance before independence steadily disappeared with military rule and federal governance. The northern economy was further shrunk with the 1980s structural adjustment program (SAP) of General Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida which resulted in state’s withdrawal from from many sectors of the economy. Other factors which catalyzed poverty and underdevelopment in the north were high population growth (encouraged by the population controversies of early independence years), recurrent drought in the Lake Chad Basin and other areas surrounding the Sahara, and unemployment arising from de-industrialization and closure of the textile industries in Kano and Kaduna. Between 1985–1993, SAP and the austerity measures adopted by the Nigerian military government called on Nigerians to ‘tighten their belt’ while they (Nigerians) simultaneously witnessed ostentatious lifestyle and embezzlement by corrupt government officials and elites. These heightened social inequalities and spread alienation and discontentment around the country but the impacts were felt more in those areas that could not utilize any structural base to access basic utilities. Because northern political elites were long disconnected from their societal moorings, the consequences of these economic and political changes for the ordinary citizen in the north was stark, intensifying poverty and lack of basic amenities (Mustapha and Bunza 2014). Thereupon, northern Nigeria contemporarily displays one of the worst cases of poverty and human development indicators in the world. 60% of Nigerians were living in absolute poverty in 2010, but Sokoto state in

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the northwest rated the highest with 86% (BBC 2012). By 2012, 71% of the population in Nigeria’s northeast were living in absolute poverty with more than half malnourished (UNICEF 2015). The 2015 multidimensional poverty index posited that only 1% of Nigeria’s Lagos population were living in severe poverty but Sokoto state still rated 66% on this index, and Zamfara rated the highest in the country with 77% (Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative 2015). In 2010, 9 of the 19 northern states had the highest levels of formal unemployment in Nigeria, with Zamfara state in the northwest having 42% (up from 14% the previous year), and young northerners being overwhelmingly more likely to be jobless (Hoffmann 2014). Insecurity, desertification, and flooding interrupted farming activities which is the main source of income for most rural northerners. Poverty thus became a prominent and recurring feature in the lives of many. Communities in the northeast had large concentrations of people Frantz Fanon would call the ‘Wretched of the Earth’, many of whom are either unemployed or underemployed. The Nigerian state and northern political elites provided insufficient mechanisms to curb ensuing poverty and crippling underdevelopment. These, coupled with stolen election mandates had led to a growing disenchantment with the democratic system of governance, particularly amongst jobless young men (Adesoji 2010). Using the ‘state failure’ theory, the inability of the Nigerian state to attend to the legitimate concerns and demands of their citizens, and provide political goods such as education, healthcare, infrastructures, employment opportunities, and a legal framework for law and order made the government lose its legitimacy in the eyes of the citizens, many of whom would then transfer their allegiances to more responsive authorities be they religious or clan groups (Maslow 1943). One such group would be Boko Haram. Mohammed Yusuf gained foothold in Maiduguri, Bornu state by beginning his evangelism as a form of a Muslim welfarist movement. The categories of the excluded and vulnerable that Boko Haram catered for at the beginning ensured that the group’s membership base at this time was voluntary, made up of young men who had patent grudges with a government that had not only failed them, but also stifled their ability to compete for national resources in their country of birth. When Boko Haram presented a movement whose ideology was centred on a rejection of northern Nigeria’s governance structure in particular, and democracy in general, social discontent was already apparent in societal ranks and provided a ready fuel for the jihadi fire. Isabella

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Csikszentmihalyi stated that although low status, poverty, or marginalization does not (in and of itself) trigger humiliation or retaliation, ‘humiliated fury’ relates to deprivation that is perceived as illegitimate or unjust, or that of a colonizing act perpetuated by the powerful over the powerless (Csikszentmihalyi 2012). From this perspective, James Waller continues that those who begin the psychological trajectory towards violent extremist behaviour may draw on emotional energy generated from both historical and immediate social contexts which they perceived as exclusionary, oppressive, and sometimes cruel (Waller 2007). Anas, an internally displaced person at the NYSC camp in Maiduguri (displaced by Boko Haram’s insurgency) explains what demonstrates the potency of Waller and Csikszentmihalyi’s suppositions: Every day, we used to sit in our majallisa (gathering by the roadside) without doing anything. No job, no school. We cannot go to anybody for help. We only see our councillors during election. That is when we make money. After we vote, no more. We don’t see any politician again. That’s why when Mallam (Yusuf) started insulting them, I liked it. I used to buy his waazi (preaching). I even prayed behind him (in his mosque). I love him so much. (Anas 2015)

The appropriation of societal decadence by Boko Haram has been a defining factor in the emergence and development of the violent extremist agenda in Nigeria. Yusuf was described by Elodie Apard as ‘a gifted orator who used national and international news to denounce corruption and inequalities, rally against extortion and excessive violence by the police. By doing do, he developed feelings of injustice; the stoking of hatred and calling for violence which proved to be crucial elements in his discourse’ (Apard 2015). Employing poverty as a base to recruit for insurgent purposes reflects Kruglanski’s activation of the psychological construct of deprivation and an opportunity for significance gain, which represents the psychological construct of incentive (Kruglanski et al. 2014). Here, Boko Haram, emulating Hamas and Hezbollah induced violent extremist behaviour by investing their energies in alternative pursuits related to comfort, survival, or health (Kruglanski et al. 2014). Just as Hamas’ and Hezbollah’s domestic legitimacy and appeal were attained through extensive social service networks that local governments have proven incapable of matching (Carpenter et al. 2009), Boko Haram’s evangelism also

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began in the form of a Muslim social movement: catering for orphans, widows, and the vulnerable. Mohammed Yusuf gathered a considerable number of students on his property and regularly fed them (Adam 2007). He provided start-up capital for members and distributed motorcycles, wheelbarrows, and other means to members so they could become selfemployed (Adam 2007). Describing this move as incredibly clever, Lisa Inks in her report for the Mercy Corps highlighted Boko Haram’s tapping into the yearning of northern youths to get ahead in an environment of massive inequality, by giving capital and loans to lure young entrepreneurs and business owners in return for joining the group (Lisa Inks 2016). Boko Haram paid their recruits, offering them a livelihood and social status that has nothing to do, initially, with ideological indoctrination (Varin 2016). Widows of members were taken care of as were orphans. As described by Hilary Matfess, Boko Haram was one of those groups serving as a kind of para-government filling the gap left by the absent state (Matfess 2016). Interlocutors at the NYSC IDP camp further buttress the role of poverty in Boko Haram’s recruitment. Below is an excerpt from my research notes at the camp: Bashir has a tiny wooden box at the centre of NYSC IDP camp where he sold biscuits, sweets, detergent, soap, and sachet water. He disclosed that he was a beneficiary of Mallam’s (Muhammad Yusuf) motorcycle scheme. “We used to pay daily for the hire purchase. Government burnt everything and killed Mallam. They did not give us, and they did not allow who wants to give us to do so. (Bashir 2015)

Without access to, or interaction with public officials, and with little opportunity to express grievances, request services, or affect political debates, many communities initially supported the idea of an opposition to what they considered an ineffective government (Matfess 2016). By proffering solutions to societal problems such as unemployment, inequality, and exclusion, Boko Haram took over the economic and infrastructural responsibility of the state, and for this, they held the loyalty of their beneficiaries. The change in leadership to Abubakar Shekau changed Boko Haram’s welfare outlook as Shekau’s philosophy was brutally suppressing of all oppositions. When ISWAP broke out from Boko Haram, they returned to stoking the psychological construct of deprivation, opportunity for significance gain and incentive. Like Mohamed Yusuf-led Boko Haram, ISWAP provides ‘protection’ and controls fishing trade in captured territories along the Lake Chad basin in exchange for levied taxes on the populace. Unlike Shekau’s Boko Haram who abducted

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girls and subjected them to domestic, violent, and sexual abuse, ISWAP returned all but 1 of the Dapchi girls they abducted in February 2019, claiming the abduction was a mistake which did not paint them in a good light. Poverty and state failure were also exploited by Mohammed Marwa as he used the dwindling economic situation and the Almajiri (itinerant students of Islamic studies) system to attract large followers amongst the commoners and migrant workers (yan ci rani) who, unable to afford the necessities of life, became his die-hard patriots (Danjibo 2009). “Poor people who had not benefitted from the oil boom, and whose distress was increasing with the rate of inflation were victims of the frustrations with the Nigerian state and were particularly attracted to Marwa, with his condemnation of the hypocrisy and ostentation of the nouveau riche, and the promise of redemption to God’s righteous people” (Danjibo 2009). Government’s Lack of Political Will to Tackle Insurgencies In the trajectory of emergence for insurgent groups in Nigeria, certain factors point to the lack of political will to act on the part of government and its agencies. Undifferentiated laxity in responses by state apparatuses or their representatives have come to the fore. There has also been various levels of inadequacies, slowness, negligence, demureness, ill organization, and politicization in state responses to news and threats of insurgencies. The transition from fundamentalism to radicalism, from violent extremist and insurgent, and from insurgent to terrorist require time, resources, and planning. Within this period, activities are organized in small and large scales, adherent and strong following are cultivated, and patterns of operational modes are fashioned out. These might take years and months. While these are in process, interactions, or non-interactions (in the case of groups who recluse themselves from members of the public) inadvertently draws the attention of the public and community members to these groups. In the case of insurgent groups in Nigeria, members of the public have reported suspicious clandestine activities to the government and its agencies, but their response had been lacklustre. News Watch magazine learnt that as far back as 2004, parents and security agencies became worried about the activities of Boko Haram and the involvement of youths. This was because these ‘students from tertiary institutions in Bornu and Yobe states (University of Maiduguri, Ramat Polytechnic Maiduguri, and Federal Polytechnic Damaturu) had become Boko Haram members, withdrew from school, tore up their certificates,

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and joined the group for Qur’anic lessons and preaching (Danjibo 2009). Despite several complaints by parents to security agencies however, the government took no steps to curtail the activities of the group. What this portends is that tell-tale signs are ignored, and actions are only taken when most insurgencies have exacerbated. Fundamentalist groups like Maitastine and Boko Haram question the legitimacy of the Nigerian government. The response of the same government whose legitimacy is being challenged has not matched the severity of those challenging it. Before Maitatsine’s activities erupted into uprisings in Kano, Marwa was described by Kano inhabitants as ‘a law unto himself’. The deportation by the Kano government reportedly came too late, and Marwa was able to spearhead one of the bloodiest riots in the history of Nigeria. The experience with Boko Haram’s emergence was not different. Ahmad Salkida is the sole journalist known to have had direct access to Boko Haram and Mohammed Yusuf both before 2009 and after. He grew up in Maiduguri and his admiration of Yusuf’s depth of knowledge and oratory prowess led him to seek Yusuf out in Maiduguri. This was later to develop into a relationship Ahmad described as being of ‘mutual respect’ (Salkida 2014), granting him access to primary information on Boko Haram and its activities. Out of these, he penned his first paper on Muhammad Yusuf, ‘The leader of the Boko Haram Islamist sect’ on 23rd July 2006. According to Ahmad, what struck him about the emergence of Boko Haram was the discovery that the sect (as he referred to them) were “preaching extremely dangerous doctrines without the intervention of law enforcement agents, specifically aggregating bad governance, corruption, unemployment, poverty, and widespread frustrations for their social indoctrination” (Salkida 2014). This buttresses his assertion that the group did not erupt instantaneously as varied signals that presupposed its violent and extremist nature were ignored and overlooked by authorities concerned because they were not announced by ‘politicians or through a press conference’ (Salkida 2014). His connection to the group also gave him access to information of the group’s impending attacks, like the group’s July 2009 attack on the police in retaliation for the police’s attack on members of the group on a funeral procession, when they were accused of not wearing the protective motorcycle helmet in apparent defiance of constituted civil authority. Ahmad claimed he reported the impending attack to local authority, but they were not interested in the ‘outrageous ranting of some obscure clerics’

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(Salkida 2014). For Ahmad, it was like the government wanted Boko Haram to happen! The government appears reluctant to act on issues concerning religious groups due to the provisions of Section 38 (1) of the 1999 constitution and Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Right which provide that: ‘every person shall be entitled to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion, including freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom (either alone or in community with others, and in public or in private) to manifest and propagate his religion or belief in worship, teaching, practice and observance’ (United Nations Human Rights Office n.d.). This allows every Nigerian citizen to practice and propagate his/her religion irrespective of creed or denomination, and this is what justifies freedom of worship. Also, any attempt at stifling this right is likely to result in violent contestation from the populace. The Nigerian state is careful to be seen as tolerant to all religious groups, but this only afford fundamentalist groups the impetus to organize themselves without been confronted early enough by state authorities. These groups exploit the ‘religiously sensitive’ Nigerian society to grow and survive, and to push their agendas to the front burners either through peaceful or violence means. After quelling insurgent attacks, arrested perpetrators are not sometimes punished to deter further offenders due to a lack of political will and jurisdictional disputes. Following the Maitatsine uprisings of 1980 and the seemingly uncoordinated trial of his arrested followers, many of them were released based on their sheer numbers and the uncertainty about what the most appropriate charges to level against them should be (Isichei 1983). The last batch of 923 arrested culprits were pardoned on October 1 1982, in what was later blamed as misguided clemency (Isichei 1983). The swelling of prisons with arrested people awaiting trial, trialled but stale cases, as well as the use of prisons for forced disappearance of persons all culminate in overcrowded prisons unsuitable for effective criminal justice system. As soon as attacks are suppressed, the issues that caused the upheavals are often not revisited nor addressed to stall future happenings. After crushing the Kano Maitastine uprising in 1980, four more happened in Bulumkutu, Kaduna, Yola, and Bauchi as members of the sect were able to disperse, regroup, and launch other attacks on government installations especially police posts in Gombe and Bauchi states in 1985. This means that the government neither learnt from the mistakes of the Kano outbreak, nor had plans to prevent further occurrence. This also precludes

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a reluctance to check the growing armies of well-known but equally dangerous groups still operating in the country including armed gangs that could provide a ready pool of recruits for potential fundamentalists. Reports and recommendations of inquiry commissions set up to investigate most violence are left to gather dust on the shelves of government offices, mostly not consulted, and in many instances, never to be used. President Yar’adua was away in Brazil when Boko Haram went violent in 2009. By the time he came back, security forces had ‘arrested’ the situation which resulted in the ‘extrajudicial’ killing of Boko Haram leader, Muhammed Yusuf (Adesoji 2010). The president set up a commission of inquiry headed by General Abdul Mukhtar. The report of the commission is yet to be made available to the public. The non-release of commission reports, whether administrative, investigative, or judicial makes people mistrust the government and lose confidence in governance and political administration. Politicization of sensitive issues is another factor that influences government’s actions and inactions in managing insurgent or terrorist situations. The state’s failure to check the growth of Marwa’s movement owed to power rivalries amongst politicians and security agents. Rivalry between Kano state, controlled by the People’s Redemption Party (PRP), and the federal government, led by the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) for which Marwa became a useful pawn, contributed to the dimensions and outcome of the Maitatsine uprisings in Kano (Falola 1998). The “desire by NPN to take over Kano led the party to adopt unorthodox means in portraying the PRP government as incompetent and weak, as well as create credibility problems for it, a plan into which Marwa who allegedly enjoyed heavy patronage from the NPN, fit into” (Falola 1998). Furthermore, the Kano state government accused the federal government of political treachery believing that the federal government ‘commissioned’ the Maitatsine sect ‘to create the conditions that would guarantee the declaration of a state of emergency in Kano by the NPN controlled Federal Government’ (Zahradeen 1988). Hence, they argued that it was the ‘NPN Kano aristocracy’ and the propertied class that organized, sustained, equipped, and shielded ‘the Maitatsine gang of religious fundamentalists from the period of its gestation, birth, and infancy’ (Zahradeen 1988). These counterplays accounted for the initial reluctance of the federal police force to check the menace that Marwa’s group represented. Contested political interplays on the side of the federal and state governments also surrounded the composition and outcome of the

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inquiry commission marring the credibility of the commission and its members (Zahradeen 1988). This politicization of security issues was also reflected in the inceptive reactions to Boko Haram’s emergence by the federal government led by Goodluck Jonathan of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), and northern governors most of whom belonged to the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC). Boko Haram was initially seen as a northern problem, a group set up by the Muslim northern leaders to target the Christians and make the country ungovernable for the southern president (Tukur 2017). Government’s lack of political will is sometimes demonstrated by politicians supporting insurgent fundamentalist groups so they can employ the services of these groups in elections, either as supporters for campaign, or as political thugs to rig elections. Fraternizing with groups who later turn terrorist has been a bane Nigeria’s political process leading to negative outcomes. Politicians directly co-opt elements from radical groups because of their perceived support these groups enjoy from the local communities. As quid pro quo, these groups enjoy direct political patronage from such politicians. A case in point will be Alhaji Buji Foi, a former commissioner in the Bornu state government who was linked to Mohammed Yusuf. Governor Ali Sherriff acknowledged that he was approached by a former commissioner in his cabinet (presumably Foi), who resigned to join Boko Haram, asking him to also resign as governor and join the group because according to Foi, this would be the only way he (Sheriff) could merit heaven as politics was corrupted (Africa Independent Television 2009). Mohammed Yusuf’s association with politicians was bolstered by the 1999 reintroduction of Sharia in northern states. His fraternization with politicians possibly informed his willingness to use his group to assist them to secure political power, which he would in turn utilize to protect and advance his career. His relationship with the political elite explains why on one occasion when he was arrested, his release was facilitated by a political office holder. Yusuf has stated he was invited to Yobe state during the build-up to the 2003 elections in the wake of Sharia implementation, and It seemed the decision to reintroduce Sharia aligned with Yusuf’s plan to promote strict adherence to Islamic law, but he was perhaps disappointed, as the type of Sharia introduced across some northern states fell short of the standard that he had expected (Omipidan 2009). When the election did not assume the direction that some of his political cohorts thought it would take, Yusuf and his group were relinquished of their

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importance. In 2011, Members of Boko Haram had been recruited by desperate and unintelligible northern politicians to rig the 2011 elections in their favour but after doing the job, Boko Haram members were dumped and promises of the politicians to implement Sharia were also abandoned due to vested reasons and interests (Dibia 2012). In revenge, the group purportedly decided to use the guns and bombs facilitated by the finances of the politicians to fight against the politicians and the government. This had been alleged to be what happened in Bornu and Yobe states (Dibia 2012). Inefficient Security Forces Inefficient security forces did not equivocally cause the emergence of Boko Haram in northern Nigeria. However, inefficiency prompted, reacted with, and reinforced the other factors that led to Boko Haram’s emanation. It also contributed to the ability of the group to consolidate its emergence and sustain its existence. Nigeria’s security forces comprise of the Nigerian Police Force (NPF), The Nigerian Military Force (The Nigerian Army, Navy and Airforce), the State Security Service (SSS), and other para-military organizations such as the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps. Typically, it is the responsibility of the NPF to maintain civil authority within the country’s geographical boundaries. When civil disturbances overwhelm police capacity to manage them, such as an escalation of riots, uprisings or conflicts, uncontrollable crowds, or unprecedented use of sophisticated weapons, the military is then introduced to manage such situations. When introduced, the military may work hand in hand with the police and other security forces in a joint security operation or dispel the police to manage the security situation independently. Consequently, the sights of the Nigerian military manning city or interstate border checkpoints, helping to keep and maintain peace in community riots, or acting to manage crowds during civilian protests have all become conventional sights in Nigeria. The use of the military in civil matters has been questioned on many occasions. Trained to protect the territorial integrity of a country in war zones (mostly against the militaries of other countries), the mode of operation for the military employs maximum use of force which is not applicable in many civil disturbances. Even when they serve as peacekeepers or peace enforcers in other countries, their functional techniques cannot be directly reproduced to match that in their home country.

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Long accustomed to the regimen of community vigilante groups (community police), Nigerians have always had a low opinion of law enforcement (Human Rights Watch 2012). There is a ‘we VS them’ dichotomy between the security operatives and the public that continues to hinder a cooperative relationship amongst the two (Human Rights Watch 2012). A major reason for this is the contentious conduct of the police and military conduct in domestic security affairs. During a protest or riots for instance, security operatives frequently arrest hundreds (or just members of the public they can round up), who may spend several weeks in appalling prison conditions before being released. Very few if any of the arrested are formally charged or prosecuted. During the confrontation with Boko Haram members in July 2009, more than 800 suspected members of the group were arrested (Adesoji 2010) but it is unclear on what basis the police concluded that all the arrested were Boko Haram supporters. Safety of sources is not guaranteed so there is little motivation to provide intelligence to the military as many fear that when they do, they could be arrested and named as accomplices (Human Rights Watch 2012). All of these is in addition to ill-equipment, ineffective recruitment, lack of accountability, failure of political officeholders to fund intelligence gathering and administration, low morale, poor remuneration and welfare for security personnel. The police and other security agencies are often blamed for not nipping fundamentalist activities in the bud early enough, or for being responsible for their escalations. Absence of proper coordination amongst different security organizations in the exchange and processing of intelligence information has been responsible for this. Activists such as Human Rights Writers’ Association of Nigeria, HURIWA accused the SSS and the police of not taking their intelligence gathering jobs seriously to stop the violence that enveloped most parts of Northern Nigeria for nearly a week in 2009 (Sahara Reporters 2009). Ahmed Salkida also decried this lack of intelligence coordination when he reported an impending attack by Boko Haram to the police but was ignored because his personality was not deemed ‘influential’ (Salkida 2014). Some of these reasons have led the intelligence gathering agency SSS to be designated as a security outfit merely used for personal protection of government officials, aristocrats, and elites.

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When it comes to security forces in Nigeria, it is generally believed that ‘violence authorizes, conducts and mediates everyday relations amongst citizens, between citizens and the state, and between ubiquitous “big men” and their clients’ (Obadare 2014). Many Nigerians are accustomed to highhandedness, brute force, physical assaults, even extrajudicial murders from the security forces. For instance, ‘police dole out physical violence with a regularity that belies their claim to being the public’s friend, and the military is regularly deployed on “kill and go” missions against civilian malcontents’ (Obadare 2014). Mohammed Yusuf was extrajudicially murdered by the police without trial after he was arrested in 2009 (Adesoji 2010). When Boko Haram re-emerged in 2010, they justified suicide bombings, jail breaks, and other terrorist attacks with the Nigerian government’s inability to bring to book the killer of their slain leader (Malefakis 2019). The continuous back and forth between the Nigerian military and the Nigerian police on who ordered Yusuf’s killing eventually fettered out. The government of Bornu state was blamed for ‘improper handling’ of an accused terrorist, but no government official was charged for any wrongdoing. Killing Mohammed Yusuf, leaving his body on the streets for onlookers and not bringing his killers to justice continue to provoke sentimental reactions from Boko Haram members, and till today, this killing is a reference point for the group’s lack of trust in the Nigerian government. While it may be considered ‘right’ to eliminate a terrorist and thus end a threat to public order, doing it with extrajudicial killings is like fighting terrorism with terrorism. It plays into the hands of the insurgents and undermines the legitimacy that the Nigerian government claims to have as opposed to the group. It also enhances the role of security forces in festering terrorism and insurgent actions.

Bibliography Abdulazeez, M. 2008. The History of Yoruba Speaking Peoples in Kaduna Metropolis. Kaduna: Unpublished BA Thesis. Adam, J. 2007. Recorded Radio Preaching. Maiduguri(Bornu): Darul Islam. Adesoji, A. 2010. The Boko Haram Uprising and Islamic Revivalism in Nigeria. Africa Spectrum 45 (2): 95–108. Africa Independent Television. 2009. News at 8. Lagos: Africa Independent Television.

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Amara, B. 2011. The Izala Movement in Nigeria: Its Split, Relationship to Sufis and Perception of Shar¯ıa Re-Implementation. Bayreuth: Bayreuth Graduate School of African Studies. Amzat, A. 2017. Despite Decades of Funding, Literacy Level in the Northern States Remains Low. Lagos: The Guardian. Anas, B. 2015. PhD Thesis Interview at NYSC IDP Camp, Maiduguri [Interview] (13 April 2015). Apard, É. 2015. The Words of Boko Haram Understanding Speeches by Mohammed Yusaf and Abubakar Shekau. Afrique Contemporaine 255 (3): 41–69. Bashir, D. I. 2015. PhD Thesis Interview at NYSC IDP Camp, Maiduguri [Interview] (16 April 2015). BBC. 2012. Nigerians Living in Poverty Rise to Nearly 61%. London: BBC. Carpenter, J.S., M. Levitt, and M. Jacobson. 2009. Confronting the Ideology of Radical Extremism. Journal of National Security Law & Policy 3 (301): 301–327. Csikszentmihalyi, I. 2012. Flow in a Historical Context: The Case of the Jesuits. In Optimal Experience Psychological Studies of Flow in Consciousness, ed. M. Csikszentmihalyi and I.S. Csikszentmihalyi, 232–248. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Danjibo, N. 2009. Islamic Fundamentalism and Sectarian Violence: The Maitatsine and Boko Haram Crises in Northern Nigeria. Peace and Conflict Studies Paper Series. Dibia, O. 2012. Resolving the Boko Haram Challenge. Lagos: Sahara Reporters. Ethnologue. 2021. Hausa, A Language of Nigeria [Online]. Available at: https://www.ethnologue.com/language/HAU [Accessed November 2021]. Falola, T. 1998. Violence in Nigeria: The Crisis of Religious Politics and Secular Ideologies, 1st ed. New York: University of Rochester. Gwadabe, M. 2015. Ideological and Political Positions of the Major Islamic Sects, Schools and Tendencies in Northern Nigeria: Implication for Peace and Security in Kaduna State and the Northern States of Nigeria. Journal of Central Nigeria: 1–19. Hoffmann, L.K. 2014. Who Speaks for the North? Politics and Influence in Northern Nigeria. London: Chatham House. Human Rights Watch. 2012. Spiralling Violence Boko Haram Attacks and Security Force Abuses in Nigeria. Washington: Human Rights Watch. International Crisis Group. 2010. Northern Nigeria: Background to Conflict. Brussels: International Crisis Group. Isichei, E. 1983. History of Nigeria Hardcover. London: Addison-Wesley Longman Limited.

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Kruglanski, A.W., et al. 2014. The Psychology of Radicalization and Deradicalization: How Significance Quest Impacts Violent Extremism. Advances in Political Psychology 35 (1): 69–93. Last, M. 2014. From Dissent to Dissidence: The Genesis and Development of Reformist Islamic Groups in Northern Nigeria. In Sects & Social Disorder: Muslim Identities & Conflict in Northern Nigeria, ed A.R. Mustapha, 1–256. Suffolk (Melton, Woodbridge): James Currey. Lisa Inks. 2016. Motivations and Empty Promises: Voices of Former Boko Haram Combatants and Nigerian Youth, Mercy Corps. Lugo, L., and A. Cooperman. 2010. Tolerance and Tension: Islam and Christianity in Sub-Saharan Africa. Washington: Pew Research Centre. Mahdi, A. 1985. The Jihad and Its Role in Strengthening the Sarauta System in Hausaland in the 19th Century. In Evolution of Political Culture in Nigeria, ed. A.J. Ajayi and B. Ikara, 124–129. Ibadan: University Press Limited. Mahdi, A., Kwanashie, G.A., and M. Yakubu. 1994. Nigeria: The State of the Nation and the Way Forward, 563. Abuja: Arewa House. Malefakis, M. 2019. 10 Years of Boko Haram: Questions We Don’t (and May Never) Have Answers to [Online]. Available at: https://www.thecable.ng/ 10-years-of-boko-haram-questions-we-dont-and-may-never-have-answers-to [Accessed 17 November 2021]. Maslow, A.H. 1943. A Theory of Human Motivation. Psychological Review 50 (4): 370–379. Matfess, H. 2016. Here’s Why So Many People Join Boko Haram, Despite Its Notorious Violence [Online]. Available at: https://www.washingtonpost. com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/04/26/heres-why-so-many-peoplejoin-boko-haram-despite-its-notorious-violence/ [Accessed November 2021]. Mohammed, K. 2014. The Message and Methods of Boko Haram. In Boko Haram: Islamism, Politics, Security and the State in Nigeria, ed. M. P. d. Montclos, 1–287. Leiden: IFRA-Nigeria, African Studies Centre. Mustapha, A.R. and M.U. Bunza. 2014. Contemporary Islamic Sects and Groups in Northern Nigeria. In Sects & Social Disorder: Muslim Identities & Conflict in Northern Nigeria, ed. A.R. Mustapha, 1–256. Suffolk: James Currey. Nigeria Bureau of Statistics. 2013. Annual Abstract of Statistics, 2011. Abuja: Nigeria Bureau of Statistics. Obadare, E. 2014. Nigeria’s Violent Awakening [Online]. Available at: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/africaatlse/2014/04/30/nigerias-violent-awaken ing/ [Accessed 17 November 2021]. Olaosebikan, A.J. 2011. The Fulani Jihad and Its Implication for National Integration and Development in Nigeria. African Research Review 5 (5): 1–12. Omipidan, I. 2009. Why the North Is on Fire. Lagos: The Sun Newspapers.

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Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative. 2015. Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) At a Glance. Oxford: University of Oxford. Sahara Reporters, 2009. Boko Haram and the Blame Game. Lagos: Sahara Reporters. Salkida, A. 2014. My One-on-One Encounter with Boko Haram Leader [Online]. Available at: http://www.theparadigmng.com/2014/06/04/ one-one-encounter-boko-haram-leader-reporter-ahmad-salkida/ [Accessed September 2015]. Statista. 2021. Demographics of Nigeria. New York: Statista. Statistics, N.B.o. 2010. The National Literacy Survey, June 2010, Abuja: National Bureau of Statistics. Tukur, S. 2017. 100,000 Killed, Two Million Displaced by Boko Haram Insurgency, Borno Governor Says [Online]. Available at: https://www.pre miumtimesng.com/news/headlines/223399-shocking-revelation-100000-kil led-two-million-displaced-boko-haram-insurgency-borno-governor-says.html [Accessed November 2021]. UNICEF. 2015. Gender in Nigeria: Improving the Lives of Girls and Women in Nigeria [Online]. [Accessed 18 January 2016]. United Nations Human Rights Office. n.d. Universal Declaration of Human Rights at 70: 30 Articles on 30 Articles - Article 18 [Online]. Available at: https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?New sID=23938&LangID=E [Accessed 16 November 2021]. Varin, C. 2016. Boko Haram and the War on Terror. London: Praeger Security International. Varrella, S. 2021. Literacy Rate in Nigeria in 2018, by Zone and Gender [Online]. Available at: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1124745/lit eracy-rate-in-nigeria-by-zone-and-gender/ [Accessed November 2021]. Waller, J.E. 2007. Becoming Evil: How Ordinary People Commit Genocide and Mass Killing, 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Yin, S. 2007. Objection Surface Over Nigerian Census Results. Washington: Population Reference Bureau. Zahradeen, N.B. 1988. The Maitatsine Saga. Zaria: Hudahuda Pub. Co.

CHAPTER 3

Boko Haram, the First Victimization

Nigeria has had her share of insurrections in different regions of the country. Apart from uprisings resembling that of Maitatsine earlier mentioned, others include the current insurrections of IPOB (Independent People of Biafra). IPOB emerged as a self-determining group against marginalization of the Igbo which they believe continue even after the violent chronicles of the 1967 civil war. Other insurgent groups advocate for better infrastructure and representation against environmental degradation, oil spillage, and human rights violations of the people in Nigeria’s oil-rich region, the Niger Delta. The Niger Delta People’s Volunteer force, Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), and Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP) are some of these groups. They employ kidnapping of foreign expatriates in exchange for ransom, attacks on oil installations, and power cuts to bring attention to their plight. Nigeria’s northwest and northcentral is also experiencing a spiralling banditry crisis. This crisis manifests the enterprise of insurgent non-state armed groups (NSAGs), popularly known as bandits who carry out thefts, armed robberies, shootouts, cattle rustling, kidnapping, rape, and armed attacks on entire villages in affected areas. Boko Haram would prove to be different from any kind of insurgency the Nigerian state has had to deal with. It is the longest running insurgency (from the year of its first known clash with security forces until now). It is the single phenomenon in Nigeria’s recent history that led to © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 M. Abdulazeez Malefakis, Humanitarian Displacement and Boko Haram in Nigeria, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99784-7_3

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the highest level of humanitarian displacement. Over 2 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) have been rendered homeless by Boko Haram’s insurgency and counterterrorism operations against the group (UNHCR 2021). More than 324,000 Nigerian refugees have also fled to seek refuge in Niger, Chad, and Cameroon (UNHCR 2021). When the insurgency turned terrorist, it brought Nigeria to the threshold of countries listed amongst international terrorist organizations, joining Hamas, Hezbollah, Al-Qaeda, Al-Shabab, and the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) on this list. In 2015, Boko Haram overtook Islamic State in Iraq and Levante (ISIL or IS) to become the deadliest terror group in the world with 453 terrorist incidences that led to 6,664 fatalities and 1,742 injuries (Institute for Economics & Peace 2015).

Evolution Different narratives have been postulated to chronicle Boko Haram’s evolution and emergence. One presupposes Mohammed Yusuf’s father introduced the ideology of Islam’s ‘negation’ to western education in the 1960s, in the village of Gashua (in Yobe State), but he was banished by the Emir of Gashua who had acquired both western and Islamic education and did not subscribe to this thinking (Omipidan 2009; Albani 2007). Yet another account describes Boko Haram as being created by Mohammed Yusuf in the 2000s (Chouin et al. 2014). A student from the University of Maiduguri, Aminu Tashen Ilimi, after been influenced by the preaching of a ‘foreign scholar’ became convinced of the ‘evils’ of western education and was able to convince other youths to lean into this thinking (Gusau 2009). He and his group (believed to be the ones who tore up their certificates) then abandoned their studies and met with Muhammad Yusuf (Danjibo 2009). Yusuf was at this time an Islamic scholar under the tutelage of Maiduguri based Salafist/Izala scholar, Sheikh Jafar Adam who founded and owned Indimi Mosque. Yusuf, described as an excellent preacher, charismatic, popular and a demagogue initiated his own brand of anti-western ideals which he incorporated into his preaching (International Crisis Group 2014). As these preaching negated his teacher (Jafar Adam)’s Islamic ideologies, Yusuf parted ways with him and was banned from the Indimi mosque. He then set up his own enclave, which included a school and a mosque he named after the famous Salafist scholar, Ahmad Ibn Tamiya (International Crisis Group 2014).

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Aminu Tashen Ilimi and other students in 2003 accused Yusuf of being too liberal with the ideology and, considering him to be compromised, moved out of his enclave in Maiduguri and retreated first to Zaji-Biriri and then to Kanama in Yunusari ward of Yobe State (Gusau 2009). They named the new enclave ‘Afghanistan’ and referred to themselves as the ‘Nigerian Taliban’ (Gusau 2009). The choice of Kanama as a camp was for its remoteness and defensibility as it was forested and ensconced between two bodies of water near the Nigeria/Niger border (Mohammed 2014). The retreating group dug trenches across the only two access roads from Kanama and Niger Republic, using sandbags to reinforce the defensive capacities of the trenches (Mohammed 2014). The retreat to Kanama was to find a base away from the populace where they could practice their version of Islam devoid of western blemishes, and in their thinking, the retreat was also in simulation with the Prophet Muhammad’s journey (Hijrah) from Mecca to Medina which he embarked on to escape persecution from non-Muslims in Mecca. Pockets of attacks began to ensue between the group and members of Kanama community over fishing rights, leading to confrontations between the group and the police in 2003 and in 2004 (Onuoha 2010). These confrontations led the Kanama group to attack police stations in Gwoza, and Bama in Bornu state, killing several policemen, carting away arms and ammunitions, and razing the Gwoza police station to the ground (Onuoha 2010). Such clashes with police were met with counter attacks, leading to the arrest of some of the group members, and dislodgment of the rest (Onuoha 2010). Assertions that Boko Haram grew from scattered members of the Kanama group surfaced and became contested. It is argued that at the time when activities of the Kanama group became prominent in Yobe state, Yusuf operated in Maiduguri and not in Kanama (Okpaga et al. 2012). Yusuf himself denounced his association with the Kanama group. Confiding in Sheikh Sheikh Jafar when both met in Saudi Arabia for the lesser Hajj (Umrah), Yusuf denied any connections with the Kanama group or its activities, as he was unable to return to Nigeria for fear of being arrested in connection with the ‘rikicin taliban’ (Taliban crisis) as the Kanama misadventure was termed (Adam 2007). Jafar then procured legal counsel for Yusuf, and with the help of the deputy governor of Bornu State at the time, Shettima Adamu Dibal facilitated Yusuf’s return to the country without having to face trial for the Kanama uprising (Adam 2007). The mystery of Yusuf’s connection with the Nigerian

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Taliban raises pertinent questions. While resident in Yobe, they attacked Bama and Gwoza police stations in Bornu state which is 428 kilometres in driving distance and takes 6 and half hours to arrive. Was this the same Kanama group, or were the attacks on police stations in Bornu carried out by their comrades in Bornu? More so, if Yusuf had no connection to the Kanama group, why did he feel unsafe to return from Saudi Arabia? Mohammed Kyari’s explanation plausibly clears these confusions. Kyari believes that Mohammed Yusuf was neither an active physical participant nor a prominent figure at Kanama but shared the same ideology with them (Mohammed 2014). The remainder of those who survived the Kanama misadventure joined him upon his return from Saudi Arabia in 2005 to swell what would become Boko Haram (Mohammed 2014). After the Kanama misadventure, the name ‘Boko Haram’ emanated as the popular alias by which the group was referred to. It comes from the combination of the Hausa word Boko and the Arabic word, Haram. Boko literally translates to ‘school’ but connotes western education and ideas in its broadest sense. Haram means ‘forbidden’ or ‘not allowed’ speaking principally on religious matters that are not allowed or forbidden by the Quran and Sunnah. Together both words allude to ‘western education is forbidden’. Boko Haram was made popular by Maiduguri residents and observers of the group’s activities who tried to describe what they think the group stood for based on the contents of Yusuf’s preaching which contained aversions to Darwinist theory, the big bang theory, and other secular postulations. However, when Yusuf was alive, and even after he died, they never called themselves Boko Haram. In fact, they have not referred to themselves by this name in any communications presented by themselves or on extremist sites of other Jihadi groups. In associating the ideals of the group with its founder, the group was initially known as Yusuffiya (Onuoha 2010). In his book Hazihi Aqeedatun wa Minhaju Da’awatuna (This is Our Belief and Method of Call) which postulated Boko Haram’s creed would the official name of the group be stated as Jam¯ a‘atu ahl al-Sunna li’l-Da‘wa wa’l-jih¯ ad (Association of People following the ways of the Prophet, People of Proselytization and Armed Struggle) (Mohammed 2014). For this discourse, the group will be referred to as Boko Haram, its most popular alias.

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Boko Haram’s Ideology and Claims to Truth Having studied and remained for a long time with his Izala-oriented teacher, Sheikh Jafar Adam, Muhammed Yusuf developed rudiments of Boko Haram’s doctrinal outlook by initially drawing on ideological inspiration from the Salafi Izala, laced with calls for northern Nigeria to return to Sharia. He ‘was very vocal against the African “perversion” of Islamic practices by the Sufi brotherhoods’, and constantly attacked the Tijaniyya and Qadiriyya even though he revered Usman Dan Fodio (Montclos 2014a). He however became impatient with the Izala’s “non-opposition of western education and the secularity of the Nigerian state” (Montclos 2014b). Following the political debacle that trailed the quest for Sharia’s reintroduction in northern Nigeria, and the inability of Izala inspired Salafism to become compatible with his thinking, Yusuf devised poignant changes to his ideological leanings. He writes in his book: We are ready to debate anyone on this creed. Western education is destructive. We didn’t say knowledge is bad but that the unbelief inside it is more than its usefulness. I have English books in my possession which I read regularly. I didn’t say English amounts to unbelief, but the unbelief is contained therein and there is polytheism inside. In the process of becoming educated, you become a mushrik [idolater]. This is our only fear … Destruction is destruction, whoever it comes from. Because it is the white man that brought it, does it amount to civilization? Yes, our own is traditional, as you call it, but yours is ‘shirkasiation’ (apostasy or disbelief) ………………... Our call refuses employment under the government which does not rule by what Allah has revealed such as the French law, the American law, the British law or any other constitution or system that goes against the teachings of Islam and negates the Qur’an and Sunnah. (Mohammed 2014)

This was an outright denouncement of the Nigerian state and constitution’s legality, and an open challenge to government authority. In another apparent divergence from Izala dispositions, Yusuf established a culture of publicly confronting the state. Unlike the Izala, he did not advocate voting in elections and forbade his followers from working in the civil service, and when Jafar called on his followers to vote for opposition candidate Muhammad Buhari in Nigeria’s 2007 presidential elections, Yusuf admonished that voting legitimizes secular democracy and regarded participation in elections as heresy (Montclos 2014b). He then either

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quit, or as reported by other scholars, was expelled from sheikh’s Jafar’s Indimi Mosque in Maiduguri, signalling his official split from Izala. Boko Haram’s first ideological leaning thus sprang from its attempt at emulating functional capacities of the state in creating governance codes for the populace through the insistence on the adoption of Sharia. When this proved unattainable, Muhammed Yusuf broke away from the Izala, adapting to the historical climate of dissidence and fragmentation of Islam in Nigeria. Via the group’s name, its mission can be identified as a return to the Ahlus Sunnah wal Jama’a (strict adherents to the ways of the Prophet), a mission that derived from, and fed into the extant discourse of Islamism worldwide (Mohammed 2014). The main narratives of the group’s mission as discernible from Yusuf’s sermons were: 1. The rejection of secularism and western democracy: This was derived from the Saudi Arabian establishment’s aversion to democracy’s subversive streak (Mohammed 2014) and combined with Boko Haram’s concept of ‘alhukm bi-ghayr ma anzala Allah’, or ‘ruling by other than what God revealed (Quran) is equivalent to polytheism’ (Thurston 2017); 2. Rejection of western education on the basis that it begets mannerisms, institutions, technologies, and forms of recreation and entertainment which are outside the judicial permissions of Sharia law and antithetical to pious Islamic living (Ochonu 2014); 3. Emphasis on physical participation in Islam because Islam does not only exist ‘within the walls of the mosque, and personal piety alone was also insufficient because Muslims needed to confront the fallen society surrounding them’ (Thurston 2017). Under Yusuf, Boko Haram’s truth claims were an “eclectic collage of beliefs cobbled together from controversial medieval Salafi sources, from Wahhabi doctrines, from expedient idiosyncrasies, and from ideologies modelled by the Afghan Taliban” (Ochonu 2014). Broadly, these theologies are resplendent of the Wahhabi school of thought from which Yusuf sought greater inspiration after his disappointing experience with the Izala. From the name he gave the group, Yusuf’s fixation with Wahabism stem from his quest for the establishment of a pure Islamic State (caliphate) and a return to pure Islam, pure monotheism (tawhid),

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and pure prophetic way (sunnah), as opposed to Bid’ah (innovation) which he believe has become the dominant practice of most Muslims (as-Salafi 2015). In short, Wahabis preach a pristine version of Islam as practiced in the age of the rightly guided caliphs (Pesature 2015). Therefore, Wahabism and Salafism are sometimes seen as vastly similar. According to Al Hussain Hijazi, Wahabis however distinctively limit the authority in transmitting Islamic religion to three men only: Ahmad Ibn Tamiya, his student Ibn al-Qayum and Muhammad bin Abd al-Wahab (Hijazi, n.d.). Ibn Tamiya was a fourteenth century Damascene Salafist scholar, who was devoted to the concept of religious (Islamic) war-Jihad, wrote much on it and even elevated Jihad above the Islamic pillars of fasting and pilgrimage (Mohammed 2014). Just as Wahhabism is an expansive theology pool for global Jihadists, so also is the concept ‘alwal¯ a’ wa-l-bar¯ a’ which for Boko Haram means exclusive loyalty (al-wal¯ a ) to Islam, and disavowal (al-bar¯ a ) of anyone the group considers an infidel (Thurston 2017). This becomes a formula for “cultivating intense in-group loyalty and anathematizing Muslims who take non-Muslims as allies on the basis that such Muslims have not practiced the proper loyalty to other Muslims” (Thurston 2017). Like many other jihadi groups around the world thus, Boko Haram claimed the right to pronounce other Muslims as unbelievers, a process known as Takf¯ır, meaning excommunication (Thurston 2017). In Islamic theology, once Takfir is made of a Muslim; he is considered a murtadd (apostate) by which his blood becomes halal (permissible) to spill. If Takfir is made of an entire community, their men are killed, their properties taken and their women enslaved (Hijazi, n.d.). The short-lived life of Muhammad Yusuf makes it impossible to contextualize his Wahabi doctrines with Boko Haram. If Yusuf would have put to practice the Takfirist concept of ‘al-wal¯a’ wa-l-bar¯a’ remains unknown. With the death of Muhammed Yusuf in 2009 and Boko Haram’s resurgence in 2010, the group’s ideological leaning changed first as an experiential response to its brutal suppression by the state, and in emulation of violent extremist movements across the globe. Abubakar Shekau took over the leadership of the organization after Yusuf was murdered extra-judicially in a confrontation with the Nigerian military in July 2009. Shekau’s Boko Haram was more brutal, replete with sophisticated Jihadi propaganda, and adept with extreme terrorist actions. Post 2010, Boko Haram emerged as the practicing enforcers of militant radicalism, with ideology modelled in replica of violent, extremist, global jihadi narratives

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that posits all Muslims as being oppressed by ‘crusaders’ from the west and the need for confrontations with elements of the crusaders anywhere they are found in the world. No longer waiting to be confronted, changed ideological dynamics involved attacks on all representations of government without distinction for innocent victims. Worthy of note here is that by this period, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb was consolidating its hold and seeking inroads into other parts of Africa. The change in the group’s ideological stringencies consequently mirrored its adaptation to worldwide extremist atmosphere and emulation of compeers who dictated the prisms of terrorism and violent extremism at that time. This ideological innovation is responsible for Boko Haram’s ability to sustain its relevance in the fray of global Jihadism and has earned it deference as it is now spoken of in the same vein as international terrorist organizations. More importantly, it has brought the group the attention needed to be regarded as a global threat (good for its jihadi credibility), and the world has taken notice of it (essential for relevance and negotiation). It further was a “camaraderie typical of opportunism, allowing Boko Haram to showcase its vision to draw-in resources—financial and otherwise— from an international crop of would-be investors in global jihad through violent means” (Hoffmann 2016). In a 2014 video posted by Boko Haram following their attack on Giwa army barracks in Maiduguri, Shekau made known the changes to Boko Haram’s jihadi agenda: We fight the whole world, especially all those who don’t practice Islam. We are against all non-Muslims, all non-practicing people. You’ll never be at peace again because we will fight you, and we will fight the whole world. May Allah do whatever is necessary for us to fight in His name and not serve our own interests. Let me tell you: anyone who converts becomes one of ours, so you can still change, because in the eyes of Allah, any sinner who repents is saved. But we’ll fight all those who do not convert because they are our enemies………. In this world, the Koran will dominate. We’re going to burn the constitution, but in the meantime, let’s slaughter and kill! The Prophet cut the infidels’ throats and killed them. His companions did too, and that’s what inspires us. (Apard 2015)

Under Shekau, Boko Haram’s claims to truth were justified using specific Quranic verses. For violence against Christians, Boko Haram posits that the Quran says:

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fight those who believe neither in God nor the last day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by God and His Apostle, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya (tax to be paid by non-Muslims living in a Muslim country) with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued. (Quran 9:29, 2021)

They also put forward: ‘Muhammad is the messenger of Allah. And those with him are hard against the disbelievers and merciful among (Muslim) themselves’ (Quran 48:29, 2021). To justify kidnappings of females, the group put forth the verse ‘and also prohibited to you are all married women except those your right hands possess (Slaves)’ (Quran 4:24, 2021). Consequently, kidnapped females such as the Chibok and other girls taken from the northeast are seen as ‘war booty’ (spoils of war), for which Boko Haram members are entitled to do as they wish, including but not limited to marrying them off to members, or selling them into slavery. There were varied attempts to squash the spread of Boko Haram’s claims to truth. Saudi Arabia’s grand mufti, Sheikh Abdul-Aziz Al alSheikh, declared that Boko Haram was ‘set up to smear the image of Islam and these extremists not only disavow their Islam, but their humanity’ (Power 2014). The Sultan of Sokoto (Nigeria’s Islamic spiritual head) publicly attacked Mohammed Yusuf’s ideology and Islamic pedigree, labelling Boko Haram members as common criminals. These statement echoes attempt by ‘mainstream’ Muslims to disassociate themselves from Boko Haram as an ideology, as a group, and as Muslims. Raheel Raza however sees these attempts as a deflective delusion asserting that Boko Haram’s 2nd leader Shekau, known as Darul Tawheed is an expert in Islamic monotheism, studying first under a cleric and then at Bornu State College of Legal and Islamic Studies (Raza 2014). While Boko Haram can be faulted for orchestrating horrible crimes against humanity, Reza is adamant their ‘being Muslims’ cannot be faulted as they are “self-defined Muslims who can throw Quranic verses and hurl hadeeth (secondary commentary) faster than we can say ‘fatwa’” (Raza 2014)! Muhammad Yusuf himself could not be termed unknowledgeable in Islamic jurisprudence. Before his death, Yusuf propagated his group’s philosophy not just through recorded preaching sold to the public, but also through ideological confrontations with erstwhile Salafi associates by participating in series of jurisprudential debates with them. These debates

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were with his former teachers like Jafar Adam and other Salafi scholars like Sheikh Auwal Albani, Malam Isah Aliyu Pantami, and Sheikh Idris of Bauchi. They took place in mosques, were recorded, reproduced, and made available for sale to the public. At the debates, the scholars try to argue out Mohammed Yusuf’s consternations especially as regards his animosity towards western education and being employed under the government. His group was accused of exclusivist reading and understanding of the Quran, which makes it easy to quote and misquote phrases, a process Jewish scholar of Islamic history, Lesly Hazleton refer to as the ‘highlighter version’ (Hazleton 2011). The highlighter version is “a microscopic and literal interpretation, devoid of contexts, as long as it helps carry projected messages” (Hazleton 2011). Boko Haram was said to take only the parts of the Quran that suits their actions and belief without recourse to the context in which the verses they used were revealed or other verses that explain such verses further. In one such debate, Sheikh Jafar stated that Yusuf’s views were wrong because they lacked authoritative Islamic support and Jaafar invoked the doctrines of necessity (d.ar¯ ura) and Muslims’ collective interest (masl.ah.a) to elaborate various arguments in support of both modern secular education, and working in non-Islamic government positions (Adam 2007). Jafar also developed a moral counterargument by observing that Yusuf lacked sufficient knowledge of Islam and thus his religious views should thus not be accepted (Adam 2007). Yusuf was presented in some of these debates as lacking the moral integrity of abiding by his own religious views because he used cars, went to hospitals where western education was used, and had a Nigerian passport issued by the same government he continues to denounce (Umar 2012). Additionally, Jaafar claimed that Yusuf was serving the cause of a conspiracy against Muslims (Umar 2012). In the debates, especially the ones made public, Yusuf usually responded by culling up rulings and evidence from foremost Salafi Imams such as Wahab, Ibn Baz, and Ibn Tamiya, showing his deep knowledge of Islamic jurisprudence and texts. This way, the debates worked in his favour as Muhammad Gwadabe explains: Looking more carefully into early Wahhabi teachings, I start to understand why it is so difficult for people like Shaykh Jafar Mahmud Adam, Shaykh Auwal Albani and others to win the debates with Muhammad Yusuf and his followers: because Yusuf could quote, to win the argument against his teachers, the books of the same scholars the latter had taught him

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to revere and consider as the Mujaddids (prominent scholars who appear every one hundred years to revitalize and renew the religion). The more I look into the complex debates between "mainstream Salafis " like Adam and Albani, and "extreme Salafis " like Yusuf, the more I understand how the big problem there was that Yusuf’s thought was at least as rooted (or perhaps more rooted...) in Wahhabi theology than that of his opponents. I think Adam and Albani were in a very delicate position, because they attempted to moderate a group of their followers that was using, to justify its extremism, teachings of the very same people that Adam, Albani etc. had been promoting. (Gwadabe 2016)

The debates further helped to expose the oratory prowess and demagoguery of Muhammad Yusuf, much to the admiration of a section of the people who were easily convinced and carried away by his fiery arguments. It would seem also that the debates earned him sympathetic attention, especially in the sea of other Salafist Izala ‘Ulamas’ who appeared to be ‘against’ him. Thus, Boko Haram’s claims to truth were grounded in Islamic jurisprudential justifications which mainstream Muslims were unable to jettison without indirectly presenting Islam as a religion with extremist tendencies. For example, Jafar Adam in replying to Muhammad Yusuf’s ideological standpoints agreed that all systems of government other than the prophetic khil¯ afa (caliphate) were not Islamic and should not ordinarily command the allegiance of Muslims (Umar 2012). Adam however contended that the first imperative task for Muslims was to uncover the evil implanted by the British colonialists and remove it by working inside the government, a task that could not be accomplished without first acquiring modern education (Umar 2012).

Emergence and Trajectory: From Insurgency to Terrorism In examining the trajectory of Boko Haram from an insurgent group to a terrorist organization, the nature of its evolution and emergence, the political dimension of its Islamist ideology, and the life and death of Mohammed Yusuf are employed as barometric points of reference. For the first seven years after the group came into prominence, its activities involved “typically criticizing northern Muslims for participating in what the group considered to be an illegitimate, non-Islamic state” (Owolade

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2014). This period (between 2004 and 2009) was termed the proselytization (da’wa) phase. Da’wa, as described by Emmanuel Sivan connotes a ‘combination of propaganda, education, medical and welfare action – and its practitioners. It is bringing about change in many Muslim societies, and sometimes plays a role – albeit indirect – in politics’ (Sivan 1985). In June 2009, members of Boko Haram on a funeral procession became involved in an altercation with a unit of the Bornu state police squad known as ‘Operation Flush’. The altercation stemmed from the refusal of the funeral procession to use helmets as they rode on their motorcycles. Motorcycle helmets were a compulsory traffic safety kit. Boko Haram members’ refusal to wear helmets could reflect their stance against secular authority and affected members were temporarily detained, an act interpreted as a provocation by the other members, given that they were on a funeral procession (Onuoha 2014a). The resultant altercation led to the shooting of some Boko Haram members by Operation Flush officers (Onuoha 2014a). Reacting to this event, Mohammed Yusuf, though absent at the time made an announcement through his well circulated Friday sermons in Maiduguri to ‘retaliate for the shooting of his men, boasting that his group would be prepared to confront all security agencies in the state as well as the government which he described as the enemies of Islam’ (Sani 2011). With such an announcement, Mohammed Yusuf describes a group whose outlook had changed from one conducting only da’wa. It supports the assertion that after the Kanama misadventure in November 2003 and the convergence and coalescence of the group under Yusuf, Boko Haram actually struck against political targets such as the police (who were sometimes the only effective presence of the state in remote villages), mosques, Muslim scholars who contested the moral authority of the group, politicians, and godfathers who were fraudulently elected and were accused of failing to implement properly Islamic Law (Montclos 2014a). The group had thus already exhibited signs of an insurgent group with terrorist tendencies, pursuing a political ambition. This is true when terrorism is seen as an anxiety inspiring method of repeated violent action, employed by semi clandestine individuals, groups, or state actors for idiosyncratic, criminal, or political reasons, especially if such activities relate to power and influence which makes terrorism inherently political apart from its idiosyncratic or criminal motivation (Okoli and Iortyer 2014). After the first altercation, security operatives in Bauchi state reported receiving a tip-off of an impending attack from Boko Haram members in

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that state as reprisal for the Maiduguri incident. Operatives ‘stormed the place and arrested nine members of the group, while items used in local production of bombs were recovered’ (Sani 2011). In retaliation for this attack, another set of Boko Haram members attacked and destroyed the Dutsen Tanshi police station on 26 July (Sani 2011). These would spiral into series of violent attacks on police stations and government establishments in Bornu, Yobe, Kano, and Bauchi, bringing members of the group into confrontations with security forces. With such actions, the insurgent nature of Boko Haram is reflected, replicating Scott Moore’s contextualization of an insurgency where: ‘insurgents employ guerrilla and terrorist tactics, espouse revolutionary and radical causes, pose asymmetric threats to modern conventional forces, operate on the legal and moral margins of societies, and blur distinctions between civilians and combatants’ (Higgins 1997). With the intensification of confrontations with the police especially in Bornu state, the Nigerian army was invited to intervene. The ensuing crackdown led to the capture of Mohammed Yusuf on July 30, 2009. Hours after the capture, journalists were informed that he had been killed while trying to escape and his bullet-ridden body was left on the streets, available for public viewing. The extrajudicial circumstances in which he was killed was nonetheless exposed when the head of the army command that led the operation of Yusuf’s capture, Colonel Ahanotu revealed that Yusuf had been captured alive and was handed over to the police (Nnochiri 2011). Videos of the interrogation of Yusuf by the army soon after he was captured was also released (available on the internet) and the fact that the bullet-ridden-body was still handcuffed sparked off allegations that he was either killed to ‘silence’ him, or as a spiteful act of vengeance by the police in retaliation for scores of their comrades killed in connection with the activities of the group. Over 700 persons, mainly Boko Haram members were killed during the July revolt, and hundreds more were arrested and detained (Adesoji 2011). Members of the group who escaped capture and death went underground, regrouped, and surfaced in 2010 with profound changes in tactics, targets, and modiioperandi, to include suicide bombings, prison breaks, and bank robberies, with demands that the killers of their slain leader be brought to book. The events of 2009 belie assertions that prior to 2009, Boko Haram was a non-violent group, and 2009 was the watershed that transformed a ‘seemingly small’ Islamic insurgent group with tiny pockets of followers in Maiduguri and Yobe to full-fledged terrorist group. Beginning with the

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Kanama uprisings, and together with revolts that followed before July 2009, Boko Haram had violent tendential elements within it. The impassioned sermons of Muhammed Yusuf, gearing members of the group up for any eventualities that the movement would face presumed the inevitability of brutal clashes between the group and the State. Their concept of Jihad also incorporates non-existence under a secular state, which would mean taking over political power from an already existing secular state, in this case, Nigeria. Thus, the symmetry of the group needed no justification for violent actions, as it would have eventually become violent when its radicalism, international contacts, and sophistication increased. The events of 2009, and most importantly, the killing of Muhammad Yusuf only served to hasten the process. The trajectory of the group consequently resonates with Marc Antoine Mont Clos description of it: I qualify the group as a sect because of its distinctive religious beliefs, its deviance from mainstream Islam, its intolerance, its claim to possess unique access to the truth, the selection of its members, their fanatic indoctrination, and the fascination exerted by their former guru, Mohammed Yusuf. I also describe Boko Haram as a movement because of its social basis. And I call ‘terrorist’ the faction which began to plant bombs and resort to suicide attacks after the killing of Mohammed Yusuf in 2009. My position does not mean that I support the labelling of the whole movement as a foreign terrorist organization, precisely because of its grassroots and its genesis. By contrast, I argue that Boko Haram is basically an indigenous uprising with a religious ideology, a political meaning, and some social support locally, unlike transnational professional terrorist groups that can strike anywhere in the world. (Montclos 2014a)

Attractions and Membership In attracting the populace to its brand of Islamic ideology and sustaining the availability of members to carry out its mandates, Boko Haram alternated between competing with the state, to taking advantage of the state’s response to its activities, and finally culminated in the group’s adaptation to circumstances that necessitated a change in recruitment model. The activities of Al-Qaeda, especially the September 11, 2001 attacks on the twin towers of the world trade centre concretely brought antiwestern avowals to global limelight. Although widely condemned by Muslims and non-Muslims alike, the ‘audaciousness’ of Osama Bin

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Laden became an inspirational point of reawakening for certain groups of Muslims who were against western civilization expanded via political, economic, social, and cultural means. Military campaigns against Iraq and Afghanistan by the United States considered ‘unjust’ by these groups further strengthened abhorrence against the west. While moderate Muslims may have sympathized with their brothers in Afghanistan and Iraq, radical Muslim fundamentalists would do much more: appropriate events in the middle east to localized happenings in their various countries to gain attraction and membership. During this period, it was not uncommon to hear youths on the street of northern Nigeria sing praises of Osama Bin Laden as the man fighting for the liberation of Muslims around the world. Apart from through media outlets, news about events in the middle east also become topical themes for jurisprudential arguments in the mosques of Nigeria, and from these, radical hardliners amassed justifications for their hatred of the west and all that the west represents. When Mohammed Yusuf employed anti-western rhetoric in his ideology, especially in the series of jurisprudential debates with other Ulamahs, him and his ideology became quite attractive to youths who desired to rebel against the norms and act extreme, more so when it is justified in the name of the ‘din’ (religion) (Hijazi, n.d.). Sharia law and its reintroduction into northern Nigeria also played a prominent role in attracting overt and covert supporters to Muhammed Yusuf’s cause. Yusuf had participated in the delegations that had travelled to the different northern states to call for the implementation of Sharia law codes between 1999 and 2002 (Mohammed 2014). Initially, northern Governors agreed to implement Sharia, but the decision turned out to be a political gimmick aimed at appeasing Sharia proponents and win their votes. After winning the 2003 elections, most northern Governors became reluctant to enforce the rulings of Sharia principally as their population were religiously mixed (Mohammed 2014). Some states half-heartedly publicized certain reprimands like flogging adulterers (Mohammed 2014) but Sharia was not systematically reinstated as the legal governance codes in any northern state. All these made Mohammed Yusuf to develop a ‘rejectionist’ position to the implementation of Sharia, viewing the haphazard implementations as illicit because they were done by a government operating under a non-Islamic, secular state (Mohammed 2014). He voiced his displeasure in his fiery preaching and distanced himself from such Governors and states whom he had

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hitherto enjoyed some cordiality. The Muslim public who became embittered by the ‘insincerity’ in Sharia implementation and the politicization of Sharia with electioneering campaigns became attracted to Mohammed Yusuf in this way. The expectations that Sharia would solve the social problems both in northern Nigeria and the country at large became reinforced when bad governance, unemployment, corruption, nepotism, bribery, and societal inequality continued after the 2003 elections. These issues of disillusionment and impoverishment, coupled with illegally acquired election mandates made jobless young men to perceive any condemnation of the Nigerian government as sympathetic to their plight. When Mohammed Yusuf incorporated these into his preaching, merging it with his demagoguery and great oratory skills, he easily won the hearts (and literally soul) of the young, poor, and unemployed. As reported by a Nigerian journalist who has interviewed senior Boko Haram leaders and quoted by Human Rights Watch, ‘Corruption became the catalyst for Boko Haram. Yusuf would have found it difficult to gain a lot of these people if the Nigerian government was operating as a functional state. But his teaching was easily accepted because the environment, the frustrations, the corruption, and the injustice made it fertile for his ideology to grow fast, very fast, like wildfire’ (Salkida 2012). As earlier stated, in addition to all of these, Mohammed Yusuf rooted his ideological evangelism with welfare provision: catering for the needy and providing employment opportunities. He ensured bachelors got married to brides without ostentatious bride price or lavish weddings, restoring the dignity and responsibility of the northern youths (Onuoha 2014a). By not getting married, men in the Kanuri communities lower their social status due to their need to eat at the houses of neighbours, friends, relatives, or superiors who have wives (Matfess 2016). Marriage was in this way important to the societal standing of the youth, and the economic realities had previously made many unable to afford bride wealth and the costs of a wedding festivity. The excluded, especially the almajirai (itinerant students) who had flocked in large numbers to the urban areas owing to rural destitution, became a ready pool for recruitment and mobilization. Almajirai (plural for almajiri) are children and youths who, in pursuit of higher knowledge, leave their homes and take up residency with a senior or elderly Islamic scholar in their state or in another area. It is a popular and ancient Islamic practice whereby children are sent to live and study under renowned Islamic teachers in northern

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Nigerian cities like Kaduna, Kano, Maiduguri, and Zaria. Sometimes this is voluntary, but in most cases, children are forced into becoming an almajiri by abject poverty or orphanhood (Onuoha 2014a). Almajiris are sometimes required to beg for alms or work as domestic servants to contribute to their own upkeep, as well as the upkeep of their teacher and his family. Almajirais and the vulnerable became easily mobilized by Boko Haram with Yusuf’s messages of Muslim unity and brotherhood, and simultaneous critic of the Nigerian state that has evidently excluded them (Mohammed 2014). Boko Haram had taken over the economic and infrastructural responsibility of the state, and for this, they held the unforced loyalty of their beneficiaries. Many communities initially supported the idea of an opposition to what they considered an ineffective government (Matfess 2016), and the groups’ ability to compete with state actors placed it higher in ranks in the eyes of the populace. Many sided with it against the state and channelled their grievances towards helping Boko Haram resist state confrontations. Such indigenous support helped Boko Haram to survive for a long time as a homegrown insurgent group. To produce reverberating impact, “membership of radical and insurgent or fringe groups that utilize violence to achieve their goals need not be a large army, only a few hundred committed, loyal, and unwavering leaders and members are required” (Marcus 2013). This is also evident with the membership of Boko Haram. The group’s members come from diverse backgrounds: disaffected youths, unemployed graduates, former almajirai, and wealthy persons, mostly but not limited to northern Nigeria. Boko Haram also draws members from Cameroon, Chad, Niger, and Sudan. Omipidan, Michael, and Bwala agree that membership in the group cut across the broad spectrum of the society, but a preponderant number came from among the poorest social groups, and beyond former university lecturers, students, bankers, commissioners, and other officers of state, membership further extended to drug addicts, vagabonds, and generally lawless people (Adesoji 2011). The largest followers came from “semi-illiterate, unemployed youths, who were forced to make a living between the twin divide of creativity and criminality” (Okoli and Iortyer 2014). To glue the fabric of cohesion, Mohammed Yusuf utilized persuasive indoctrinations especially with his preaching to prepare members of the group for the possible difficulties they may encounter. He was candid about the dangers they might confront and beseeched them to stand firm in their resolutions. In one of such exhorting sermons, he states that:

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In this da’wa we agreed that we are going to suffer like Bilal was dragged on the ground, just like Ammar ibn Yasir was tortured, just like a spear was thrust unto Summayyah’s vagina. These are trials we are awaiting … These are the hurdles we want to cross. Anyone who dies in the process goes to paradise. This is our dawah. In the process they will abuse you, call you names and some of you may even die. They will shoot some of you, and we will just pray “may Allah give you aljanna” (paradise) and proceed without any qualms. Can we endure? We ought to endure. May Allah give us the will to endure. This is how our da’wa is. Patience: this is what we need, brothers. And perseverance upon the truth. Allah is watching us. Victory is certain. What we lack are the helpers. We are not yet primed for victory, but we are working towards getting ready for victory. This is what we are looking for, brothers. This is an incipient dawah, but it cannot be crushed. It cannot be killed. If we really stand by what the Prophet says we should stand by, even if we die in the process, this da’wa will continue – even after a hundred years. (Mohammed 2014)

The events of 2009 changed the recruitment and membership process of Boko Haram. Up until late 2010, Boko Haram’s operations did not require much skilled force. This changed when they remerged in 2010 and began carrying out sophisticated bombings and terrorist attacks. At this time, distrust of the state and security apparatuses, coupled with high-handedness and abuse of human rights during counter-terrorism operations against Boko Haram were exploited by the group. Arresting civilians with terrorists, retaliation of attacks by the military on civilian communities, unwarranted arrests and detention were some of the issues civilian communities in Boko Haram affected areas had to contend with from military operatives fighting against Boko Haram. These prevented residents from cooperating with security agencies especially in terms of intelligence gathering. It also afforded Boko Haram easy ‘melting’ back into local population after attacks, increasing the inability of security forces to differentiate militant from civilian. Boko Haram also instilled fear in the populace, cowing them into silence by attacking and killing whistle blowers to prevent members of the community from giving them up to the police. All of these continued for a long time until security forces empowered local vigilantes known as the Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF) who provided community policing in the northeast. Voluntary conscription into Boko Haram was halted when the group lost the basis of its indigenous support, following violent attacks that

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blurred the lines between Boko Haram’s supposed enemies (the government) and the civilian populace. No longer open to sympathetic membership as people increasingly distanced themselves from the group and its activities, and unable to provide welfare services because counterterrorism operations had drove it underground, Boko Haram reinvented a new recruitment model to adapt to prevailing circumstances: forced conscription. This was achieved through threat of death for people who refused to join, and more specifically through kidnapping of young boys and girls from the northeast. The kidnapping of more than 276 girls, mostly Christians, in Chibok, Bornu State, Nigeria on April 14, 2014, brought international attention to Boko Haram’s forcible recruitment. This was neither the first nor last time Boko Haram employed the tactic because the group members and their wives began kidnapping young girls in early 2013 to use as assets to trade in prisoner exchanges, as decoys to lure troops into ambushes, and to serve as porters and cooks (Zenn 2014). Only after the Chibok kidnapping did Boko Haram start using women in operations, including the wives of slain or arrested militants and beggars who were offered a ‘few naira notes’ (Zenn 2014). The place and use of women were an integral part of Boko Haram’s recruitment model and membership indoctrination. The reasons, utilization, rank, and representation of women in, and by Boko Haram were based on different models: Women as an Organizational Shift: With the use of women in suicide bombing, Boko Haram ‘joined the ranks of terrorist groups around the world that incorporated women into their organizational profiles’ (Bloom and Matfess 2016). Viewed as a plentiful resource and ‘extremely dispensable’ (Anyadike 2016), Boko Haram’s forceful recruitment of women is considered an organizational shift used in adapting to the group’s inability to recruit voluntary members, and as a means of advancing its activities in the face of intense counterterrorism operations against it. Female suicide bombers enjoy several tactical advantages: “they capitalize and thrive on the ‘element of surprise’, they can take advantage of cultural reluctance toward physical searches to evade detection, and are generally perceived as gentle and non-threatening, with explosives easy to conceal under their hijabs and loose religious clothing” (Bloom and Matfess 2016). Since June 2014, more than 200 women suicide bombers have blown themselves up killing more than 1,000 people in Nigeria and neighbouring Cameroon (Aljazeera 2016).

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Women as Gratification Reward to Breed In-Group Cohesion, and as Instruments of Procreation: Insurgencies that rely on forced conscription like Boko Haram are known for a horrific logic: an institutionalization of sexual violence and slavery used for building group cohesion and fostering camaraderie (Bloom and Matfess 2016). A Human Rights Watch report published in November 2013 stated that Boko Haram raided villages and ‘after storming into homes and throwing sums of money at their parents, with a declaration that it was the dowry for their teenage daughter, they would take the girls away’ (Bloom and Matfess 2016) to be used as sexual slaves. Sexual violence in armed conflict and terrorist insurgence is thus rampant (Stauffer and Hall 2015), and when an internal armed conflict involves non-professional armed groups—as is the case in most current conflicts (and Boko Haram)—the inherently chaotic and lawless circumstances present fertile grounds for acts of sexual violence (Schrijver and Van Den Herik 2010). Understood as a means of fostering cohesiveness among forcibly conscripted soldiers, while simultaneously undermining external social bonds and instilling fear in attacked communities, violence against women is particularly suited to the goals of terrorist organizations (Bloom and Matfess 2016). Boko Haram leaders also ‘made a conscious effort to impregnate women they had forcibly kidnapped…some…even pray before mating or raping them, offering supplications for God to make the products of what they are doing become children that will inherit their ideology’ (Bloom and Matfess 2016). Following the Chibok abductions, Boko Haram garnered global attention, facilitating the spread of its propaganda internationally and emboldening the group (Human Rights Watch 2016) to rely more heavily on female operatives. Recruitment and use of girls for Boko Haram’s membership simultaneously maintains Boko Haram’s dissidence from mainstream Izala and Salafism especially as practiced in Nigeria and promulgated by Sheikh Mahmud Gumi. The Izala herald women’s ‘purity’ as a main goal for the movement and emphasize in their propaganda the need to protect ‘their sisters in Islam’ from abuse by secular communities (Bloom and Matfess 2016). Boko Haram opposed this and employed female abduction in retaliation for the Nigerian government’s detention of its leaders and members of their family. In videos released by Boko Haram in 2014, the group suggested it was willing to release the abducted girls if wives and children of Boko Haram members were released. The group repeated same overtures in a ‘proof of life’ video released in August 2016 showing some of the abducted Chibok girls. In the hands of Boko Haram,

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abducted females were bargaining chips to push the government into the disadvantaged end of a negotiating table when the need arises. Since the Chibok kidnapping in April 2014, Boko Haram has also increasingly kidnapped teenage boys in north-eastern Nigeria and ‘reeducated’ them at Qur’anic schools that are often in Cameroon (Zenn 2014). The militants use untrained boys to acquire intelligence and carry out the first wave of attacks on villages or barracks. When they gain experience, they can be part of the second wave designed to overwhelm the security forces after the first wave weakens their positions and morale (Zenn 2014). Boys may also “be given a quota of how many security officers or ‘high value target’” they must attack, and risk death at the hands of their commanders if they fail or show ‘cowardice’ (Zenn 2014). From all these ways of attracting followers, Boko Haram members could number up to 20,000, as suggested by Ahmed Salkida, but only if members include not only armed militants but also individuals who cooperate with Boko Haram, whether intentionally or coerced (Zenn 2014). Other figures put forward to quantify Boko Haram’s membership came from United States Intelligence officials who said Boko Haram may have about 6,000 hardcore fighters, Amnesty International who pegs Boko Haram’s membership as high as 15,000, and in 2018, International Crisis Group says counterterrorism operations may have reduced Boko Haram fighters to about 2,000 (Adebajo 2021).

Organization, Mode of Operation, and Funding Mohammed Yusuf was the spiritual, legal, political, symbolic, and administrative head of the organization and he attempted to run it as a model Islamic state using a centralized chain of command with delegated responsibility. He was the ‘Amir ul-Aam’ (commander in chief) with a Shura (council) of trusted Kwamandoji (commanders) and both made up the highest decision-making body of Boko Haram (International Crisis Group 2014). The Amir ul-Aam could however not speak for the group without Shura approval. In major cities where the group had a presence, a local Amir was in charge, assisted by a Nabin (deputy), who in turn was aided by a Mu’askar (information link to foot soldiers) (International Crisis Group 2014). Larger towns were divided into Lajna (sectors) supervised by sub-Amirs, and at this time, Yusuf’s main lieutenants were Muhammad Lawan, Mamman Nur, and Abubakar Shekau (International Crisis Group 2014). By the mid-2000s after the da’wa phase, the group had expanded

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its ‘state-like’ activities into paramilitary incursions and confrontations, violently attacking other Salafist and Muslim scholars and groups that critiqued its interpretation of the Quran (Matfess 2016). Such criticisms and attacks brought with them intermittent interventions of the police who attempted to rein in the group’s activities through public and private berating, as well as through repression. Infrequent altercations with the police and security operatives occurred at this time, and Muhammed Yusuf was also arrested and released intermittently. During this period, funding for the group came from membership dues, donations, plough back from the welfare programme and sales of audio recordings of Muhammad Yusuf’s sermons. The payment of membership dues was initially the basic source of funding for the sect. Members such as farmers, traders, road-side car washers, and commercial motorcycle riders paid a daily levy to maintain the organization’s financial standing (Onuoha 2014b). Sympathizers of the group were also known to have donated their Zakat (one of the pillars of Islam that necessitated wealthy Muslims to give out part of their wealth as charity to the needy on a yearly basis) to the group. There were also other speculated sponsors, from prominent religious leaders to businessmen and politicians in the north. It was possible that politicians who courted the group’s membership for use during electioneering campaigns also paid for such services directly using cash, or indirectly with other means of payment. For instance, in an interview with a former security adviser to the Bornu state Governor (Kashim Shettima), Hussaini Monguno explained the relationship between Mohammed Yusuf and former Governor Ali Sherriff, and the form of funding for the organization that came out of this relationship: Muhammad Yusuf is believed to have used his following to help Bornu state gubernatorial candidate, Ali Modu Sheriff win the elections in 2003. For this feat, Sheriff presumably pledged to implement Sharia in Bornu state, make Boko Haram’s Buji Foi a member of his cabinet, and gift Boko Haram motorcycles and cash. While the other pledges were redeemed, Sheriff could not implement Sharia in the multi-religiously populated Bornu state. This fractured the relationship between Sheriff and Yusuf, with the latter directing religious sermons against the former. (Onuoha 2014b)

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After the fall-out with the Bornu state governor (Ali Modu Sheriff), the group assumed a campaign of civil disobedience (Varin 2016), refusing to obey laws of the state whose authority they did not doctrinally recognize. One element of the campaign of civil disobedience was their refusal to wear helmets for their motorcycles on the funeral procession, an act that eventually triggered the series of events that culminated in the July 2009 offensive and killing of Mohammed Yusuf. After the events of July 2009, it appeared that the nonradical/moderate elements had been eliminated, and the militantly radicalized now dominated Boko Haram. Confronting the state had exposed weaknesses in the group’s insurgent strategy and tactics. Having a unified command structure under Mohammed Yusuf had made it easy for the organization to be put down after the events of July 2009. There was a need to correct these by breaking down the command structure, fragmenting the unified organization, and marginalizing the moderate elements. When the group remerged in 2010 led by Abubakar Shekau, there were profound changes in tactics, targets, and mode operandi. On June 14, 2010, in an interview with Al Jazeera, Abu Musab Abdel Wadoud (also known as Abdelmalek Droukdel), the emir of AlQaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and head of Al-Qaeda’s North African franchise stated that ‘his group would provide Boko Haram with weapons, training, and other support in order to expand its own reach into Sub-Saharan Africa not only to gain ‘strategic depth’ but also to defend Muslims in Nigeria and stop the advance of minority Crusaders’ (Pham 2012). This signalled Boko Haram’s direct contacts with international Jihadi organizations, and the onset of more poignant jihadi-style terrorism, a modification reflected in the expansion of the group’s scope of influence, and areas where the impact of its terrorist insurgence could be felt. The act to mark its resurgence was a spectacular jailbreak in September 2010 to free about 150 captured members held in the Bauchi prisons and about 700 other inmates (Smith 2010). While they still used old methods like targeted killing of traditional, ward and village heads, security officials, prominent politicians, and opposing religious leaders, they also opened new terrorist and insurgent frontiers (Onuoha 2014b). Their new mode of operations included drive-by shootings, assassinations, kidnappings, prison raids, bank robberies and more prominently, suicide bombings and use of different kinds of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) fitted into cars or motorcycles, and left in public places such as markets,

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motor-parks, bars, university campuses, mosques and churches, telecommunication base stations, media houses, and so on. The IEDs ranged from the classic remote-controlled to timer-based ones that could be set off without the physical presence of a bomber. The operational sophistication Boko Haram attained in constructing IEDs using powerful explosive substances such as trinitrotoluene (TNT), pentaerythritol (PETN), and ammonia (fertilizers) were further pointers to new and increasing contacts with global Jihadi organizations, especially AQIM (Onuoha 2014b). On 16 June 2011, Boko Haram carried out a suicide attack which targeted the head of Nigeria’s police force, the Inspector General, using vehicle-borne IEDs. This attack is believed to be the first suicide attack in Nigeria, and although the target escaped, two bystanders were killed and several police vehicles in the vicinity of the police headquarters (where the attack took place) were destroyed. Barely two months later, on August 26, the group killed about 25 people, and wounded over 80 others in its first suicide bomb attack on an international target: the United Nations building in Nigeria. In a circulated video to claim the attack, Boko Haram praised slain Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and referred to the UN as a ‘forum of all global evil’ (Pham 2012). Both attacks reflected Boko Haram’s adoption of one of the deadliest instruments in the global Jihadist arsenal and demonstrated that the group was now capable of carrying out sophisticated and high-profile attacks (Maiangwa et al. 2012). It also showed that their alliance with foreign terror groups was yielding results. This was evidenced through the availability of suicide fighters who had apparently been indoctrinated by experienced ideologues skilled in evoking visions of martyrdom to radicalize recruits (Onuoha 2014b). The choice of tactic and strategy adopted by the group oscillated based on context, chosen target, and objective to be accomplished. After assuming leadership, Abubakar Shekau diffused the organizational structure he inherited by maintaining a loose command-andcontrol structure which allowed the group to operate autonomously in interlinked cells and units coordinated by underground cells in Kano, Kogi, and Kaduna (Montclos 2014a). The Shura Council was still the highest decision-making organ of the organization, and all cells are represented in the council (Marama 2013). However, decentralization meant that although Shekau was still the leader and wielded influence, decision making on the outlook of the organization had to be agreed upon by all members of the council. This would become an issue, leading to breakout factions, when Shekau and his methods became ‘too ruthless’,

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defined no boundaries between civilians and targets, and with Shekau’s insistence on Takfir for Boko Haram’s actions and deeds. Coherency and frequency emerged in Boko Haram’s attacks in the period of Shekau’s leadership as Maman Nur (bomb making expert speculated to have trained with Al Shabab in Somalia) and other cell heads led their units, with surging numbers in vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices and suicide bombers (World View 2014). In January 2012, Boko Haram executed eight simultaneous bomb and gun attacks in different locations in Kano, killing more than 175 people in Nigeria’s second most populated city (Oboh 2012). Boko Haram maximized their use of terror tactics by preying on government’s bewilderment at, and politicized response to their resurgence. It consolidated its grip by mounting surprise attacks on security establishments (police stations and barracks) to increase its cache of weaponry supplemented by arms purchased in the black market. The group in this way gradually transitioned from a local insurgency to an internationalized terrorist group. AQIM-like influence again mirrored Boko Haram’s funding mechanisms in the years after 2010. To compensate for loss of funds from local sponsors and lack of internally generated revenue, Boko Haram initiated kidnapping for ransom in addition to bank raids and supporting robbery gangs to raid banks, to finance its operations (Bwala 2011). A robbery gang member arrested by the police in 2011, Sheriff Shettima confessed that his gang was responsible for some robbery operations in Bornu state to raise funds for Boko Haram, and his gang were also responsible for the heist at the Damboa branch of First Bank Nigeria Plc on 12 October 2011, during which a policeman was killed and 21 million naira stolen (Bwala 2011). Out of about 100 Nigerian bank branches attacked by armed robbers in 2011, over 30 of the raids were attributed to Boko Haram (Onuoha 2014b). Kidnapping, mostly of foreign expatriates became very lucrative as a funding mechanism for the group. The most high-profile kidnappings included Italian Franco Lamlinara and British Christopher McManus, seven Lebanese construction workers from Jaamare local government in Bauchi, the French Moulin-Fournier family of seven in Waza (a town 16 miles east of Amchide, Cameroon), a French priest, two Italian priests, and a Canadian nun. The Cameroonian government reportedly paid a $3.14 million ransom and released Boko Haram prisoners in April 2013 in exchange for the Moulin-Fournier family, while the French priest was released for a multi-million-dollar ransom and the release of a Kanuri

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weapons trafficker (Zenn 2014). Boko Haram also released the Italian priests and Canadian nun after several weeks in captivity in June 2014 in another prisoner exchange and ransom deal (Carlson and Mackrael 2014). Capitalizing on the power vacuum in north-eastern Nigeria’s ungoverned spaces, Boko Haram attempted to establish rudiments of their perceived version of an Islamic state in Bornu, Adamawa, and Yobe (also known as the BAY states most affected by Boko Haram’s activities). They took over towns like Buni Yadi and Bara in Yobe, Madagali in Adamawa, and Gwoza, Banki, Gamboru-Ngala, Ashigashiya, and Kerawa in Bornu (PM News 2014). The group declared Gwoza the capital of its Islamic caliphate and proceeded to implement political governance structures in the town, and even appointed a new Emir in Gwoza (Sahara Reporters 2014). In Buni Yadi, they executed a drug dealer and others for smoking cigarettes (PM News 2014). They instructed residents of Madagali to defy government-imposed curfews and preached openly in Yobe (Daily Trust 2014). Between 2014 and 2015, Boko Haram controlled areas were the geographical size of Belgium (Chothia 2015), and they held on to these territories, and even attempted to expand into more for a substantial part of 15 months (Mahmood 2014). In the area of communication, messaging, and public relations, between 2014 and 2015, Boko Haram’s public messaging took on a sleek, promotional quality reflecting the influence of tech-savvy ISIS. For instance, YouTube videos posted had better visual quality. As time went on, the use of social media was incorporated into the group’s strategies for propaganda, taking responsibility for terrorist actions, indirectly communicating with the group members scattered across the country, and sometimes, to reveal next location for attacks or targets. By 2015, several factors necessitated a change in Boko Haram’s mode of operations. A change in government ushered in Muhammadu Buhari as Nigeria’s new President and crushing off Boko Haram was top of his campaign promises. Buhari employed diplomatic manoeuvrers to regroup the African Union Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF) to counter Boko Haram (with troops from Nigeria, Niger, Chad, Cameroon, and Benin). The MNJTF together with the CJTF made spirited gains in dislodging Boko Haram from captured territories and attack bases. The military operations were largely successful and sophisticated attacks by Boko Haram were significantly reduced. The new Nigerian president declared Boko Haram ‘technically defeated’ in December 2015. Lacking the capabilities to expand its control and trying to minimise losses in

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his ranks from confrontations with the military, Boko Haram adapted to the new climate by turning back to insurgent-style guerrilla tactics, asymmetrical warfare against soft targets, and the use of females with renewed vigour (World View 2014). Although Boko Haram ‘for several months, carried out fewer attacks, and those attacks were smaller, on softer targets and with reduced success’ (International Crisis Group 2016) and the possibility of a ‘Mosul scenario’—akin to the Islamic State (IS)’s takeover of Mosul, Iraq in 2014—in which Boko Haram could imminently threaten Nigeria’s territorial integrity has significantly reduced (Zenn 2016), Boko Haram was only down, but not yet out. Technically defeated turned out to be a premature declaration of victory, as Boko Haram still maintained its attacks on soft and hard targets across the northeast of Nigeria. They continued kidnapping and now collaborate with other criminal elements in Nigeria, such as the bandits in the northwest and north central. As recent as December 2020, Boko Haram in conjunction with bandits in Katsina state kidnapped 344 boys from their schools and released them a week later following intense negotiations and possibly ransom payment.

International Dimensions to Boko Haram Insurgency Boko Haram’s journey from an homegrown insurgency to a terrorist organization was impacted by its international dimensions and connections. The group sought guidance and ideological inspirations from foreign terrorist brethrens to underscore its importance and credibility home and abroad. Simultaneously however, the need to be attached to an international jihadi group and the politics surrounding this resulted in a permanent split of the organization. Boko Haram’s international dimensions influenced its mode of operation, ideology, tactical ability, funding, and cohesion. The proximity and porosity of Lake Chad basin borders was one of the reasons Boko Haram’s insurgency and terrorism had an international dimension. Nigeria shares borders with Chad, Niger, and Cameroon. Mubi in Adamawa state is the border town between Nigeria and Cameroon but the border itself spans 1,497 km and stretches from Adamawa to Taraba state. Machina and Massena in Yobe state are the closest to Niger, stretching about 1,690 km from Yobe through Jigawa, Katsina and Sokoto, while Gambaro in Maiduguri, Bornu state represents

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the border town between Nigeria and Chad. Part of Nigeria also share cultural affinities with these countries. For example, the Kanuri are spread across the villages around the Nigeria-Chad border, where Kanembu is also spoken across the Lake Chad Basin. Hausa language is spoken in communities of Niger and Nigeria. The presence of AQIM in Niger and Mali, the proximity of Libya and Algeria to these border countries, the rise and spread of arms-bearing individuals and groups, especially from the Libyan uprising after the fall of Muammar Ghaddafi in 2011, and the similarities in goals and modes of operations have all posited furtive connections between Boko Haram, AQIM, Al-Shabaab in East Africa, Ansaru-Dine in Mali and ISIL. Such links are complicated by the excessive proliferation of light arms and sophisticated weapons between and within these countries. After the 2009 crackdown, Boko Haram’s links with foreign Islamist groups strengthened. Surviving group members escaped through Chad and Niger to Somalia, Algeria, and Afghanistan where they joined other Islamists and received guerrilla training, as well as training on how to construct and detonate IEDs with or without suicide bombers (International Crisis Group 2014). These trainings, including funding relationships were facilitated with AQIM and Al Shabab between 2010 and 2012 by prominent Boko Haram heads like Mamman Nur, Adam Kambar, and Khalid Al Barnawi (Barkindo 2018). On November 29, 2012, Abubakar Shekau posted a 39-minute video on extremist websites saluting global jihadists and expressing Boko Haram’s solidarity with Al-Qaeda and its leaders (Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi and Abu Omar al-Baghdadi): ‘the world should witness, and America, Britain, Nigeria and other crusaders should witness, and the Jews of Israel who are killing the Muslims in Palestine should witness … that we are with our Mujahidin brothers in the cause of Allah everywhere’ (International Crisis Group 2014). The Nigerian military confirmed Boko Haram’s transnational links on September 29, 2012, when former Chief of Army Staff, Lt.-General Azubike Ihejirika said Abubakar Shekau was traced to a hideout in Mali (Omonobi 2013). Boko Haram’s international Jihadi profile was boosted when the US AFRICOM Commander, General Carter Ham confirmed that Africa’s top three Salafi Jihadist movements (Al Shabab, AQIM, and Boko Haram) were ‘voicing their intentions to closely collaborate and synchronize their efforts, thereby posing a significant threat not only in the nations in which they primarily operate, but regionally, and to the united states’ (Shanker

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and Schmitt 2011). The group themselves boasted of their ties first to the Somali-based terror group, Al-Shabaab, and then to Al-Qaeda: We want to make it known that our Jihadists (warriors) have arrived (in) Nigeria from Somalia where they got serious training on warfare from our brethren (Al-Shabaab) who made the country of Somalia ungovernable. We want to assure all security agencies that we would frustrate their efforts. By the grace of God, despite the armoured carriers that they are boasting of, they cannot match the training we acquired in Somalia. Our relationship with Al Qaeda is very strong. In fact, our leader (Shekau) and his team were in Mecca for the lesser Hajj to consolidate on that relationship. And we carried out the attack on the UN building when he was about to go into a meeting with Al Qaeda leadership to strengthen our negotiation position. (Onuoha 2014a)

Funding for Boko Haram was another benefit accrued from its international Jihadi connections. In the trial of a captured Boko Haram member allegedly responsible for the 2011 Christmas day bombings in Madalla, Kabir Umar Sokoto, a masked witness stated Sokoto confessed to Boko Haram ‘receiving funding from a group in Algeria known as Musulmi Yamma and that the money created a division within the sect’ (Ikuomola and Ikhilae 2013). Also, in September 2011, during a visit led by former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo and civil rights activist Mallam Shehu Sani to the relatives of late Boko Haram leader, Mohammed Yusuf, his family revealed that about 40% of the group’s funding came from outside Nigeria, reinforcing assertions that Boko Haram had representatives in Chad, Niger, and Cameroon, and it would be difficult for the Nigerian army to crush it (Onuoha 2014a). While it may have had its many advantages, Boko Haram’s international jihadi connection was also the bane of its near disintegration. The group has pitched its tents through alliances to one international Jihadi group after another. First, the group latched on the acceptance it received from AQIM leaders and presented itself as an Al-Qaeda affiliate. Internal rivalries between Shekau and Nur, especially Shekau’s stringent Takfirist stance made the latter to break away from Boko Haram to form Jama’at Ansari Al-Muslimin fi Bilad Al-Sudan (Ansaru), a move which AQIM supported as they sided with Nur and Ansaru (Barkindo 2018). In response and opposition to AQIM’s position, Shekau officially pledged allegiance to the Abu-Bakr Al-Baghdadi led ISIS to become Islamic State West African Province (ISWAP) in 2015. Shekau’s perceived arrogance,

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continued use of women for suicide bombings (which was against ISIS’s operating ideology), unilateral decision making without consultation with other Shura members, killing of Muslims, children, and women (considered to be against Islamic rules of engagement during war), as well as his reverence of Takfirism and excommunication were decried by his comrades and colleagues. ISIS leadership, weary of allowing such a character to continue leading its biggest West African stronghold appointed Mohammed Yusuf’s son, Abu Musab Al-Barnawi as the leader of ISWAP. This move signalled another fragmentation in Boko Haram as AlBarnawi and his supporters moved away from Sambisa Forest which was Boko Haram’s operational and tactical base to the Alagarno forest near Lake Chad. It heightened the divisions and split in the terrorist landscape as ISWAP and Boko Haram launched rival attacks against each other in late 2020 and early 2021. ISIS backed ISWAP emerged as another terrorist group which security forces had to contend with, in addition to Boko Haram and bandits in Nigeria’s northwest and north central. They were distinct in their mode of operation, target, and style of leading captured territories. For instance, in August 2018, 105 of 110 girls kidnapped by ISWAP in Dapchi area of Yobe state were returned by the group because amongst other reasons, kidnapping Muslim girls was against ISIS’s ideologies (Campbell 2018). Unlike Shekau, ISWAP returned the girls because ‘the kidnap cast them in bad light’. The kidnap appears to have been a mistake in the first place, carried out by ISWAP members still not fully immersed in the changes to their ideology and operations which allegiance to ISIS commands. While Boko Haram employs suicide attacks on soft targets, ISWAP has attacked majorly military bases and humanitarian organization offices. In contrast to Boko Haram’s forceful recruitment, ISWAP appears to solicit support from local communities through ‘peacefully enforced’ control and revival of economic activities, such as the fish trade along the Lake Chad Basin.

Boko Haram, the First Victimization The effects of Boko Haram’s terrorist insurgence in Nigeria and the Lake Chad Basin countries at large positions it as the first process by which victimization took place in these areas. By November 2021, number of fatalities recorded via Boko Haram’s insurgency and counterterrorist operations had risen to 41,303 (Council on Foreign Relations 2021). Amongst more than 2 million internally displaced persons, many are

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women who have taken up the positions of breadwinners, catering for their children and family members in the absence of men who have been killed. Many others get the added responsibility of tending to wounded husbands and sons, while simultaneously embarking on their own personal journeys to self-recovery and rehabilitation. In 2016, Boko Haram was estimated to have caused damages worth $9 billion dollars in 6 Nigerian states, with the world bank positing that 6 billion dollars was needed for immediate and near-term stabilization in areas affected (African Liberty 2016). An assessment Report on Bornu state alone highlighted material losses to include destruction of 956, 453 houses, 5,335 classrooms and other school buildings, 201 health centres mostly primary health clinics, dispensaries, and some general hospitals, 1,630 water supply sources, 665 municipal buildings, prisons, police stations, and electricity offices, 726 power distribution substations, 16 parks and game reserves, green wall projects, orchards, ponds, river basins, and lakes either poisoned or bombed, and 470, 000 livestock either stolen or killed (Alakija et al. 2016). The motto of Bornu state was, and still is the ‘Home of Peace’, but since Boko Haram began its reign of terror, Bornu state has become the ‘home of violence’ to many. Intermittent suicide and car bombings have become part of their daily lives creating an atmosphere of civil siege and volatility. The implication of this for public peace, safety, and security has been critically dire. Since the outbreak of violence, Bornu and Yobe States have ceased to know civil normalcy (Okoli and Iortyer 2014) and Boko Haram’s insurgency has resulted in the mass exodus of people from the northeast. The massive destruction of infrastructure, the destruction of telecommunication facilities, frequent attacks on markets and businesses, and short business hours due to curfews, have made many relocate to other safer parts of the country (Okoli and Iortyer 2014). Boko Haram has also threatened livelihoods of affected population. Formal and informal economies have been strangulated. Farming and small businesses have had to close. Maiduguri which used to be a trade hub for communities living across the borders in Cameroon, Chad, and Niger has become a trading shadow of itself, with its prestigious market no longer as vibrant as it used to be. Commercial activities have almost crumbled as nearly all non-indigenes fled the city. Contemporarily, Maiduguri and parts of Bornu state rely heavily on the humanitarian economy powered by aid workers, expatriate agencies, and multinational military and security personnel. ISWAP’s control of the fishing villages along

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the Lake Chad has also disrupted livelihoods of fishermen, boat makers, traders at fish markets, and many others who depend on the receding lake for economic and social survival. The enforcement of state of emergency rule and curfews also restricted movement and communications in a manner that hampered economic activities. The economy of the north (and by extension Nigeria) has also in general terms been affected by Boko Haram, and the loss to Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) is estimated at 1.33 trillion naira (approximately 1.2 billion euros) (Akanji 2013). Maiduguri and Kano which used to attract traders from Sudan, Niger, Chad, and Cameroon have been abandoned by foreign traders. Most hotel owners have relocated to Abuja. The tourism potential of Bauchi and Plateau is gradually eroded. The implication of this for livelihood in northern Nigeria is that poverty now grows faster in the area, with corresponding reinforcement of other developmental issues (Akanji 2013). This scenario has complicated and accentuated the plight of the region as a developmentally challenged section of Nigeria. Because it is anti-western education, Boko Haram’s major attacks were launched on primary and secondary, as well as tertiary institutions. These attacks were either in form of shootouts, bombings, or kidnapping. The deadliest of such attacks happened on February 25, 2014, where 59 schoolboys in Buni Yadi, Yobe state were gruesomely murdered by Boko Haram. Another was the 2014 abduction of the Chibok girls earlier mentioned. Scared parents withdrew their children from schools and the government closed schools to prevent further attacks. Some students who had to sit for the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) were relocated to other states for them to not miss the window for the regionally held examinations. The attack on educational infrastructure, schoolteachers, and students have plunged the northeast, and the larger northern area into deepened educational crises. UNICEF estimates that as of 2016, the number of out of school children in Bornu state was 1.8 million mainly due to the presence and activities of Boko Haram (Adeniran and Castradori 2020). In 2020, there were 13 million out of school children in Nigeria and the northeast accounted for 60% of this number (Yusuf 2020). These, coupled with an already ongoing educational crisis in Nigeria’s north has also reduced drastically the chances for egalitarian education opportunities for the girl child. In the northeast, Boko Haram’s overall impact includes ‘a severe lack of access to schooling from violence and infrastructure destruction; poor

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teaching numbers and quality, insufficient managerial capacity to ensure the observance of standards, and an ill-conceived educational approach that is exacerbated by a climate of insecurity’ (Adeniran and Castradori 2020). In respect of the implications of the insurgency for the wider polity of Nigeria, it is to be noted that the Boko Haram insurgency has led to negative perception of Nigeria as an unsafe country, damaging Nigeria’s profile as a favourable international destination for investment, travel, tourism, scholarship, and migration (Okoli and Iortyer 2014).

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Montclos, M.-A.P.d. 2014a. Boko Haram and Politics: From Insurgency to Terrorism. In Boko Haram: Islamism, Politics, Security, and the State in Nigeria, ed. M.P.d. Montclos, 1–285. Leiden: IFRA-Nigeria, African Studies Centre. Montclos, M.-A.P.d. 2014b. Nigeria’s Interminable Insurgency? Addressing the Boko Haram Crisis. London: Chatham House Africa Programme. Nnochiri, I. 2011. Boko Haram: Yusuf Had only 4,000 Followers in 2009, Army tells court [Online]. Available at: https://www.vanguardngr.com/ 2011/12/boko-haram-yusuf-had-only-4000-followers-in-2009-army-tellscourt/ [Accessed 22 November 2021]. Oboh, M. 2012. Islamist Insurgents Kill over 178 in Nigeria’s Kano [Online]. Available at: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nigeria-violence-idUSTR E80L0A020120122 [Accessed 26 November 2021]. Ochonu, M.E. 2014. Boko Haram: Toward A Better Understanding [Online]. Available at: http://saharareporters.com/article/boko-haram-toward-betterunderstanding-moses-e-ochonu [Accessed November 2021]. Ohia, I. 2009. Boko Haram Killing: What Was Governor Sherrif’s Role? Desert Herald. Okoli, A.C., and P. Iortyer. 2014. Terrorism and Humanitarian Crisis in Nigeria: Insights from Boko Haram Insurgency. Global Journal of Human-Social Science 14 (1): 38–50. Okpaga, A., S.C. Ugwu, and I.E. Okechukwu. 2012. Activities of Boko Haram and Insecurity Question in Nigeria. Arabian Journal of Business and Management Review 1 (9): 77–89. Omipidan, I. 2009. Why the North is on Fire. The Sun Newspapers. Lagos. Omonobi, K. 2013. Boko Haram Leader Shekau Shot, Escapes to Mali [Online]. Available at: https://www.vanguardngr.com/2013/01/boko-haram-leadershekau-shot-in-mali/ [Accessed 29 November 2021]. Onuoha, F.C. 2010. The Islamist Challenge: Nigeria’s Boko Haram Crisis Explained. African Security Review 19 (2): 54–67. Onuoha, F. 2014a. Boko Haram and the Emerging Salafist Jihadist Threat in Nigeria. In Boko Haram: Islamism, Politics, Security, and the State in Nigeria, ed. M.P.d. Montclos, 1–258. Leiden: IFRA-Nigeria Africa Studies Centre. Onuoha, F. 2014b. Why Do Youth Join Boko Haram? [Online] Available at: https://www.usip.org/publications/2014b/06/why-do-youth-join-bokoharam [Accessed 25 November 2021]. Owolade, F. 2014. Boko Haram: How a Militant Islamist Group Emerged in Nigeria [Online]. Available at: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4232/ boko-haram-nigeria [Accessed 6 November 2015]. Pesature, D. 2015. Justifying Jihad: A Case Study of Al-Shabaab and Boko Haram. Small Wars Journal.

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Pham, P.J. 2012. Boko Haram’s Evolving Threat. Africa Security Brief (20): 1–8. PM News. 2014. Boko Haram Takes over Town in Yobe [Online]. Available at: http://pmnewsnigeria.com/2014/08/21/boko-haram-takes-over-townin-yobe/ [Accessed 26 November 2021]. Power, C. 2014. 5 Reasons Why Boko Haram Is Un-Islamic [Online]. Available at: https://time.com/99929/boko-haram-is-un-islamic/ [Accessed 19 November 2021]. Quran 4:24, 2021a. Quran 48:29, 2021b. Quran 9:29, 2021c. Raza, R. 2014. From Brunei to Boko Haram: Merely Deflection [Online]. Available at: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4332/boko-haram-abd uction [Accessed 19 November 2021]. Sahara Reporters. 2014. Boko Haram Militants Appoint Emir for Captured Gwoza as Women Bury Their Dead [Online]. Available at: http://sahara reporters.com/2014/08/12/boko-haram-militants-appoint-emir-capturedgwoza-women-bury-their-dead [Accessed 26 November 2021]. Salkida, A. 2012. Interview with Ahmed Salkida [Interview] (29 May 2012). Sani, S. 2011. BOKO HARAM: History, Ideas and Revolt [Online]. Available at: https://www.vanguardngr.com/2011/07/boko-haram-history-ideas-andrevolt-3/ [Accessed 22 November 2021]. Schrijver, N., and L. Van Den Herik. 2010. Leiden Policy Recommendations on Counter Terrorism and International Law. Netherlands International Law Review 57 (3): 531–550. Shanker, T., and E. Schmitt. 2011. Three Terrorist Groups in Africa Pose Threat to U.S., American Commander Says [Online]. Available at: https://www.nyt imes.com/2011/09/15/world/africa/three-terrorist-groups-in-africa-posethreat-to-us-general-ham-says.htm [Accessed 29 November 2021]. Sivan, E. 1985. Interpretation of Islam, Past and Present. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Publishers. Smith, D. 2010. More Than 700 Inmates Escape During Attack on Nigerian Prison [Online]. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/ 2010/sep/08/muslim-extremists-escape-nigeria-prison [Accessed 16 October 2016]. Stauffer, H., and E. Hall. 2015. No Shame in Justice: Addressing Stigma Against Survivors to End Sexual Violence in Conflict Zones. London: World Vision Publishers. Thurston, A. 2017. Boko Haram: The History of an African Jihadist Movement. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

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Umar, S. 2012. The Popular Discourses of Salafi Radicalism and Salafi Counterradicalism in Nigeria: A Case Study of Boko Haram. Journal of Religion in Africa 42 (2): 118–144. UNHCR. 2021. Nigeria: All Population Snapshot October 2021 [Online]. Available at: https://data2.unhcr.org/en/documents/details/89576 [Accessed 18 November 2021]. Varin, C. 2016. Boko Haram and the War on Terror. London: Praeger Security International. World View. 2014. Boko Haram Adjusts Its Methods [Online]. Available at: https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/boko-haram-adjusts-its-met hods [Accessed 25 November 2021]. Yusuf, Umar. 2020. Northeast Is Home to 60% of Nigeria’s 13m Out-of-School Children [Online]. Available at: https://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/ headlines/483619-special-report-kano-akwa-ibom-eight-other-states-housedmost-of-nigerias-out-of-school-children.html [Accessed 02 December 2021]. Zenn, J. 2014. Boko Haram: Recruitment, Financing, and Arms Trafficking in the Lake Chad Region. Combating Terrorism Centre Sentinel 7 (10): 1–20. Zenn, J. 2016a. Boko Haram Is Not “Defeated” but Buhari’s Strategy Is Working [Online]. Available at: https://africanarguments.org/2016a/01/ boko-haram-is-not-defeated-but-buharis-strategy-is-working/ [Accessed 26 November 2021]. Zenn, J. 2016b. The Power of Boko Haram: Local Roots, International Jihad [Online]. Available http://tonyblairfaithfoundation.org/religiongeopolitics/ commentaries/opinion/power-boko-haram-local-roots-international-jihad [Accessed 24 August 2016b].

CHAPTER 4

Humanitarian Displacement from Boko Haram and Concrete Living Conditions of Displaced Persons

This chapter is based on ethnographic research with internally displaced persons in two Bornu state IDP camps: NYSC IDP camp located in Maiduguri, and the Damboa IDP camp in Damboa town, 87 kilometres from Maiduguri. It is written as the result of formal, semi-formal and informal interviews, focus group discussions, actor’s observance, participant observation, and narrative eye-witness account (Fig. 4.1).

The Boko Haram Displacement Situation In addition to Boko Haram’s terrorist insurgence, counterterrorism operations by combined forces of Nigeria’s Joint Task Force (JTF), vigilante Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF), and African Union’s Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF) have also induced movement and displacement of people. Security forces have told civilians to vacate villages before the start of operations so that the line between combatants and civilians can be clearly delineated. For instance, to combat Boko Haram, Nigerien forces cleared communities at Lake Chad, ordering all residents around the Komadugu river to leave (Anyadike 2017), as anybody still encountered at the area was to be considered and treated as an insurgent. Boko Haram too have informed villages of impending attacks, scaring populations into hurried movements out of such locations. Government’s counterterrorism measures are also known to induce population displacement in © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 M. Abdulazeez Malefakis, Humanitarian Displacement and Boko Haram in Nigeria, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99784-7_4

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Fig. 4.1 IDP camp locations in Bornu State (Bukbuk et al. 2016) (Note Dotted points by author)

Boko Haram affected areas. As part of efforts to curb Boko Haram, a state of emergency (SOE) was declared on Bornu, Yobe, and Adamawa on May 14, 2014. This was swiftly followed by the take-down of telecommunication networks on May 16–17. In a national broadcast, the Nigerian President ordered troops to ‘take all necessary action to end the impunity of insurgents and terrorists’. The next day, fighter jets began bombarding Boko Haram camps in northern Bornu, and a day later troops sealed parts of the borders with Chad, Niger, and Cameroon. As the SOE and the measures that followed it had been expected to make the 3 states ‘non-modulated’ theatres of war, it was heralded by people moving into host communities outside the 3 states to either avoid the impact of the measures or escape confrontations between Boko Haram and the military. Highhanded and scorched-earth military tactics is another reason why population become displaced in the northeast. Such highhandedness has been attributed to the JTF and CJTF during various military operations instituted in BAY states. These military operations include

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Operation Restore Order (I, II and III), Operation BOYONA (Bornu, Yobe, Nasarawa, and Adamawa), Operation Zaman Lafia (Peaceful Coexistence), Operation Lafia Dole (Compulsory Peace), Operation Crackdown, Operation Gama Aiki (Finish the Job), Operation Safe Corridor, and Operation Last Hold. In carrying out these operations, JTF forces have committed human rights abuses such as massive arrests and prolonged detention of people suspected to be Boko Haram members or alleged to have aided Boko Haram activities, unauthorized door-to-door house searches, destruction of houses belonging to Boko Haram members, sympathizers or supporters, indiscriminate killings, gross human rights violations, mass murder, extra-judicial killings, physical abuse, secret detentions, extortion, and theft during raids (Human Rights Watch 2012). JTF officers sometimes carryout retaliatory missions that blur the lines between insurgent and civilians. These missions became so rampant that Boko Haram co-opted it into their terrorist tactics. Boko Haram would strategically provoke the military by attacking them, knowing well that when the military sought revenge for such attacks, civilians would be killed or injured. On April 16, 2013, a military patrol vehicle was attacked by Boko Haram in Baga Bornu state, killing one soldier. In retaliation, soldiers returned to the village and set it ablaze, burning down more than 2,000 houses, and indiscriminately shot at people attempting to flee, killing over 200 persons (Nossiter 2013). In another apparent retaliatory mission in Budum area of Maiduguri, 23 people were killed and Budum market burnt when an IED planted by Boko Haram exploded and injured three soldiers (Human Rights Watch 2012). The CJTF on their part have been praised as having impacted the anti-terror fight positively by helping to drive many insurgents out of Maiduguri and stopping Boko Haram killings/bombings in the city (International Crisis Group 2014). Unfortunately, these praised successes come at a price. Organized into neighbourhood sections under the supervision of JTF sector commanders, CJTF personnel stand accused of storming houses of known and suspected Boko Haram members, hacking some to death, and manhandling some before handing them over to the military (International Crisis Group 2014). This mode of operation from the JTF and CJTF made people who have experienced such violations, and others afraid to be the next victims, to move out of such areas to camps, or host communities in search of alternative living arrangements whether temporarily, or permanently. Such movements may be intra-state or inter-country as proximity and porosity of borders between Nigeria,

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Chad, Niger, and Cameroon facilitated Nigerians’ seeking external refuge in these countries as well.

Numeric Data Matrix In numeric terms, Boko Haram related activities as highlighted above has led to the internal displacement of about 2,015,897 people as of October 2021 (United Nations High Commission for Refugees [UNHCR] 2021b). Bornu state has the highest number of IDPs with 1,633,829, Yobe has 162,394 while Adamawa has 209,322 IDPs (United Nations High Commission for Refugees [UNHCR] 2021b). IDP camps in Gombe have been closed due to inactivity and all IDPs therein have gone back to their communities. Yobe state declined the establishment of any IDP camp and insisted that all displaced persons must shelter with friends and family in host communities. The republic of Chad has 18,600 Nigerian refugees fleeing from Boko Haram’s terrorist insurgence, while Cameroon has 118,957 refugees (United Nations High Commission for Refugees [UNHCR] 2021b). In Niger, 186,957 Nigerian refugees are seeking refuge (United Nations High Commission for Refugees [UNHCR] 2021b). This number however is a combination of those seeking refuge due to Boko Haram’s insurgency and those escaping from the impacts of the current banditry crisis in Katsina and Sokoto. Cameroon hitherto had more Nigerian refugees, but continued repatriation has reduced the number. Cameroon also has the added burden of 333,409 refugees (United Nations High Commission for Refugees [UNHCR] 2021a) from the Central African Republic (CAR) who have been fleeing from violence and political instability since 2013. By October 2021, Cameroon alone had over 458,854 refugees from Nigeria, CAR, Chad, Congo, Rwanda, and other countries, occupying about 310 communities in the country. Internally, Boko Haram had also displaced more than 341,535 people in Cameroon’s far north region. In Chad, activities of insurgents in the LAC region had internally displaced more than 406,573 persons (United Nations High Commission for Refugees [UNHCR TCHAD] 2021). Together with Nigerian refuges, Chad also has refugees from Sudan (374,084), CAR (121,243), Cameroon (1,048), as well as Democratic Republic of Congo (United Nations High Commission for Refugees [UNHCR TCHAD] 2021). Coupled with refugee displacement caused by Boko Haram, Niger has 61,373 refugees from Mali, and more than 264,257 IDPs (United Nations High Commission

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for Refugees Niger [UNHCR NIGER] 2021). What these figures posit is that neighbouring countries drawn into Boko Haram’s insurgency also have other displacement crises on their hands, mostly internal and external displacement situations they had before Boko Haram’s terrorist insurgence began. In most of the refugee camps, to determine who comes from a Lake Chad Basin country was difficult as most people living in border towns did not have a passport or any means of identification. They have never had to own an ID because of the geographical, cultural, and language affinities between them. Many have intermarried and have nuclear and extended family cutting across counties. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) protocol on free movement, right of residence and establishment also facilitated easy movement of people across these borders. As mentioned in preceding chapters, numeric representations of displaced persons have been bones of contention in Nigeria’s humanitarian and displacement management. Just as was the case during the civil war, data from Boko Haram’s displacement situation have been tainted with disputes, distortion, and manipulation. Numeric data from IDP camps for instance are compiled jointly by National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM). NEMA is the federal government agency responsible for displacement and emergency management in Nigeria, in close collaboration with its state apparatuses. There are claims that the number of displaced persons published by NEMA were being inflated by the Bornu state government in other to generate sympathy and funds, which in turn were not utilized for the welfare of the displaced persons. In 2015 for instance, following the publication of one such data matrix, a report was published in the Nigerian Tribune where a camp official (working for the government) was quoted as saying: Contrary to the reports by Bornu State government and officials of the National Emergency Management Agency, (NEMA) in Bornu State that there were about 1.5 million internally displaced persons at various camps across the state, there are no more 15,000 IDPs now in camp. We have the records of all the camps, but what is happening now is that they are asking us to compile names and add numbers while expecting more money from the Federal Government through the intervention of some international organizations. We feel that is not right. We must do something to stop corruption in Nigeria and the only way to do that is to do what is right.

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Most of the IDPs have gone back. When the vice president, Yemi Osinbajo, was coming, they gathered people from across other camps to represent the number of IDPs in those camps the vice president visited. There are serious politics in play. (Bwala 2015)

Also in 2015, the University of South Florida’s Global Initiative Analysis carried out a displaced persons voters’ registration exercise in January and February, in preparation for the 2015 general elections. Some of the IDP camps they visited for the registration exercise include Arabic Teachers College (A.T.C.) Camp, Bakkasi Camp, Mohammed Goni College of legal and Islamic Studies (aka MOGOLIS or BOCOLIS), Ekklesiya Yanuwa A Nigeria (E.Y.N) Camp, Government College Camp, Government Girls College Camp, Government Girls Secondary School Yerwa Camp, National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) Camp, Teachers Village Camp, and Women Teachers College (W.T.C.) Camp (University of South Florida [USF] 2015). From these camps, the resultant figure for individuals of voting age was 13,598 males and 38,027 females, giving a total of 51,625 individuals of voting age alone (University of South Florida [USF] 2015). They recorded IDPs in other locations like Ali Monguno Teachers College and Christians Association of Nigeria (CAN) Secretariat to have a total population of 26,576, and Sanda Kyarimi Primary School to have 5,340 displaced persons (University of South Florida [USF] 2015). The figure for eligible voters in the host communities was given as 49,488 (University of South Florida [USF] 2015). It should be noted that these figures were only for eligible voters alone and excluded children as well as under-age teenagers. Moreover, the survey was carried out in January 2015, before the 2015 offensive of the Nigerian army commenced especially in the months preceding the March 2015 general elections, which significantly impacted displacement numbers. Another 2015 figure to represent internal displacement in Bornu state came from the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) who estimated that as of April 2015, there were 1,538,982 people forced to flee their homes in Nigeria to live in internal displacement camps (Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre [IDMC] 2015). Of this number, 94% were said to have been displaced by the Boko Haram Insurgency, and the remaining 6% by floods, natural disasters, and intercommunal clashes (Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre [IDMC] 2015). From IDMC’s data, it can be deduced that by April 2015, there were already 1,446,643 IDPs in Bornu, Yobe, and Adamawa states

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Table 4.1 IDP distribution (NYSC and Damboa IDP camps)

NYSC camp Adult male Adult female Children male Children female Pregnant women Lactating women Unaccompanied children Separated persons Children in school Total

1464 1960 2882 3184 166 708 158 106 1360 11,988

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Damboa camp 766 1101 722 911 231 87 92 65 632 4,607

Source Data pasted on wall of IDP camp offices

(Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre [IDMC] 2015). With such differences in available data during the study period, and the security situation in the northeast which made it difficult to survey data with precision, caution needs to be applied in the appropriation of numeric figures to represent displacement matrixes. More so, different organization and state apparatuses use diverse means, approaches, and processes to gather information and data, and the absence of a specific data analysis mechanism means that corroboration of reports is the best means of getting to the nearest accurate figures. At the time of the ethnographic study for this book (2015), Table 4.1 represents the numeric distribution of displaced persons in the 2 understudied camps:

Internal Displacement Camp Types and Structure An IDP camp is defined as ‘a safe shelter for displaced persons, where they are protected and taken care of before they eventually move back to their homes’ (IGI Global 2021). Although there is a ‘non-permanence’ tag to displacement camps, there are camps known to have been in existence for extended periods such as the Deheishe refugee camp in the West Bank (72 years), the Saharawi refugee camps in Algeria (46 years), the Ethiopian camps for Somalis and South Sudanese (31 years), and the Dadaab Camp in Kenya (23 years). The non-permanence assumption of Boko Haram’s displacement situation (and most displacements around the world) influenced the type of camps and camp-like structures deployed to displaced persons. The camps can be categorized into

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three main types based on structure and amount of time spent in them by displaced persons. They are: Tepee Encampment: These are tent-like structures, makeshift or semitemporary buildings, open-air settlements, or dome-shaped constructions made of cotton cloths or closely woven fabric of linen in which displaced persons are sheltered. Dawakin Kudu (Kano), Fufore IDP camp in Adamawa, Kouserri (Northern Cameroon), Kaulawa and Gagamari Villages in the Diffa region of Niger, Assaga refugee camp in southeast of Niger, Sayam Forage in Niger and the Minawao refugee camp in Cameroon are the other displacement camps utilizing tepee encampments. The Domiciled Camp: Domiciled camps comprises established structures such as government buildings, classrooms of schools and institutions, army barracks, churches and mosques, uncompleted buildings, and abandoned sites where displaced persons are taken to, or which they take over and make use of as shelter. In most domiciled camps, the original inhabitants of such buildings are dislodged from them but in some cases, the inhabitants still stay and live side by side displaced persons. Examples of domiciled camps used for Boko Haram’s displacement include the NYSC and Damboa IDP camps, Government Secondary School Uba, Central Primary School Baga, National Youth Service Corps Tashar Kano, Eklisiyan ‘Yan Uwa a Najeriya Church, Federal Training Centre Dalori, Malkohi Camp (Adamawa), St. Theresa’s Catholic Cathedral camp, Jimeta-Yola, Nigerian Labour Congress Displaced Peoples Camp Jimeta, College of Business and Management Studies Camp, Central Primary School Konduga Camp, Madagali Camp, Dammare Camp, New Kuchigoro and Durumi Camps in Abuja. In certain instances, additional tents or structures are erected to suit the needs of displaced persons and their numbers. So, some domiciled camps may have tepee encampment structures as well. The Interim Bases: Some displaced persons are not taken directly to either the tepee encampments or the domiciled camps. They are initially accommodated in transit villages or border towns, where they are registered before being moved to either a tepee encampment or domiciled camp. These are interim base camps. Interim bases are typified by the Yerwa Practicing School Gidan Madara, Koubougue in Fotokol Cameroon, and Chetimari village in Niger.

Ideally, displacement camps should be part of state infrastructure not because negative premonitions of crises are expected, but because

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population can be displaced though natural disasters such as floods, hurricanes, fire disasters, and so on. Despite their role as temporary refuge, displacement camps should be habitable, available, and of humane living standards. The immediate concern for every displacement camp is to provide shelter, nutrition, dignity, security, and basic health care. After this, the future goal of a displaced persons’ camp is to prepare displaced persons for eventual reunion with their families or loved ones, and reintegration into the society at the shortest possible time. There is no state-provided and ideally equipped displaced persons’ camp (in its proper sense) in Nigeria. There has not been a structure with proper amenities and organization set aside for accommodating displaced persons during an emergency in any of the 36 states of the federation. Hence the use of makeshift shelters, schools, government buildings, and so on when a displacement emergency occurs. The NYSC IDP camp for example is an orientation camp used by the National Youth Service Corps for university graduates’ national service program. When Boko Haram’s displacement occurred, the NYSC building was taken over as the first camp opened for IDPs. The Damboa camp were school buildings that were taken over by displaced persons in the absence of any other accommodation alternative.

Displacement Management in Nigeria Two organizations are responsible for, and concerned with management of internal and external displacement situations in Nigeria with distinct and overlapping functions. The first is NEMA. NEMA was established to ‘coordinate resources towards efficient and effective disaster prevention, preparedness, mitigation and response in Nigeria, acting in the following areas: coordination, disaster risk reduction, search and rescue, policy and strategy; advocacy, education, administration, finance and logistics, relief and rehabilitation, planning, research and forecasting’ (National Emergency Management Agency [NEMA] 2021). According to its mission statement, NEMA’s work is guided by policy documents such as National Disaster Management Framework (NDMF), National Disaster Response Plan (NDRP); Search, Rescue and Epidemic Evacuation Plan for Nigeria, Draft Guideline and Procedures for the use of Military Assets and Personnel during emergencies, National Disaster Management Framework (NDMF), National Contingency Plan for Nigeria, National Contingency Plan on Infrastructural Resuscitation, National Nuclear and

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Radiological Emergency Plan, Lake Nyos Disaster Response Manual, Multi-Disciplinary Epidemic Early Warning System, Climate Change Policy and Strategy, Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers, and National Action Plan for Disaster Risk Reduction (National Emergency Management Agency [NEMA] 2021). NEMA is funded by 1% of the country’s GDP and 20% of Nigeria’s ecological fund is although allocated to disaster management, it is utilized by NEMA and other ministries contributing to disaster management and risk reduction (National Emergency Management Agency [NEMA] 2021). The act that established NEMA (Act 12 as amended by Act 50 of Nigeria’s 1999 constitution) also mandates it to establish State Emergency Management Agencies and Local Emergency Management Committees in all 36 states of Nigeria’s federation. The second organization is the National Commission for Refugees, Migrants, and Internally Displaced Persons (NCFRMI). It was established by decree 52 of 1989 now Cap. N21 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria in 2004 to coordinate the national action for the protection and assistance of refugees, asylum seekers, returnees, stateless persons, IDPs, and migrants (National Commission for Refugees, Migrants, and Internally Displaced Persons [NCFRMI] 2021). NCFRMI’s mission statement posits that it aims to integrate the best solutions for the return, resettlement, rehabilitation, and reintegration of all persons of concerns, using the 1951 United Nations Convention relating to the status of Refugees, the UN 1967 Protocol, and the 1969 Organisation of African Unity Convention governing specific aspect of Refugees, all of which NCFRMI has incorporated (National Commission for Refugees, Migrants, and Internally Displaced Persons [NCFRMI] 2021). From their statues of establishment, both organizations oversee welfare for displaced persons. NEMA is expected to organize, provide, and coordinate emergency relief to victims of disasters in Nigeria and other related matters affecting emergency aid provision and disaster management. NEMA coordinates disaster management but the protection, return or resettlement of displaced persons is outside its purview. NEMA responds to the occurrence of disasters in the country by sending relief materials and supplies to affected communities and facilitates the ability of the displaced to survive the immediate problems of displacement and dispossession (Daudu 2010). NEMA also is expected to function through its State Emergency Management Agencies (SEMAs), who carry out its mandate in various states, and NEMA is to only intervene when the humanitarian situation in states overwhelms the capacity of the SEMAs

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(Daudu 2010), such as is the case with the displacement situation relating to Boko Haram’s insurgency. After emergency relief and aid, NCFRMI’s mandate begins, specifically as it relates to rehabilitation, resettlement, and reintegration. The functions of both organizations begin to overlap and encroach when displacement becomes prolonged, emergency (temporary) relief becomes permanent, and displacement inducing factor continues with no end. In collaboration with both NEMA and NCFRMI, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) which is the United Nations agency created to assist in the protection of refugees, also help with refugees and IDPs. UNHCR helps to safeguard refugee’s right to seek asylum in another country and help asylum-granting countries in the provision of food, toiletries, and other basic relief amenities for the refugees (Daudu 2010). UNHCR is also saddled with the responsibility of finding durable solutions for refugees, of which four distinct options (the 4Rs) stand out: repartition (voluntary return of refugees to their home countries), reintegration into host communities, resettlement in a third country (willing to accept them) and rehabilitation or reconstruction of the refugees (Daudu 2010). Other international organizations involved with displaced persons from Boko Haram’s insurgency during the period of study are (but not limited to) International Organization of Migration (IOM), International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), United Nations Children Emergency Fund (UNICEF), Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), World Health Organization (WHO), Médecins Sans Frontieres, United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Norwegian Red Cross and Amnesty International. National agencies and organizations involved with displaced persons are the Presidential Initiative on the Northeast (PINE), Nigerian Red Cross, the Wellbeing Foundation for Africa, Society for the Protection of Women Against Abuse (SOPWA), the Golden Penny group, The first lady of the country Aisha Buhari and her daughter Zahra’s Ace foundation, Federal Mortgage Bank, and so on. Most of the aid efforts are either humanitarian assistance aimed at arresting the emergency situation such as food and non-food items (NFIs), or development induced assistance directed at abating poverty, improve health, and promote hygiene. These range from school supplies, classroom blocks, empowerment kits and other materials aimed at normalizing every-day life for displaced

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persons. Development assistance such as livelihood provisions, start-up capital, and sewing machines have also become part of donations to displaced persons.

Internal Displacement Guiding Principles The Guiding principles on Internal Displacement (GPID) is the single document that embodies the responsibilities for internal displacement management. It explains the protection and assistance duties of national authorities to IDPs within their jurisdiction. In addition, It stipulates rights and freedoms to be enjoyed by displaced persons, as well as discriminations which they are to be protected from. In practice, states are first and foremost under an obligation to avoid the displacement of population, and to protect against the displacement of groups with a special dependency on, or attachment to, their lands (Ngolle 1985). When displacement is unavoidable, the GPID specify minimum guarantees to be observed. It also identifies the full range of civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights that all persons, including IDPs, should enjoy such as right to be protected against acts of violence, torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, as well as the right to be protected against the use of anti-personnel land mines (Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement 1998). From the guiding principles, the political rights of IDPs to vote and participate in governmental and public affairs, whether they are living in camps or not is further enshrined. Principle 18 specifically speaks on the right to an adequate standard of living, safe access to essential food, portable water, basic shelter, and housing as well as appropriate clothing and essential medical services and sanitation (Ngolle 1985). GPID also specifies that when national and governmental authorities are unable or willing to provide assistance to the displaced, international organization have the right to offer their services, and consent for them to do so shall not be arbitrarily withheld by national authorities. The final section of the Guiding Principles emphasizes the importance of providing IDPs with long-term options, namely voluntary return in safety and dignity or resettlement in another part of the country. This section emphasizes the importance of ensuring durable solutions, including the need to provide IDPs with integration assistance, whether they return or resettle, and to ensure they have equal access to public

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services. In addition, this section explains the duty of national authorities to assist IDPs recover the property and possessions they lost upon displacement or, when this is not possible, to assist them in obtaining compensation or another form of just reparation (Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement 1998). Throughout the guiding principles, special attention is paid to the protection, assistance, and reintegration needs of women and children. These two groups typically comprise the overwhelming majority of displaced populations. The guiding principles call for the participation of women in the planning and distribution of relief supplies and posits that special attention be paid to the health needs of women, including access to female healthcare providers and services. It also states that special efforts be made to ensure the full and equal participation of women and girls in educational programs. GPID prohibits sexual violence against displaced persons, stressing the need for family reunification, and highlighting the right of women to personal identity and other documentation in their own names (Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement 1998). GPID also recognizes the right to education and states that special efforts must be made to ensure that women and girls enjoy equal and full participation in educational programs (Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement 1998). Under no circumstances were children to be recruited, required, or permitted to take part in hostilities (Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement 1998). Apart from the GPID, the Kampala convention is another set of principles governing the management of internal displacement which reinforces States’ primary responsibility to protect IDPs. It emphasizes the need to secure funding to ensure IDPs’ protection and assistance, enshrines individuals’ right to be protected from displacement and States’ duty to adopt all measures needed to prevent it (African Union 2012). Just like the GPID, the Kampala convention goes on to stipulate that States’ must collaborate with civil society and humanitarian organizations to ensure IDPs’ protection and assistance if they do not have the resources to do so themselves (African Union 2012). More importantly, the conventions make national authorities responsible for creating the conditions required to achieve durable solutions for displaced persons (African Union 2012). Nigeria also has a national policy on IDPs developed in 2012 which mirrors the provisions of both the GPID and the Kampala convention (Federal Republic of Nigeria 2012).

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Countries of the world are not obliged to ratify and implement the provisions of the GPID and could only be persuaded (unless they decide voluntarily) to assimilate them into their customary laws. The argument that follows here is that the GPID are in consonance with the provisions of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) which has been ratified by most countries, and International Human Rights Law which are inalienable to individuals. Thus, if countries would implement these two, the GPID should also be adopted. Nigeria is a signatory to the GPID (Federal Republic of Nigeria 2012) and has ratified the provisions of the Kampala convention. The country is also signatory to, and bounded by the provisions of the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees which establishes refugee rights to liberty and security of life, movement, family life, non-refoulement, education, access to justice, employment and other fundamental freedoms and privileges similarly enshrined in international and regional human rights treaties. In their enjoyment of some rights, such as access to the courts, refugees are to be afforded the same treatment as nationals.

Concrete Living Conditions of Displaced Persons We just kept running in the bush, hoping that Allah will save us. I knew that my husband of 16 years had been killed in the attack on Konduga, but I could not even think of takaba (mourning period). I carried my youngest son on my back and held the other two in each hand. I kept on dragging them even when I knew we were tired. Nobody stopped to ask if you were alright in the bush part where we passed. Everyone was running and fearing that we could meet them (Boko Haram) in the bushes. For a whole day, I was giving them (my children) baobab leaves to eat. Soldiers found us and carried some of us in their truck. By this time, I was bleeding between my legs and was in pains. They brought us to the IDP camp. In the hospital, they said I was pregnant and lost the baby during the escape. So, they (Boko Haram) took my husband and child. (Dindir 2015)

Dislocated from family, friends, and social capital bases, the priority of concern for displaced persons are shelter, food, health, security, hygiene, effective management systems, and livelihood opportunities. Below is a ‘vignette’ description of the concrete living conditions for displaced persons in the understudied camps from my field notes and field diary.

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Accommodation and Shelter Principle 18 (1) of the GPID states: All internally displaced persons have the right to an adequate standard of living’. Section 2(b) requires the provision of ‘basic shelter and housing’. (Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement 1998) The Kampala convention stipulates that: ‘State Parties shall take necessary measures to ensure that internally displaced persons are received, without discrimination of any kind and live in satisfactory conditions of safety, dignity and security; and IDPs shall be provided with ... shelter, medical care and other health services, sanitation ... and any other necessary social services. (African Union 2012)

The National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) orientation camp in Maiduguri is host to IDPs and refugee returnees from Bama, Gwoza, Niger, and Cameroon. It was the first IDP camp made available to displaced persons following Boko Haram’s insurgency in BAY states. At first glance, the camp looks like construction site. Tons of men huddle over a heap of sand just deposited by a truck from the Bornu State Environmental Protection Agency (BOSEPA). They use shovels and their bare hands to spread the sand over vast water puddles on the ground. The puddles, filled with greenish and black algae and are all over the camp, a testimony to the lack of adequate drainage systems. Varied items float on top of the puddles including water sachets, biscuit packs, detergent sachets, pieces of cloths, and of course, flies and moths. The puddles are stagnant and unmoving. The patches of the ground without puddles are wet and marshy (Fig. 4.2). There are overgrown shrubs and weeds here and there but the ground distance between the gate and the camp buildings is free of shrubs. This was cleared a few days before I commenced fieldwork because an important guest was expected to visit. The structures in the camp are a mix of hostels, large halls, hygiene buildings (toilets and bathrooms), as well as open squares with lowly placed walls. The permanently constructed buildings had wooded ceilings covered by corrugated iron sheets. Most of their windows were either broken or totally off their hinges. To make them functional, metal, and wooden pieces were used to cover the spaces left by the missing windowpanes. Asides concrete structures, there were

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Fig. 4.2 NYSC IDP camp environment (Author’s archive)

wooden structures made of plywood and demarcated for individual families. On their plywood walls are charcoal-scribbled pictures of scrawly, doll-like objects, apparently drawn by children. The permanent concrete structures were used as hostels and had metal student bunks in them. Each unit of bunks were made up of two bunk spaces, up and down. These had worn-out mattresses and were covered with overused mosquito nets. Wrappers were sprawled over the bunks. In such public sleeping areas, little gestures such as covering the nets with wrappers provide a modicum of personal space and privacy. Some mattresses were spread out on the floor for people without bunk spaces. The bigger hostels could take 60–70 people but housed at least a 100 or more. Inhabitants of the hostel are segregated by sex. Cloths peeped out from old, unzipped bags, suitcases, and boxes. The cement floors were cracked with sandy holes in them. Sponges and bath cases were stuck on windows sails. The asbestos roofs were waterlogged, and some were torn open on the sides. Coated paints on the walls were already peeling off.

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The stench in the hostels was a poignant mixture of sweat, bodily fluid, damp filth, dirty linens, and a choking crowdedness (Fig. 4.3). Apart from concrete buildings, there were tepee tents whose blue colours had become faded. Some tents stood strong because they were made from thick woven cottons or rubber tarpaulins and were pinned to the ground with sacks of sand on all four corners. These had roll-up windows which could be put up and down. On the outer tarpaulin walls of the tent, UNICEF or UNHCR insignia were printed in large bold fonts to specify which organizations donated them. There were also shack-like tents pieced together using empty sacks of Ashaka cement, Dangote sugar or rice. The rice bags had Governor Kashim Shettima’s smiling face plastered on them. I was told they had been distributed during the March 2015 electioneering campaign. These shack-like tents were held up by tree branches and trunks. Pieces of cloths were used to provide layers of warmth and different untucked pieces hung out on various corners of the tents. Long pieces of either cloths or sacks were draped over the entrance

Fig. 4.3 Interior of hostel in NYSC IDP Camp (Author’s archive)

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spaces left between two sides of the tents, to provide a sort of door. To enter exit the tent, one had to either raise these, or part them by the sides. Shoes and slippers of different shapes and sizes were left outside of the tents in respect of the sanctity of living spaces. Constant influx of displaced people means that these tents meant for a maximum of 10 people now takes 25 persons (Umma 2015). Those who had just arrived the camp and had no tents or hostels allocated to them yet utilized uncompleted buildings in the camp as shelters (Figs. 4.4). About 100 meters from the first set of buildings and tents closest to the entrance, I observed a constructed rectangular structure whose roofs and doors were covered with shiny corrugated iron sheets and partitioned into 4 parts, these were the lavatories. Moving closer, two demarcated parts were sectioned for bathing, and the other two had holes for defecating. Surprisingly, their cemented floors were scrubbed clean, and a long rubber brush hung outside. I was told these were the toilets used by camp officials. On the ground around the toilets, puddles of algae water also

Fig. 4.4 Tent shelters in NYSC IDP camp (Author’s archive)

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Fig. 4.4 (continued)

splattered around so that one must step from one of the big stones put on the ground to another big stone, to get back and forth the lavatories. Another building with the same corrugated iron sheets on its roof and wall is on the opposite side, but unlike the first one, its floors are littered with debris and faeces. For all the time I spent in the camp, these set of toilets were not regularly or thoroughly cleaned but were actively in use (Fig. 4.5). By the side of the toilets, there is large metal container, the shape of a truck’s trunk with overflowing debris. About four or five other smaller containers also have debris overflowing from them. There are about two or three dump sites, all overflowing. A large amount of the debris is also on the floor, scattered all around with living quarters and tents just 20 meters away. The algae water puddles are also present here with trash thrown on them. The general vicinity of the camp is littered with buckets, jerrycans, basins, unwashed pots, and pans, cooking utensils and others. Food remnants were spread out on sacks cut open and placed in the sun to

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Fig. 4.5 Lavatories in NYSC IDP camp (Author’s archive)

dry. I would later learn that in the absence of electricity and refrigerators, this was a food preservation technique (Fig. 4.6). In the middle of the constructed buildings and temporary tents, another rectangular construction is held up by rusted thick pipes. Halfway walled, its walls are blackened with soothe from fire fumes. This is the general kitchen. A few meters away is situated the water source for the camp with water tanks donated by different aid agencies (with their names boldly inscribed on each water tank and borehole source). Children and women are seen fetching water to the hostels and tents. The tap’s water supply is however irregular and sometimes, a long queue of jerrycans and containers are lined up for when water eventually begins to trickle from the taps. I ventured inside some tents to talk to some women who agreed to share their encounters. If they were men, we would speak outside, in the open view of other people. Inside the tent is a dark hue, with streaks

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Fig. 4.6 Dump site in NYSC IDP camp (Author’s archive)

of light trickling in from tiny spaces between window seals, the domeshaped roof and the tarpaulin panels. Some tents are bare, except for piles of cloths tied together in heaps by the corners. Others have mats spread on the floor with covered water containers on either side. Items such as school bags bearing UNICEF emblems are evidence that there are children in such tents. Some tents had mosquito nets. Based on camp regulations, the smaller tents were for individual families of 7–10 (Ishaku 2015). The UNICEF tents could take at least ten people, and these were segregated with men sleeping in some and women and children in the others. Although UNHCR specifies a limit of five per room, the continuous inflow of people is no match for the number of tents being put up by NEMA, the Red Cross, and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). One day of my camp visit, I observed women sitting with their legs outstretched in front of them and chatting with their acquaintances. Children played in the distance, dressed in single oversized shirt or pants but rarely with both, running and sprawling on the sands with the innocence

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of their laughter echoing acoustically. The children were oblivious of the grimness of their surroundings, for this camp was the grimmest I have seen in a while, and the daunting fact that these displaced persons have no other option was a difficult pill to swallow. This camp and its shelter facilities are home to 11,988 displaced persons, of which children between the ages of 0–5 years make up over a thousand. I asked one interlocutor Zainabu how she feels in this camp, she replied: ‘some people were given graveyards to sleep in and I also heard that people paid money for places to sleep in Mallam Fatori, “Godiya mu ke” (we are thankful)’ (Zainabu 2015). This resignation, seeing the good in a bad situation, and accepting prevailing circumstances is a major trait for many of the displaced people. Armed with information that their situation might be marginally better than that of others, some displaced persons display a culture of acceptance and gratitude. This may also be related to the gravity of ills they may have previously experienced which in certain ways make their present circumstance ‘better’ in comparison. The needs of displaced persons from host communities and those in the camps are similar. Even though they are hosted by families, the same strain on space, shelter, and living quarters are evident. Overcrowded spaces, about 30 people having to share a single toilet in one household and the lack of privacy, dignity, and self-esteem are the major constraints to shelter provisions in host communities around the NYSC IDP camp. Displaced persons living in host communities are allowed to come to the camps to get relief materials if they are registered as an IDP or returnee. Some host community members accept only displaced persons whom they have family or kinship ties with. One interlocutor Abubakar Goni was denied shelter in the host community because he had no family there, so he came back to the camp (Goni 2015). The strain of inconvenience is compounded by longevity, especially when the insurgency became protracted and displaced persons cannot return home. Food and Nutrition Principle 18(2)(a) of the GPID states that ‘competent authorities shall provide internally displaced persons with … (among other things): essential food and portable water. (Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement 1998)

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Principle 3 (c) of the Kampala convention reiterates respect for the principles of humanity and human dignity of internally displaced persons; and principle 3(d) guarantees protection of the human rights of internally displaced persons, including humane treatment, non- discrimination, equality, and equal protection of law. (African Union 2012)

In 2015, there were 20 designated IDP camps in Maiduguri, and following repeated pleas by the Bornu State Emergency Management Agency (BOSEMA), NEMA officially took over food and nutritional welfare of displaced persons in Bornu state. BOSEMA claimed it was “spending 600 million Naira monthly to provide 470,000 bags of assorted food items for displaced persons living in camps and host communities” (Idris 2015). Under the agreement, NEMA acquiesced to providing foodstuff, but Bornu state government still had to supply cooking utensils, condiments, firewood, and cooks (Idris 2015). In the NYSC camp however, while it was the responsibility of the state government to provide cooks, female IDPs were rendering these services without being paid for it (Hamsatou 2015). Women in the camp were divided into cooking groups and a timetable drawn up for each group to designate the days and time they were responsible for food preparation. Bagged food items were provided in daily quotas for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The bagged grains include rice, millet, and maize delivered weekly from NEMA or BOSEMA, and kept in the camp storeroom. The irregularity of deliveries had taught the IDPs to go on strict personal food rations. Shatu remembers that the only period that supplies had come week on week was months before the elections, after this, they simply trickled in at intervals (Shattu 2015). Several pointers connecting events happening in the camp with external events such as the elections allude to the politicization of the plight of IDPs, and the appropriation of displacement management for electioneering purposes by various arms of government. The nutritional content of food prepared varied. Breakfast was normally carbohydrate-based millet cereal ‘koko’ without sugar or any protein addition. Lunch was on most days rice, doused in palm oil or vegetable oil, so that the result is a porridge-looking mass, yellowish in colour but with tiny grains of white. Dinner was ‘tuwon masara’, made from corn flour. The accompanying soups was miyan kuka (baobab leaves soup) or miyan kubewa (dried okra/lady fingers soup). Breakfast was served between 8.30 and 10.00 am, Lunch after the noon prayer, between 1 and 3 pm and dinner between 7 and 9 pm (Focus Group Discussion

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2015b). The women used large iron pots set on metal tripods for the cooking, fired by woods arranged in the tripods. The number of bags of either rice or corn flour to be prepared at a specific mealtime depended on instructions gotten from the store officials, if supplies were more, they cooked more, if less, they cooked equally lesser (Hamsatou 2015). After the meals had been prepared, there was no formal announcement made for people to come forward for their meals. Children normally hovered around the kitchen walls with trays, buckets, and basins waiting to collect their ratios before the meals were done. As soon as serving began with the children, other people would immediately begin to queue. The ratios were dished out using ladles. Children ate in groups of 10–12 from the trays. Men and boys from large basins and the women also from very large bowls, from which they fed infants too. Some ate in family units while others ate individually. An unusual silence descended on the NYSC camp at mealtimes, usually punctuated by remarks or grumblings of children, who licked trays and bowls clean after they were done. The children rushed to the water tanks thereafter, each cupping his/her hands for water to nuzzle down their throats. It was evident that water was needed to offset the inadequacy of the food ratios. After the meal, Shatu and the other women in her group rounded up big pots and ladles used for cooking and washed them. They used ashes from burnt wood as detergents and oil cleansers. Some children would return to the kitchen for burnt food scrapes of the pots to be handed to them as snacks. A tiny group of women also came for the burnt food scrapes to feed their domestic animals. The women put out the fire on the tripods and slanted the washed pots and pans face-up in the sun to dry. Their group were cooking all three meals for the day so they would return at 5.30 pm to start the preparation of the evening meal. I am told nothing is regular in the camp, not the mealtimes or the number of meals per day (Shattu 2015). Hussaina Abba says the food here comes more regularly than the ones they had when she and her immediate family were in Cameroon (Abba 2015). Although there are days when they ate only twice in a day, days when there are no condiments like salt, and days when they had to mix kuka or kubewa powder with a lot of water so that the soup goes round, Shattu and the other women say they do not listen to those people saying that the camp officials and some of the NEMA officials were not dealing with them ‘sakani da Allah’ (truthfully or with the fear of Allah), ‘Mu na godiya, alhamdullilahi’ (We thank them, all praise is to Allah) (Focus Group Discussion 2015b) The camp official

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assigned to coordinate the focus group discussion smiles and nods his head at the women. I glance at them as I take notes, and it seems between what is said and what is not, so much of information is given. Food preparation at the camps is decidedly gendered; it is influenced by the prevailing patriarchal structure of traditionally and religiously conservative northern Nigerian society. Male IDPs are largely excluded from food preparation. Utilizing female IDPs in this manner draws on “entrenched cultural notions about gender roles, gender beliefs and expectations, domesticity, and the presumed ‘nurturing nature’ of women” (Malefakis and Oriola 2018). Female IDPs deployed as cooks are therefore essentialized as gendered beings and compelled to provide unpaid labour. It is unclear what consequences a female IDP may face if she refuses to provide her labour for cooking. The experiences of female IDPs “relegated to domestic duties in displacement situations of wartimes lend credence to assertions that the experiences of women in anomic situations are shaped by and reflects the status of women in peacetime” (Malefakis and Oriola 2018). The day-to-day management of IDPs therefore reflects how gender serves as an organizing principle at the individual, cultural, and structural levels of society (Meger 2015). It also arguably contravenes Principle 4(1) of the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement (GPID) which requires that there be no discrimination in the treatment of IDPs. IDPs living in host communities came for food rations in the camp but some are also fed by their hosts or given pieces of land to cultivate in groups to augment their nutritional needs, and do not have to come to the camp for food supplies (Goni 2015). There are displaced persons with individual cooking areas by the tents and around the hostels. These could afford alternatives to the general camp meals. This category of displaced persons mostly does not eat from the camp kitchen, and often make their own meals when the camp food is ‘tasteless and inedible’ to their feeding standards (Lawal 2015). They represent the ‘haves’. Amongst the displaced persons thus, there was socio-economic class distinctions between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’. The reasons for these would be discussed in subsequent headings. Unlike in the NYSC camp, uncooked food items were distributed to displaced persons in Damboa camp, and they were responsible for its preparation themselves (Nafisa 2015). Food distribution is done at intervals and associated with lots of physical commotion and fights between

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distributors and displaced persons, and amongst displaced persons themselves (Jinjira 2015). Health and Hygiene Principle 18(2)(d) of the GPID ensures the provision of ‘essential medical services and sanitation’ for IDPs. Principle 19(1) states: ‘All wounded and sick internally displaced persons as well as those with disabilities shall receive to the fullest extent practicable and with the least possible delay, the medical care and attention they require, without distinction on any grounds other than medical ones. When necessary, internally displaced persons shall have access to psychological and social services’. (Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement 1998)

In the NYSC camp, there is a building designated as a camp clinic. There is no waiting room. Many of the people who queued in front of the building had come early even before the health officials resumed at 9am. The camp ‘clinic’ consisted of three major parts. The first was a small room used for treatment of wounds. It has an old chest drawer open with a few bottles and ointments in a corner, a table stained with purple coloured iodine and other spirits, two plastic chairs, buckets stained with a mixture of blood and iodine, cotton wool stuck on chairs, open jars with white tablets, cable wires and files on the floor. Most of the named items are covered in dust. For a camp ‘clinic’, its first noticeable trait was dust and untidiness. The second room has some thin beds and some clinic basins. This was the examination room. There are clinic beds meant for admitting patients with serious health conditions. A larger room, clean, spacious, and tiled had health officials attending to patients, comprised mainly of women and children. Two of the health officials (doctors) heard patient complains and administered drugs while two others had immunization kits and vaccinations for measles, polio, and other diseases. The vaccination officials registered every patient they attended to in hard cover notebooks on their desks, diligently. I wondered if their salaries depended on the number of people registered in the notebooks. The health officials were government workers and said they attended to about 100–120 patients daily because even displaced persons living with host communities used the NYSC camp clinic (Haruna 2015). They were assisted unofficially by some displaced persons with experience in health and

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medicine. These displaced persons helped when the officials had closed for the day, or on weekends when they were not on duty (Haruna 2015). Hajjo worked as attendant in the public health clinic in Damboa before she came to the camp and began to offer health advice on pregnancy and childbirth despite limited training (Hajjo 2016). This suggests that health service delivery is inadequate at the camp and calls to question the quality of health care being provided. Medical supplies come from the state and federal government, and other international organizations such as USAID and UNICEF mostly. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) also come in regularly for advocacy programs for the displaced people, especially pregnant women, and lactating mothers (Haruna 2015) (Fig. 4.7). The most common diseases which health workers treat in the camp are cold, fever, malaria, and diarrhoea (Haruna 2015). The health worker assisting the doctors believe that these ailments are prevalent in the camp due to a lot of ‘unhygienic practices’ of the displaced persons

Fig. 4.7 Camp clinic at NYSC IDP camp (Author’s archive)

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Fig. 4.7 (continued)

(Maryam 2015). Maryam opined that most people would rather defecate on the floors of the lavatories, or in the bush which eventually leads to outbreak of diseases (Maryam 2015). There had been a cholera and diarrhoea outbreak previously, and about 108 persons, especially children and the elderly who had weak immune systems had died (Maryam 2015). Médecins Sans Frontières estimated that the outbreak involved 117 cases and 16 deaths. Other common diseases were pneumonia and malnutrition-based diseases amongst children (Haruna 2015). For serious cases which could not be treated in the camp, patients are referred to the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital (Haruna 2015). A few patients, mostly women who had lived under Boko Haram governed territories, who had been raped, or who were shattered by grief suffered long-term ailments such as attention deficit disorder (ADD) and PostTraumatic Stress Disorder (Haruna 2015). Some of these patients sat around the clinic premises. They looked to be drifting afloat, with blank eyes staring into space, absent-minded, confused smiles, and stone-cold

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silence. The clinic does not have the psychosocial and medical capacity to provide mental health and counselling service needed by these people, so they are barely managed, in the face of more ‘pressing issues’. The health and hygiene situation in Damboa is worse off in comparison to the NYSC camp. The strain on lavatories in Damboa is compounded by the unavailability of adequate water supply, so displaced persons rely on a shallow stream for bathing, cooking, and washing. When cholera disease broke out in the camp, many displaced persons were affected (Damboa Health Worker 2016). Cases of people with attention deficit disorder (ADD), psychological and psychiatric situations were rampant, but the camp lacked health personnel who could handle such cases. Health officials in the camp like Mrs. Abdullah admit that due to the numerous cases that needs to be attended to, certain health conditions are neglected unless they are life-threatening (Mrs Abdullahi 2015). Health agencies helped to bring the cholera outbreak under control and UNICEF helped to de-worm children, provided immunization kits and vaccines, and carried out HIV testing and counselling (Mrs Abdullahi 2015). Supplementary health services in the camps are most provided by NGOs. NGOs like Wellbeing Foundation for Africa for instance distributed ‘mama kits’ to pregnant women and midwives and educated pregnant women on ways to keep themselves and their unborn babies safe in such hygiene-challenged environments (Mrs Abdullahi 2015). The women were also given ‘dignity kits’ which contained sanitary towels, blanket, toothbrush, hairbrush, nail clipper, solar-powered torchlight, soap, detergent, toothpaste, socks, underwear (vest and underpants), towel, shampoo, head scarf, blankets, mosquito nets, and other personal hygiene items (Mrs Abdullahi 2015). Other hygiene and medical nonrelief items were donated by individuals when they visit. NGOs also carry out sensitization for displaced persons, explaining to them the ills of improper use of latrines, dirty environments, and contaminated water, because most of the displaced people had come from villages where they did not have access to toilet facilities and were accustomed to defecating in bushes and surroundings (Mrs Abdullahi 2015). Although health facilities in Bornu were supplied with 3,000 Interagency emergency health kits (IEHK) in 2015 (United Nations High Commission for Refugees [UNHCR] 2015), the enormity of displaced persons requiring health care appears to overwhelm available manpower and health resources. The inadequacy of adequate and efficient health personnel in both camps poses serious challenges. This is coupled with

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accusations of health supplies being diverted by camp and other officials in bizarre criminogenic patterns (Malefakis and Oriola 2018). Security Displaced persons’ camps were sited or opened in places where NEMA had assurances of protection from the security agencies, such as the army or police (Lt. Olagunsoye 2015). This was important because most of the displaced persons were escaping an insecure situation, and it would be unfortunate to settle them in another insecure environment (Lt. Olagunsoye 2015). The non-provision or otherwise absence of security was one of the major reasons why some camps were not recognized by NEMA. The Kuchigoro camp in Abuja for instance is not officially recognized as a displacement camp for Boko Haram’s victims by NEMA. Part of the reasons for the non-recognition of these camps was due to NEMA’s noninvolvement in their emergence (displaced persons had moved to Abuja by themselves and taken over the area to settle in on their own), and NEMA’s inability to provide security arrangements. Security is thus a requirement in setting up a camp location and is essential in screening of displaced persons before they enter the camp, and maintaining law and order amongst displaced persons or between displaced persons and host communities. Armed soldiers and police manned the gates of both the NYSC and Damboa camps supported by the vigilante CJTF. They set up security checkpoints on roads leading to the camps. There were also some displaced persons serving as security personnel. Access into a camp was easier to manage if the camp had a single entry and exit point like the NYSC camp (Lt. Olagunsoye 2015). Metal detectors were used to scan vehicles and individuals. NEMA and government officials who wore IDs and badges and were familiar with the security personnel had less difficulties entering or exiting but security personnel were changed often. NGOs and individuals who brought aids and supplies were checked, scrutinized, interrogated, and verified before being allowed into the camps. The verification process mostly involved going through the documents presented by the visitors. What criteria was used for the verification was unknown. Researchers, journalists, and other people, especially those that came ‘empty-handed’, or without prior notice either to the camp officials or the security teams and were not accompanied by anyone from either of these are treated different. They had to endure endless questions,

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first from the security outside the gates, after which they were passed to another group of security still outside the gates. The questions ranged from identity, workplace, purpose of visit, type of research and so on. Then IDs and authorization letters were requested and ‘verified’. If security is satisfied with the verification of documents, visitors are then handed over to camp officials who accompany them on camp tours and answer their questions. Most of the answers given by camp officials reflect the range of efforts the government was expending in the cause of the IDPs, how much they themselves were sacrificing to make sure the IDPs were fine and so on. Displaced persons were not restricted in movement, they could go and come as they wish but were subjected to searches, and movement was regulated at night. Host communities did not have the added advantage of such elaborate security protection. A frequent argument made by host communities was that displaced persons bring problems, often blaming IDPs or refugees for rise in pre-existent economic or social problems, and thus arguing for a confinement of displaced persons in camps. The elaborately stringent security arrangements explained above does not unfortunately prevent security breaches in IDP camps. On September 15, 2015, a bomb explosion was reported at Malkohi camp, 30 kilometres from Yola, the capital of Adamawa state, and close to the 23rd Brigade of the Nigerian Army in Yola. The blast occurred between 10.30 and 11:00 am that Friday morning, killing about 7 persons and injuring 20 more (Aljazeera 2015). Those killed included NEMA officials, displaced persons, and student volunteers from the American University of Nigeria (AUN). Officials and security operatives believe that the explosive device was left close to the tents of the IDPs and blew up past a wall, sending shrapnel and splinters all over. Since Malkohi was used as a transit camp for repatriated refugees from Cameroon and Niger, and refugees who had been denied asylum, authorities believe that the bomb was sneaked in by one of the over 250 returnee refugees from Madagali or the 70 others rescued from Sambisa Forest, who had been brought to the Malkohi camp just the night before the blast. Following the blast, all displaced persons in the camp were ordered out and a fresh round of screening and profiling exercise was carried out. Another security incident reported in IDP camps despite ‘grand’ security arrangements was the discovery of Boko Haram members embedded in camps as displaced persons. An 11-year-old Boko Haram fighter Usman Modu Tella was in this way found in the Dalori camp, Maiduguri. The

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army’s public relations office had earlier circulated a poster which had the faces of 100 wanted Boko Haram insurgents. Their faces had been screengrabbed from videos posted by Boko Haram themselves, or from raids carried out on Boko Haram hideouts. Usman was identified as suspect number 82 on the list and fingered as a potential child suicide bomber (Musa 2015). The army further revealed that Usman was one of four children who had been trained by the insurgents for suicide bombing operations, of which three of them had already carried out their mission in different places (Musa 2015). Usman pointed out another suspect in the Dalori camp- Kerewu Abubakar as being a ‘senior’ member of the Boko Haram group (Musa 2015). Consequently, the extensive security measures at IDP camps have not translated to effective protection of the lives of IDPs. Another important aspect of the security arrangement is that the host communities are not secured. This makes such communities possible incubators for attacks against IDP camps. This means that Principle 11 of the GPID is not being fully implemented. To bolster security in and around IDP camps, MNJTF at the time of this study has a daily patrol unit between and within border towns with military jets flying across intermittently (Lt. Olagunsoye 2015). Searches are conducted on motorists and border crossers by both the army and the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) agents. This is to ensure that Small and Large Weapons (SALW) and explosive devices are not smuggled into both countries and into displaced persons’ camps from either side using the borders (Lt. Olagunsoye 2015). Most of the displaced persons are also screened, registered, or profiled by security operatives before they are allowed into the villages and communities hosting displaced persons (LT Olagunsoye 2015). Sexual and Gender Based Violence (SGBV) Principle 9 (1) d of the Kampala convention prohibits on displaced persons sexual and gender-based violence in all its forms, notably rape, enforced prostitution, sexual exploitation and harmful practices, slavery, recruitment of children and their use in hostilities, forced labour and human trafficking and smuggling. (African Union 2012) Sections 357–362 and 98(1)(ii) of the Criminal Code of Nigeria states: anything to be afterwards done or omitted, or any favour or disfavour

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to be afterwards shown to any person, by himself in the discharge of his official duties or in relation to any such matter as aforesaid, is guilty of the felony of official corruption and is liable to imprisonment for seven years. (Malefakis and Oriola 2018)

43 persons directly, indirectly, overtly, and covertly confirmed to have been victims of sexual abuse in the 2 understudied camps. Of this number, eight had been formerly abducted by Boko Haram and forced to marry their fighters before they arrived at the camps. Camp officials as well as security agents guarding the camps were revealed as the major SGBV culprits. This gendered criminality involves male authority figures at the camps who use their access to supplies to demand sex from women and girls. The process of sexual abuse involves withholding supplies from being distributed or feeding IDPs once a day to make them more vulnerable to engaging in survival sex. Some women have grown to enjoy the advantages they get in lieu of these transactional abuse relationships, and this is consolidated by the unending lack in the camps. A Human Rights Watch report on rape and other forms of sexual violence against female persons in seven Boko Haram insurgency IDP camps was released in October 2016 and corroborates what interlocutors on this field study shared. The report notes that: Government officials and other authorities in Nigeria have raped and sexually exploited women and girls displaced by the conflict with Boko Haram. The government is not doing enough to protect displaced women and girls and ensure that they have access to basic rights and services or to sanction the abusers, who include camp leaders, vigilante groups, policemen, and soldiers. 66 percent of 400 displaced people in Adamawa, Bornu and Yobe states said that camp officials sexually abuse the displaced women and girls. (Human Rights Watch 2016)

The National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons also assessed IDP camps and host community sites in the northeast, and in 15 out of 27 areas assessed, sexual violence against displaced persons was reported (National Agency for the Protection of Trafficking in Persons [NAPTIP] 2015). Due to stigma, cultural and religious norms, and deeply entrenched gender stereotypes, most victims have been reluctant to speak about the kind of sexual violence they have endured. Physical abuse against children was also reported in 22 out of 27 communities, with children exposed and involved in types of work that are harsh and

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dangerous like domestic labour, breaking firewood, and hawking on the streets (National Agency for the Protection of Trafficking in Persons [NAPTIP] 2015). Education In August 2015, USAID reported nearly half of the IDPs in Boko Haram’s displacement situation as children (United States Agency International Development [USAID] 2015). As Boko Haram’s ideology revolved around an anti-western education rhetoric, the education of children both displaced and other victims was a significant aspect of displacement management. Schools were Boko Haram’s leading targets. By 2014, Boko Haram attacks had destroyed over 900 schools and killed 176 teachers, many of whom died with students in attacks (Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack [GCPEA] 2014). However, even before Boko Haram’s insurgency began, education and school attendance rate in BAY states were low. The Nigeria Education Data Survey (NEDS) for 2015 in Bornu state showed that 52% of children (or 5.2 million children) had never attended school (United Nations International Children Education Fund [UNICEF] 2019). When Boko Haram’s incessant attacks on education facilities continued, especially with the Chibok abduction in April 2014, schools in Bornu state were ordered closed. They were still closed at the time of data collection for this study. Apart from Boko Haram attacks, many displaced persons were accommodated on the premises of schools in the northeast. This complicated both the displacement and education situation in dire ways. To invalidate assumptions that closure of schools’ signals victory for Boko Haram’s ideology, government and international organizations developed dynamic solutions for education of displaced and non-displaced children of school age. The first of these was Education in Emergency (EiE), developed as a critical part of effective response to situations of displacements due to human/natural induced disasters that disrupt regular school activities. EiE aimed to increase level of preparedness which would in turn to reduce the impact of emergencies on children (National Emergency Management Agency [NEMA] 2012). To implement EiE initiatives, Bornu state government assessed the possibility of reopening schools in 2016 and slowly began the reopening phase with schools in Konduga and Jere (both in camps and in host communities) (National Emergency Management Agency [NEMA] 2012). In the

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reopened schools, PINE and UNICEF launched containerized mobile classrooms in IDP camps across the northeast. At this time, the NYSC or Damboa camps had not received these containerized classrooms, but Dalori IDP camp had received them. The mobile classrooms take 30–35 students and contained student desks and chairs, teacher desk and chair, school cupboard, boards, and cleaners (National Emergency Management Agency [NEMA] 2012). They were designed with solar panels which powered light bulbs and fans in the classrooms. Safe School Initiative (SSI) was the second program established to impact the concrete living conditions of displaced and non-displaced school pupils. It was established following the 2014 Chibok girls’ abduction which brought the need for safety in schools to limelight. SSI is an initiative of Nigerian business leaders working with the Nigerian government, the UN Special Envoy for Education, the Global Business Coalition for Education, and A World at School (The Office of the UN Special Envoy for Education 2014). Starting with 500 schools as the pilot in northern states, the SSI planned to focus on: school and community interventions, build community security groups to promote safe zones for education (consisting of teachers, parents, police, community leaders and young people themselves), bolster the physical protection of schools, provide school guards and police in partnership with Nigerian authorities, train staff as school safety officers, provide communications tools and school counselors, help schools create school security plans and work with the government to develop a rapid response system so that even when faced with attacks, response units are set up to quickly repair or rebuild, and destroyed education material is replaced. (The Office of the UN Special Envoy for Education 2014)

At inception, the SSI was supported by Gordon Brown and Ban Ki Moon. When it was launched in Abuja, over 3.2 billion naira was raised (Tukur 2014). To support SSI, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) helped to train heads of educational institutions in the northeast on security of staff and students in schools, handling of victims with specialized cases such as children with ADD, post-traumatic stress (PTS) or other trauma-related issues (Universal Reports Nigeria 2015). At one such training, another organization, Exam Ethics Marshal International distributed to the participants ‘safety school kits’ which contained information on security for the

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schools in form of printed manuals, audio, and video clips (Universal Reports Nigeria 2015). In some IDP camps like Damboa, displaced individuals who were teachers regularly gathered children and carried out ‘educational’ activities like singing, arithmetic and social studies (Focus Group Discussion 2015a). Youths from host communities also come into the camps to interact with the children and keep the school spirit going. These activities are free of charge, and the individuals who gather the children are volunteers (Focus Group Discussion 2015a).

Organizational/Management Units and Emergent Criminogenic Patterns The coordination of emergency humanitarian assistance is headed by the Director General of NEMA at the federal level. He has state zonal coordinators for the six geopolitical zones in the country who report to him (National Emergency Management Agency [NEMA] 2012). The states on their parts have Chairpersons for SEMAs who handle affairs as it concerns their states. Only when emergency situations overwhelm state capacities does NEMA intervene, as was the case with feeding the IDPs from Boko Haram’s insurgency. There are also leads in various sectors within NEMA and SEMA management systems. They are responsible for heading and implementing programs in their sectors which include camp coordination, nutrition, health, camp management and so on. Between national agencies and international organizations working on Boko Haram’s displacement management, hierarchical structures are based on lead and co-leads. For instance, in hierarchy, NEMA and SEMA are the lead agencies while UNHCR act as co-lead; for food and nutrition, federal and state Ministries of Agriculture and SEMA are the leads while World Food Program (WFP) and Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) are the co-leads; federal and state Ministries of Health, National Action Committee on Aids (NACA) and its state and local counterparts are the leads for Health, Sexual Reproductive Health, and HIV/AIDS while World Health Organization (WHO), United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and United States Agency for International Development (USAID) are the co-leads; United Nations Department of Safety and Security (UNDSS) co-leads with Nigeria’s Law enforcement agents in the area of security while United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) co-leads with the Federal and State

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Ministries of Education, including Universal and State Universal Basic Education Commissions (UBEC and SUBEC) in the education sector (National Emergency Management Agency [NEMA] 2012). In camps, especially the ones recognized by the NEMA, there is a retinue of camp officials led by camp coordinators. They are responsible for the day-to-day running of the camp and its general administration. The camp coordinator is assisted by other NEMA and government officials who serve as camp secretary, Public Relations Officer (PRO), storekeeper, health officials, head of security (usually a military personnel), officials in charge of supplies, education, liaison, and so on. All these report to the camp coordinator who in turn report to the SEMA chairperson. Most camp staff do not live in the camp and do their job on a ‘9-5’ basis (Alhaji Madugu 2015). The displaced persons also organize themselves into administrative units to have representatives who speak and act on their behalf, and to serve as governing units when the camp officials are not there. Thus, it is common to find IDP ‘leader’ or ‘chairman and vice chairman’, or the ‘babba’ as was the case at the NYSC camp in Maiduguri (Galadima 2015). Some displaced persons, in conjunction with the security personnel guarding the camps (the army, police or Civil Defence Corps where available) belong to the security unit helping to maintain law and order in the camp and ensure discipline as regards entry and exit times, monitoring of displaced persons’ movement in the camp, profiling of displaced persons, and so on. These also help to settle domestic disputes amongst displaced persons. The category of displaced persons that hold organizational or managerial positions in the camp indirectly also get certain privileges which sets them apart from those who do not hold such positions. They get served their meals and do not have to come to queues, they are courted for favours because of their close relationship to camp officials, and they are assured shares of relief and non-relief items because they participate in the distribution of these items in many cases. They are the ‘haves’ who can afford to either eat from the general camp kitchen or from their own personal kitchens. Their economic standing in the camp is elevated compared to others, and they are accused of participating in criminogenic activities such as helping to divert items meant for displaced persons, as well as spying on displaced persons. NEMA’s guidelines stipulate that humanitarian assistance will be organized by observing the principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence, and planned responses will ensure that immediate

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needs of displaced persons are targeted (National Emergency Management Agency [NEMA] 2012). The organization’s contingency plans states that NEMA will adopt relevant internationally accepted guiding principles and laws to ensure that rights based approach are emphasized and that the Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards in Disaster Response (SPHERE Project) will serve as the operational basis for response and provision of humanitarian assistance (National Emergency Management Agency [NEMA] 2012). However, away from camp officials, interviews and focus group discussions revealed certain criminogenic patterns discernible from the organization and management of Boko Haram’s displacement. These criminogenic patterns are associated with emergency and relief operations, and do not correspond with the mandate, contingency plans, or provisions of international laws and treaties. Some of these are carried out by the state and negate criminal and penal codes of Nigeria’s constitution. Others are done in connivance with displaced persons and invalidate international law, human rights law, Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement (GPID), and international humanitarian law. Covert acceptance of these actions via non-conviction of offenders further extends the depth of these criminogenic patterns. Some of them are: Aid Misappropriation; Hoarding, Diversion, and Theft: Displaced persons shared concerns that supplies, food, and drugs meant for them are smuggled out of the camps at night in the car boots of the camp officials, in apparent connivance with the security agents who turn a blind eye and do not search the boots of officials exiting the camps. The officials allegedly choicely select mattresses, bottled water, fish and tomato paste, bags of beans and grain, sugar, palm oil, flip flops, drugs, and other supplies meant for the displaced persons. Displaced persons are also denied access to relief materials without explanation or justification. Rows of mattresses for instance are visibly available in the camp store but in the tents and hostels, most displaced persons sleep on worn out mattresses, mats, wrappers, or on the bare floor. The availability of grain bags in the food stores does not guarantee displaced persons being fed three square meals a day. Sometimes breakfast comes at 12 noon in most camps, and they only eat dinner afterwards. Breakfast comes as late as 1 pm in Damboa (Focus Group Discussion 2015c). What is also not guaranteed is a diet mix as rice is said to be the staple constant in the camps. The last time the displaced persons had meat was during Salah (the Eid after the Ramadan fast), when they were given cows by the state governor in Maiduguri (Focus Group Discussion 2015b). The camp officials claim that the strain

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on supplies is because displaced persons from host communities are included but this is disputed by displaced persons in the camp. In the area of health and hygiene, displaced persons complain of being discriminated against because health officials attend to people in tiled halls, spacious and sparkling clean, while women are delivered of their babies on the floors in the dingy hostels. The delivery is carried out mostly by fellow displaced women because there is no provision for midwives in most camps. The drugs administered for all ailments is said to be Panadol and paracetamol, and displaced persons wonder what happens to the cache of drugs donated by national and international NGOs. NEMA itself has acknowledged receipt of reports detailing how SEMA officials divert bags of grains and cows from state warehouses and sell them to food dealers and restaurant owners in the host communities (Victim Support Fund Officer 2016). Bags of rice and other supplies bearing the logos of donor agencies are being offered for sale in the open market in host communities. The violation led to the rare conviction in May 2017 of a local government official, Umar Ibrahim, and an accomplice, Bulama Ali Zangebe, for stealing and diverting 245 bags of rice which were donated by the Danish Refugee Council to IDPs in Bornu state (Malefakis and Oriola 2018). Manipulation and Distortion; Use of Ghost Displaced Persons to Swell Camp Numbers: Displaced persons revealed classic cases of manipulation and distortion of figures for IDPs and returnees. When an important personality intended to visit the camps, officials would swell the camps with their relatives and friends, to justify the IDP numbers they had reported and had been collecting allocations for. They would also ensure the best food was prepared that day and the environment was sparkly clean, only for them to return to status quo as soon as the visitors left. Moreover, displaced persons to be seen and spoken with by such dignitaries would have been carefully selected in a case akin to an excellently orchestrated stage play. Only this is not a stage play, just a case of unscrupulous individuals feeding off the misfortune of others. An example of these orchestrated stage plays unravelled during the visit of some senators led by the Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekwruemadu, at a camp in Adamawa state in August 2015. The NEMA coordinator, Saad Bello, informed the senators that ‘the agency was taking good care of the IDPs and that 80% of the IDPs were willing to go back to their homes’. However, a female IDP quickly cut Mr. Bello short and shouted, ‘It is a lie. We are not well taken care of. We only eat twice daily, and it is always rice. They sell the material brought to us.

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They also buy cows with money meant for our upkeep, please we want to go home’ (Premium Times 2015). The IDP quoted above was unauthorized to speak at the meeting. The role is reserved for a few selected IDPs (noted above) who for perks contribute to the impression management and false narrative being promoted by the camp officials. All of these explains why camp officials were weary of researchers and journalists, their carefully guided utterances, their exultation of themselves and the work they do in the camp, the way they label displaced persons as constant complainers who are never grateful, the manner in which they softly protest when you ask to see some things or places, telling you: ‘I don’t have the key’ or ‘the person in charge is not around’. Embezzlement of Funds: The displacement situation in northeastern Nigeria generated cash donations by several organizations. At the time of collecting data for this study, USAID had donated US$167,820,664, the Swiss government US$8,000,000, the Central Emergency Respond Fund gave US$3,550,000, Oxfam gave US$2,200,000, and the EU donated ₦4,700,000,000. In addition, former Governor of Lagos state Akinwumi Ambode donated ₦100, 000,000, and Aisha Buhari donated drugs and relief materials worth ₦135,000,000. The Victim Support Fund at this time had generated ₦58,790,000,000, the Adamawa state government made available ₦100,000,000 while then Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu gave relief items worth ₦9,000,000. Other donors include the Japanese government and General Electronics (GE) Africa, which gave UNICEF US$3,400,000 and US$1,000,000, respectively, for displaced persons in Nigeria. This is in addition to the ₦600,000,000 the government of Bornu state claim they spend monthly on buying 470,000 bags of assorted food items for the displaced persons. There is no evidence at IDP camps to suggest that the huge sums of money are being effectively deployed for the welfare of IDPs. One reason cited for the absence of any visible positive effect of the donations is that most of the international agencies spend their funds on the overheads they incur like payment of salaries and ‘flying private jets to go to the north east’, so that what is left as actual aid is mere crumbs that do not add value to the lives of displaced persons (Victim Support Fund Officer 2016). Nonetheless, this argument does not explain the use of monies and relief materials provided by Nigerian donors and many cases of embezzlement have been exposed. Babachir Lawal, Secretary to the Government of the Federation, was indicted by a senate panel in December 2016 for fraudulent activities at the Presidential Initiative on North East (PINE), which was set up to assist victims of Boko Haram (Malefakis and Oriola 2018). Lawal used one of his companies to secure a contract worth ₦233 million (or US$742,000)

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to cut ‘invasive plant species’ or grasses around IDP camps in Yobe state (The Sun 2017) but his company never executed the contract despite its spectacular inflation.

Although NEMA and Bornu state government do not dispute statements of displaced persons alluding to mismanagement, embezzlement, and misappropriation, they do not seem to be able to do anything about the issues raised. The inability to act consequently makes the organization complicit. Food supplies for example come from NEMA and are deposited in SEMA stores for onward distribution to the 21 IDP camps in Maiduguri. If food supplies are not getting to the displaced persons and nothing has been done about it with all evidence of embezzlement abound in the form of malnourished children and adults, overcrowded, dirty and unhygienic camps, then it is either NEMA and SEMA are themselves perpetuating these criminogenic patterns, have no sincerity of purpose, or are not monitoring their subordinates which still make these organizations complicit. This also goes for other international humanitarian aid agencies. Because of lack of trust in the camp officials, both on the side of governments and the displaced persons, donors have resorted to share their donations directly to the IDPs and not give them to the NEMA or SEMA officials.

Coping Mechanisms of Displaced Persons As a response to emergent criminogenic patterns in the organization and management of their displacement situation, displaced persons evolved different coping mechanisms to fend for themselves. Before being displaced, most IDPs and returnees were farmers, fishermen or petty traders, and with the insufficiency of aid and relief materials, the entrepreneurs amongst them either begged, sold relief materials or were lucky to get start-up cash by donors. The funds from these were disbursed to small-scale businesses they started. In the NYSC camp, Mudi’s little stall had an assortment of biscuits, sweets, chewing gums, detergent, sugar, powdered milk, powdered cocoa, salt, seasoning, and other petty items. He had escaped with nothing and sold some of the early supplies he got to start this business so he could feed his family of 9 (Mudi 2016).Ali was given a sewing machine by NEMA, and he says he could make at least 3 shrouds for adult dead bodies a day, which fetched alternative funds to feed (Ali 2015).There were other displaced persons selling assorted fruits

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in the camp. Others are street tea vendors, ‘suya’ (kebab) sellers, pharmaceutical, and sex performance enhancing drugs street vendors. Many IDPs performed daily wage labour, walking the streets with shovels and diggers looking for where casual labour was available on construction sites (Junaidu 2015). The disruption of economic activities in Bornu caused by the insurgency and insecurity does not make finding construction jobs easy (Junaidu 2015). Women also scurried for menial jobs outside of the camp. They fetched water, washed cloths, or did housekeeping chores. Those who got start-ups donations sold ‘kunu’ (millet cereal) and ‘kosai’ (bean cake) in the camp vicinity. For displaced persons staying with host communities, some of their hosts, anxious to ease the additional burden helped them secure jobs. They also helped them get pieces of land which they cultivated in groups for subsistence and commercial purposes (Goni 2015) (Fig. 4.8).

Fig. 4.8 IDPs engaged in small scale businesses in the NYSC IDP camp (Author’s archive)

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Fig. 4.8 (continued)

Negative coping mechanisms abound in the camps as well. There is a growing sense of fatalism in the reaction of some IDPs to their conditions in spite of their innovativeness. The mechanisms of survival have also taken a decidedly gendered turn partly because of the exclusion of female IDPs from camp management, and partly due to their vulnerability to sexual exploitation. Displaced teenage girls, widows and divorced women engage in prostitution. Their clients are often male soldiers and other men from the camp or from host communities. There is evidence suggesting that the families of young sex workers are aware of their children’s involvement but do not prevent them from such exploitation because the girls are perceived as contributing ‘their quota’ to the survival of their families. This growing change in the moral fabric of families in a highly conservative cultural milieu that northern Nigeria is portends major problems for the future. It may make reintegration of such girls and their families more difficult. They may become objects of ridicule when they return to their communities. More immediate consequences

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such as the risk of sexually transmitted diseases, gendered and sexual based violence in the hands of male patrons, disappearance and death are real possibilities given the insecurity in the northeast (Malefakis and Oriola 2018). In addition, drug abuse by displaced persons in the understudied camps is another negative coping mechanism. Ona Ogilegwu, the Commandant of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) in Borno state states that: ‘I don’t know what is wrong with these people, but I will tell you that the level of drug intake among men and women in IDPs camps is more than you can imagine. We have heard several reports and we have sent our men in all the 28 IDPs camps to ensure we mop up of all nefarious activities in the camps’ (Premium Times 2016). Drugs may be consumed by the poor to cope with alienation and oppression but drug use by IDPs may become decontextualized in the media and the public imaginary. Therefore, rather than viewed as a product of the frustrations over their displacement, abject material circumstances, and the criminal exploitation of their situation by a constellation of state agents, IDPs may be portrayed as law-breaking drug addicts (Malefakis and Oriola 2018).

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Idris, H. 2015. No Hunger in Borno IDP Camps—SEMA [Online]. Available at: https://allafrica.com/stories/201505201259.html [Accessed 13 February 2017]. IGI Global. 2021. What Is IDP Camp [Online]. Available at: https://www.igiglobal.com/dictionary/idp-camp/78647 [Accessed 06 December 2021]. Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC). 2015. Nigeria IDP Figures Analysis, April 2015 [Online]. Available at: http://www.internal-displa cement.org/sub-saharan-africa/nigeria/figures-analysis [Accessed 09 August 2016]. International Crisis Group. 2014. Curbing Violence in Nigeria (II): The Boko Haram Insurgency. Brussels: International Crisis Group. Ishaku, M. 2015. Shelter and Accomodation [Interview] (02 June 2015). Jinjira, U. 2015. Food and Nutrition Damboa [Interview] (20 June 2015). Junaidu, L. 2015. Coping Mechnaism [Interview] (27 June 2015). Lawal, M. 2015. Food and Nutrition [Interview] (23 June 2015). Lt. Olagunsoye, A. E. 2015. Security Damboa [Interview] (21 June 2015). Malefakis, M.A., and T. Oriola. 2018. Criminogenic Patterns in the Management of Boko Haram’s Displacement Situation. Third World Quarterly 39 (1): 85– 103. Maryam, G. 2015. Health and Hygiene [Interview] (27 June 2015). Meger, S. 2015. Toward a Feminist Political Economy of Wartime Sexual Violence: The Case of the Democratic Republic of Congo. International Feminist Journal of Politics 17 (3): 416–434. Mrs Abdullahi. 2015. Health and Hygiene Damboa [Interview] (20 June 2015). Mudi, I. 2016. Coping Mechanism [Interview] (27 June 2016). Musa, N. 2015. Army Arrests Wanted B’Haram Terrorist, Commander [Online]. Available at: https://guardian.ng/politics/army-arrests-wanted-bha ram-terrorist-commander/ [Accessed 09 December 2021]. Nafisa, I. 2015. Food and Nutrition Damboa [Interview] (20 June 2015). National Agency for the Protection of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP). 2015. Child Protection Information Collation. Abuja: National Agency for the Protection of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), 2. National Commission for Refugees, Migrants, and Internally Displaced Persons (NCFRMI). 2021. The Commission [Online]. Available at: https://ncfrmi. gov.ng/the-commission/ [Accessed 07 December 2021]. National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA). 2012. Contingency Plan 2012. Abuja: National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA). National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA). 2021. Mission Statement [Online]. Available at: https://nema.gov.ng/about-nema/ [Accessed 07 December 2021]. Ngolle, Elvis. 1985. The African Refugee Problem and the Distribution of International Refugee Assistance in Comparative Perspective: An Empirical Analysis

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of the Policies of the Office of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), 1960–1980. Denver: University of Denver Publishers. Nossiter, A. 2013. Massacre in Nigeria Spurs Outcry Over Military Tactic [Online]. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/30/world/afr ica/outcry-over-military-tactics-after-massacre-in-nigeria.html [Accessed 06 December 2021]. Premium Times. 2015. News Editorial. Abuja. Premium Times. 2016. Drug Abuse in IDP Camps. Abuja. Shattu. 2015. Food and Nutrition [Interview] (11 June 2015). The Office of the UN Special Envoy for Education. 2014. Safe Schools Initiative Launched [Online]. Available at: https://educationenvoy.org/press-rel ease-safe-schools-initiative-launched-at-world-economic-forum/ [Accessed 13 December 2021]. The Sun. 2017. News Report. Abuja. Tukur, S. 2014. Nigeria Kicks off Safe School Initiative with N3.2 Billion [Online]. Available at: https://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/163016nigeria-kicks-safe-school-initiative-n3-2-billion.html [Accessed 13 December 2021]. Umma. 2015. Shelter and Accomodation [Interview] (02 June 2015). United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR). 2015. UNHCR Country Operations Profile—Cameroon [Online]. Available at: http://www. unhcr.org/pages/4a03e1926.html [Accessed 11 October 2017]. United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR). 2021a. All Refugees by Origin [Online]. Available at: https://data2.unhcr.org/en/country/cmr [Accessed 06 December 2021]. United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR). 2021b. Nigeria: All Population Snapshot. Geneva: UNHCR. United Nations High Commission for Refugees Niger (UNHCR NIGER). 2021. All Refugees by Origin. Geneva: UNHCR NIGER. United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR TCHAD). 2021. Personnes relevant de la competence du HCR. Geneva: UNHCR TCHAD. United Nations International Children Education Fund (UNICEF). 2019. Every Child Learns: UNICEF Education Strategy 2019–2030. New York: UNICEF. United States Agency International Development (USAID). 2015. Nigeria— Complex Emergency August. New York: United States Agency International Development (USAID). Universal Reports Nigeria. 2015. UNESCO Trains Another Batch Of 114 Safe School Ambassadors, Distributes Additional 650 Safe School Kits in Nigeria [Online]. Available at: https://universalreportersng.com/unesco-trains-ano ther-batch-of-114-safe-school-ambassadors-distributes-additional-650-safe-sch ool-kits-in-nigeria/ [Accessed 13 December 2021].

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University of South Florida (USF). 2015. The Politics of Displacement: Voting and Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), Key Narratives. Florida: University of South Florida (USF). Victim Support Fund Officer. 2016. Organization and Management [Interview] (08 April 2016). Zainabu. 2015. Shelter and Accomodation [Interview] (02 June 2015).

CHAPTER 5

(Mis)management of the Displacement Situation: The ‘Re-victimization’

Humanitarian displacement in Africa was described in a 1978 report by the Organization of African Unity as ‘one of the most acute, judging from the great numbers involved, the extent of economic and social misery, dislocation and subsequent human tragedy it has generated’ (Ngolle 1985). This 1978 description still defines Africa’s displacement situation more than 40 years later. In fact, the situation has become direr, more acute, and affecting more people. Of the top ten refugee source countries in the world in 2021, Africa has six representatives: South Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Somalia, Sudan, Central African Republic (CAR), and Eritrea. Amongst also the top ten countries hosting refugees in the world, Ethiopia, Sudan, and Uganda bear the continent’s flag. In 2019, there were 45.7 million people living in internal displacement resulting from conflict and violence, and 5 African countries (DRC, Somalia, Nigeria, Sudan, and Ethiopia) are amongst the top 10 countries in the world with the highest number of IDPs (Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre [IDMC] 2020). Pertinent to state here that the displacement-causing variable in these countries is violence or crisis caused by terrorism, insurgency, ethnic or religious conflict. Little wonder then that South Sudan, DRC, CAR, Sudan, and Nigeria are ranked amongst the least peaceful countries on the African continent (Institute for Economics and Peace 2021). To manage displacement and other emergencies caused by conflicts and the absence of peace, many © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 M. Abdulazeez Malefakis, Humanitarian Displacement and Boko Haram in Nigeria, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99784-7_5

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African countries rely on international humanitarian aid from developed countries. In 2020, Ethiopia received 934 million USD in international humanitarian aid, Sudan got 945 million USD, Somalia had 977 million USD, DRC received 1.052 billion USD, and South Sudan was given 1.381 billion USD (Development Initiatives 2021). Questions arising from the above illustration hover on why displacement continues to be a recurring decimal on the African continent, necessitating huge international humanitarian aid and interventions, and still end up developing into a protracted crisis. Using the management of Boko Haram’s displacement situation, answers to these questions will be sought via the lenses of the Nigerian government, the international organizations, and the actions of host countries.

Nigerian Government and State Apparatuses The Temporary Approach to Displacement Management of internal and external displacement in Nigeria has shown characteristics of approaches that view displacement as transient and non-permanent. While displacement itself is desired to be transitory, factors that dislodge people from their abodes are increasingly becoming indefinite. Much as it is hoped that conflicts, natural disasters, and other displacement inducing causes do not become permanent life features, applying temporary lenses to displacement management systems in Nigeria is one major factor militating against favourable outcomes. A notable mainstay of Nigeria’s temporary approach to displacement is the absence (in the whole country) of emergency response shelters or formal settlements, fully equipped with basic human needs to cater for immediate and long-term requirements of displaced persons. The question of whether this is born out of the country’s traditional intrinsic nature of ‘not praying for evil or calamities’ arises here. Before Boko Haram, there has been state, regional, and national displacements induced by political violence from the elections and pogroms of the 1960s, conflicts like the civil war of 1967, and natural disasters including the country-wide floods of 2012, to name just a few. None of these major and minor displacement crises have led to the provision of permanent emergency shelters as a government policy of necessity. The flood disasters of 2012 affected more than 7.7 million people in 32 states with about 597,000 houses damaged, 363 people reported dead, and

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more than 2.1 million others internally displaced (Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs [OCHA] 2012). The general response to the disaster was coordinated by NEMA, USAID, World Bank, EU, DFID, and the United Nations through the Red Cross. To manage such disasters, no emergency shelter that could be utilized for future emergencies was provided. One reason given for this is that spontaneous resettlement of displaced people, assisted by friends, family, churches, and co-ethnics, is a common, almost natural occurrence among groups facing displacement (Ibeanu 1999). While this is true, it only holds sway for temporary displacements and no longer applies to permanent displacements, or displacements with intermittent timelines, such as that of Boko Haram where resettled IDPs in Mafa, New Marte, Agiri and Shuwari have been attacked by Boko Haram and must now return to the IDP camps yet again (Nuhu 2021). Nigeria’s temporary approach to displacement management is enshrined in NEMA’s 2012 contingency plan which is still in use today and only modified to suit emergencies larger in scope. In the plan, NEMA states that as an emergency relief agency, it recognizes floods, crises, epidemics, drought, collapse of artificial and natural impoundments as probable disasters that can cause high-level impact and displacement of persons, and in the event of any of these, the contingency plan has been developed to provide a basis for coordination of minimum humanitarian response for an initial 10 (ten) days, later extended to one month (National Emergency Management Agency [NEMA] 2012). This calls into question the basis for which emergency and displacement situations longer than one month are prepared for, and properly managed. Efforts to revise and review the 2012 contingency plans were initiated in 2019 but the actual review has not yet been done (Sumaina 2019). Consequently, non-temporary displacements such as Boko Haram’s have not been included as a special frame of reference for emergency and displacement management for NEMA. Critics have opined that NEMA’s modus operandi for disaster and displacement management can be referred to “as ‘vulture concept’ whereby NEMA waits for disasters to happen in order to supply relief materials thereafter, rather than being proactive (the eagle concept) through appropriate forecasting and early warning to mitigate large-scale displacement with corresponding humanitarian challenges” (Daudu 2010). Insights from humanitarian aid and coordination mechanisms deployed to previous disaster managements which often appear lacking in new

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emergencies also typifies this temporary approach. Changes in personnel (many of the agency heads are political appointees subject to regime changes) often affect displacement management policies. There is thus an absence of continuity in policy implementation resulting from non-use (or non-availability) of past reports so it seems the humanitarian response for some emergencies was started from scratch. Activities of state actors seem to suggest that past failures were not analysed, and the same mistakes are repeated, in a telling case of trial and error that have consistently reduced the efficacy of displacement management programs. This accounts for the similarities present in the management dynamics of the civil war’s displacement situation, and the displacement caused by Boko Haram’s terrorism which occurred 43 years later. Relying on the opinion that displacement is ‘non-permanent’ in nature, Nigerian displacement management agencies appear to rarely carry out research on alternative approaches to displacement and emergency management. When very rarely this research is done and alternative models are designed, they gather dust on the shelves in government ministries. The notion that displacement is ‘non-permanent’ and would fizzle out in a couple of months also accounts for the laxity the Nigerian government has adopted to the endorsement of a National Responsibility for Addressing Internal Displacement even though the country has ratified the Kampala convention in 2012. This document, after it had undergone a series of modifications and readjustments, spells out the framework for action on IDPs and specifies that all authorities and branches of government at all levels including the judiciary, military, and non-state actors have responsibilities under international humanitarian law, and must be held accountable in all affected areas (Ladan 2015). With the ratification of the Kampala Convention, Nigeria is obligated to protect IDPs ‘to the fullest extent practicable and with the least possible delay’, “but the federal government is yet to adopt the responsibility to protect policy, and/or enact a domestic law to implement the convention” (Ladan 2015). It is widely believed that the absence of such frameworks as a means of clearly defining roles and formulating durable, long-term displacement management solutions will continue to hamper humanitarian and development efforts to mitigate the effects of internal displacement and prepare or prevent future displacement (Ladan 2015). The need to change Nigeria’s temporary approach to displacement management is because in contrast to the ‘non-permanent’ or ‘temporary’ toga influencing displacement management in Nigeria, what is available

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across the world (Nigeria been no exception), are prolonged displacement situations. The Dadaab camp in Kenya has been open for 31 years since 1991, Azraq camp in Jordan and Kilis in Turkey were both opened in 2012. Nigeria has been on teether edge of Boko Haram for 13 years now and host communities taking in displaced persons both in Nigeria and neighbouring communities date as far back as 2011. The average IDP has been displaced for 15 years (Pape and Ambika 2020) while the average length of time that a refugee spends in a displacement camp is 17 years (Devictor 2019). This shows in essence that displacement no longer has a ‘non-permanence’ tag and the Nigerian government’s approach to it needs to reflect this. The difficulty in accessing the longevity of displacement period and the scope of an eventual number of displaced persons necessitates the adoption of cohesive plans that are non-unique to displacement situations. Generalization of displacement patterns, contexts, locations, and history, from which comparative analysis will be drawn is an alternative model to be considered away from the current ‘fire-brigade’ approach that NEMA and emergency institutions have embraced which summarily is about minimum and noncomprehensive response to short-term and long-term displacement needs. Whether the Nigerian government and its state apparatuses pray for ‘evil calamities’ or not, it does not hurt to be prepared long term for a displacement emergency. As Barry Stein opines, when displacement problems are usually seen as isolated, deviant, and nonrecurring, the consequence is a failure to learn the lessons of the past, a failure to develop an institutional memory, and a constant need in connection with each new situation, to re-invent the wheel. And the wheel that is reinvented is not perfectly round. When we re-learn the lessons of the past, we repeat the mistakes, blunder into the same crises, and use the same erroneous ideas that caused needless human waste, suffering, and hardship in earlier programs. (Stein 1986)

Nothing attests to a need for reinvention in Nigeria’s approach to emergency and displacement situations like the displacement management system adopted by Jordan and Turkey. The Azraq camp in Jordan and the Kilis camp in Turkey provide an alternative basis for a comparative displacement management analysis with the Nigerian case. Azraq camp opened in 2012. The first lesson to be learnt here, one which the UNHCR head of the camp, Bernadette Castel termed as a rare luxury

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was that the Azraq camp was a result of long-term, carefully projected plans based on experiences adapted from Jordan’s largest refugee camp, Zaatari, and other camps in the world (Knell 2014). So, foresight and building on past experiences bedrocked Azraq’s camp’s emergence. Structurally, the camp is built to accommodate 51,000 individuals but is planned with expandable capacities to take 130,000 (Knell 2014). Lessons learnt from Zaatari also formed a certain basis for camp management processes. The need to foster communal living among the refugees discovered from Zaatari necessitated the division of Azraq camp into villages that could house 10,000–15,000 people, each with a clinic, two schools, and a playground for recreation (Knell 2014). There is a general hospital for the whole camp and a security outpost of the Jordanian military on the hill crest was prepared and equipped even before the refugees arrive, to avoid clashes between refugees and security agents, and amongst displaced persons themselves as was common in Zaatari (Knell 2014). The camp shelters themselves, with a floor space of about 24sqm, are not tents but constructed cabins with big ceilings and sloping roofs which ensures adequate ventilation (Knell 2014). It is also interesting to note that the camp was developed by the Jordanian government with the help of UNHCR. Each international organization in Azraq provides distinct functions without overlapping with one another. For example, the World Food Program (WFP) has a large supermarket in the camp that accepts money vouchers given to the refugees to buy whatever they needed instead of having to give them food ratios or catered meals daily (Knell 2014). The Red Cross runs the clinic and the general hospital, the Norwegian Refugee Council oversees basic needs for refugees when they arrive at the camps (Knell 2014). The registration process for new arrivals takes about 10 minutes. The new entrants are registered and basic items such as blankets, hygiene kits, water cans, mattresses, gas stoves, kitchen sets, solar-powered lanterns, and dustbins are handed over to them, with the keys to their cabins and one-week food ratio before they begin the use of vouchers (Knell 2014). Many of these measures were put in place based on feedback received from refugees in Zaatari and other camps in the world (Knell 2014). These measures are not temporary measures, the camp shelter are permanent constructions based on the knowledge and awareness that the refugees might spend a long time in Jordan as the crisis in Syria remains unending. Even if however, their stay ends up being temporary, the relief facilities in Azraq

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camp are available for other uses, and for other emergencies which may not necessarily be conflict or war-related. The Kilis camp on the Turkish-Syrian border is another example of how displacement, when approached without a temporary lens can yield effective management results for both the displaced and the displacement managers. This camp that houses 2,053 identical containers was described by a polish diplomat who visited the camp as ‘the nicest refugee camp in the world!’ (McClelland 2014). Although generally referred to as the Kilis camp, its official name is the Prime Ministry Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency’s Kilis Oncupinar Accommodation Facility, or the Oncupinar Refugee Camp, Merkez Province (UNOSAT 2015). The first striking thing about the Kilis Camp as reported by Mac McClelland is its neatness: ‘No tents. None of the smells — rotting garbage, raw sewage — usually associated with human crush and lack of infrastructure’ (McClelland 2014). This was because there was ‘no lack of infrastructure’. With a “power plant and street lights to match those of an urban city; street scrubbers and sanitary workers lurking around to pinch out any loitering dirt; finger print and card scans for entry and exit including Xray and metal detector scans for items and luggage at the gate; 23–10 footer trailers each with three rooms and a bathroom serviced by its own plumbing and hot-water tank, and a kitchen equipped with both a refrigerator and a stove; free, well equipped schools with playgrounds which have been praised by the refugees to be better than public schools outside the camps; a clinic staffed by Turkish doctors with free treatment, medicine and arrangeable transport to nearby hospitals when serious health issues arise; maintenance men who deal with electric, plumbing, or other repairs; fire hydrants; capacity building for refugees including cotton and weaving lessons, a sewing workshop and a beauty salon; free laundry services and so on” (McClelland 2014), Turkey has established Kilis camp as the bar to beat when it comes to the provision of relief and rehabilitation for displaced persons. At Kilis also, we see evidence of foresight and careful planning. This camp is run entirely by Turkey and Turkish officials. Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency, or AFAD, asked the UNHCR for its camp guidelines such as minimum distance between tents and then designed the camp based on this but using their initiatives (McClelland 2014). Turkey staffed the camps with Turkish government employees, allowing in few NGOs and giving those only supporting roles

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(McClelland 2014). Except for some relatively minor international donations, the financial responsibility and all the administrative responsibility has been Turkey’s alone (McClelland 2014). The Turkish government ministries appoint staff members—the Ministry of Family and Social Policy appointed Kilis’s kindergarten principal and all of them report to the camp administrator, who is also appointed internally, while the camp administrator reports directly to the governor of the region (McClelland 2014). With its model, Turkey has cut down on some of the major hazards associated with refugee camps: vandalism, theft, sexual assault, and diverted supplies, and although it is costly, this approach has given Turkey a measure of control over every detail including who is working in their country, non-overlapping of NGO functions and activities, clashes between agencies and local leaders, the distraction and complication that comes with having too many people come and go, and so on (McClelland 2014). The very few external partners invited by Turkey is the World Food Program (WFP) which is helping to run a new modality of providing food assistance where every family is given a debit card when they come into the camp and every month, they get a balance of 80 Turkish lira, close to $40, per person for food and $10 per person for sundries, with which the refugees can buy whatever they desire inside the grocery stores in the camp which are filled with undulating produce sections, meat counters, dry-goods shelves, and refrigerated dairy cases (McClelland 2014). This method, the WFP agrees is much easier, faster, and cost-effective, since it saves them the trouble of having an office on ground, shipping and transporting food from storage centres to camps for distribution, having people wait in line for weekly or monthly food ratios to be handed to them, or serving refugees three hot, catered meals a day, while at the same time supporting the local economy (McClelland 2014). This is another evidence of careful planning, learning from previous disaster management programs, utilization of local initiative, long-term perspective in displacement management and putting displaced people at the forefront of programs meant to cater to their relief and rehabilitation. These cannot be said of displacement management initiatives instituted by the Nigerian government or its emergency/displacement management agencies. Much as Turkey knows that the Syrians will not permanently be in Kilis, the displacement management agencies are of the opinion that ‘technically, the 14,000 residents at Kilis are not refugees but “guests” of Turkey, and

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every single one is going to go home and become grand ambassadors of Turkey’ (McClelland 2014). Managing displacement with non-temporary measures brings to the fore the question about the suitability of camps in displacement management. The use of camps has been tainted as only making displaced people ‘exist but not live’, segregating displaced persons from the outside world, restricting their movement, serving as breeding grounds for health and epidemic risks, sheltering security threats, and social vices, and many more (McClelland 2014). However, if carefully planned with long-term objectives and with the interests of displaced persons in mind, camps are one of the few viable options for managing emergency and rehabilitative displacement situations. Specifically, as regards Nigeria, NEMA, UNHCR, and other aid agencies need to stop constructing camp structures with destruction in mind because emergency relief centres would always be in need. Restriction of movement is not a common feature in most camps across Nigeria, even in Maiduguri, so the right to movement and other displaced people’s rights including rights to basic amenities can and should be safeguarded in camps. The fifteen points mandate of NEMA constantly used words such as coordinate, collate, liaise, monitor, collect, and receive which means that ‘NEMA is essentially a coordination agency placed at the centre of a network of disaster management organizations, coordinating their efforts’ (National Emergency Management Agency [NEMA] 2012). Consequently, the success or failure of disaster management in Nigeria depends largely on how well these organizations are working and how effectively NEMA can coordinate their efforts. NEMA and other state apparatuses hence need to start asking for the correct and most beneficial kind of aid from international agencies (like Turkey and Jordan did) based on meticulously worked-out models adaptable to Nigeria’s displacement situation. A prominent shift by NEMA towards the adoption of permanent mechanisms for displacement management should be a move towards developmental, rather than just emergency assistance. Unemployment is rampant in camps, and lack of food and income-generating opportunities have proved to be the bane behind social vices. Teenagers pawn themselves as prostitutes to soldiers and other members of the public. When food is not delivered to displaced persons as often is the case, and when they are excluded from camp management, their vulnerability to sexual abuse and exploitation increases dramatically. The male hostels in the

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NYSC camp in Maiduguri and its surroundings are littered with jobless Marijuana, cigarettes, and weed-smoking youngsters who could do with gainful employment. Camps should be available to hold displaced persons while durable permanent solutions (voluntary repatriation, reintegration, or resettlement) are urgently considered. As Fabos says “if people can keep themselves engaged, that provides a healthy outlook, helps establish local integration and keeps alive their skill sets if they repatriate” (McClelland 2014). Rehabilitative assistance enables the displaced community to assume self-sufficiency and contribute to the overall economic and social development of host communities. Hopelessness is palpable in many camps. Despite the intervention by relief agencies and the government contribution to mitigate misery, IDPs know they will not live in the camp forever; and know that other interests will capture the government’s attention; and that donor fatigue will later set in (Ngolle 1985). While they are in camps, it is more beneficial to engage in solutions that allow displaced communities to be more self-sufficient (Ullah 2014). Lack of Adequate Displacement Management Resources Proper and effective displacement management in Nigeria is further constrained by adequate funding. Philanthropic individuals, families and other social networks are known to provide the bulk of humanitarian assistance to internally displaced people (Ibeanu 1999). Private organizations such as oil companies in the Niger Delta have also been prominent in providing relief materials to displaced persons (Ibeanu 1999). The reliance on alternative funding resources is because NEMA and other displacement management agencies lack the financial means and institutional know-how necessary to provide extended support to displaced people (Matfess 2015). For instance, according to NEMA’s charter as an emergency response agency, the organization’s finances specifically as it concerns emergency response comes from the NEMA disaster management fund which is 2% of the federal government’s 20% share of the ecological fund (National Emergency Management Agency [NEMA] 2012). The Nigerian government also funds the National Commission for Refugees, Migrants, and Internally Displaced Persons (NCRMI) which is also tasked with displacement management. When asked by an aid expert about funding for displacement, NCRMI replied that it “had enough money to pay salaries but not run programs” (Matfess 2015).

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Asides the capacity to run programs, lack of funds also prevents displacement management agencies from effectively fulfilling their mandates. NEMA for instance was established primarily to manage disasters and coordinate emergency relief operations, as well as assist in the rehabilitation of victims of such disasters (Akpoghome 2015). However, NEMA cannot go further than this. While they can support displaced persons in times of emergency, they cannot fulfil their rehabilitation, return, or reintegration mandates due to a lack of funds. This is why in many cases of internal displacement in Nigeria, government assistance does not go beyond emergency responses as was the case with thousands of IDPs who were living in camps in Benue State due to the Tiv-Hausa crises in Nasarawa state who were only given transportation to return to their homes as a form of ‘rehabilitation’ and ‘return’ (Akpoghome 2015). Due to all these associated funding constraints, aid for emergency displacement management must be sourced from alternative means because most of the aid agencies can only afford to keep the bureaucratic functions of their organizations running, to the detriment of effective displacement and emergency management programs. When alternative funds are sourced for displacement management, funds diversion and corruption of government officials prevent such funds from being utilized for their designated purposes. In July 2014, President Goodluck Jonathan created and launched the Victims Support Fund (VSF) to take care of victims of terrorism across the country. Many private sector representatives, corporate institutions, and wealthy individuals attended the fundraiser where about 80 billion Naira was raised (Opara 2014). Planned and executed with high expectations, little was heard about the use of the funds since the ceremony. Alkasim Abdulkadir, a member of the fund’s board lamented that of the 80 billion Naira pledged by donors at the fundraiser, only about 15 billion had been donated (Abdulkadir 2016). He added that a census to understand how many IDPs there are and where they are was needed for proper disbursement of the funds but ‘the VSF does not yet have the resources’ (Abdulkadir 2016). Corruption and misappropriation of funds also trailed President Muhammad Buhari’s Presidential Initiative for the Northeast (PINE). The president fired Nigeria’s most senior civil servant after it was found that he ‘inflated the value of contracts for humanitarian aid projects as part of a suspected kickback scheme’ (Reuters 2017). Apart from corruption and funds diversion, dependence on private charitable donations to fund Boko Haram’s displacement management

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has other bedevilling issues. The scale of charitable response has been limited by the conflict’s duration as private donors are attracted by a speedy use of their funds for immediate and visible impacts, and to alleviate immediate suffering (Devermont 2020). The longer the Boko Haram insurgency runs, the more it appears to be impossible to cope with, deterring further donations to a seemingly lost cause. A lack of extended media coverage is also impeding private donor funding. Unlike other conflicts which commanded prolonged press time, Boko Haram conflict’s longevity is waning media attention, and simultaneously donations to its victims and their displacement situation. The “country’s philanthropists like their global counterparts, feed on ego and business acumen, as well as altruism, and it appears that the Boko Haram displacement especially in comparison to the Covid-19 pandemic, is hardly buzzworthy” (Devermont 2020). Nigeria’s ethnic and geographical divisions are also affecting alternative sources of funding for displacement management. Boko Haram and the humanitarian crisis are not presumed as national problems (Devermont 2020). Terrorist attacks and its displacement impacts have been felt much more in the north. The south and east of Nigeria have remained relatively unaffected by Boko Haram’s terrorist attacks and the unending scourge of internal displacement. Apart from funding and resource mobilization, government personnel and workers in displacement management agencies agree that there are other issues influencing the quality of displacement management in Nigeria resulting from lack of funds. These include bureaucratic bottlenecks, lack of functionality and capacity of some SEMAs, lack of logistical support from certain federal and state ministries, lukewarm cooperation from other stakeholders, inadequate technical skills relating to resource assessment and utilization, weak cooperation/synergy among law enforcement agencies and other emergency responders, inadequate capacity building for NEMA and SEMA officials, lack of up-to-date information on state-of-the-art displacement management schemes, inadequate awareness creation on emergency responses, procedures and operational guidelines, lack of political will, and under-informed institutions.

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International Actors, and Donor/Aid Organizations Funding Inadequacies Over time, countries of the world have been drawn into alleviating the effects of wars, crises, and natural disasters by engaging in humanitarian causes around the globe, either directly or in collaboration with international organizations and aid agencies. Wilfried Vyslozil appropriately describes the important work of international and aid agencies: The aid industry is always ready and waiting and can reach any disaster area within a very short time. First to rescue survivors, then for emergency relief and finally for reconstruction. They are professionals who know what needs to be done. They can get hold of the necessary money from fundraising campaigns and from the public purse and then ensure that this money – as you might say – is spent again. (Vyslozil 2012)

Leading the pack in aid distribution and emergency program implementation are the United Nations (UN) and its affiliate agencies like UNHCR, WFP, Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), and others. Other prominent organizations include the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, country financed aid agencies like the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Norwegian Refugee Council, the Danish Refugee Council, and many others. The UNHCR particularly is the body saddled with the responsibility of coordinating international humanitarian emergency responses for displaced people across the world especially refugees. Instead of creating a new UN agency or modifying the mandate of an existing one to cater to the needs of IDPs, UNHCR took over this role, issuing its first policy guidelines for its role in internal displacement in 1993 (Borton et al. 2005). With the help of varied arms such as OCHA and other humanitarian agencies, the UNHCR bears the burden of bringing solace to displaced people, in unsafe and insecure situations, hazardous terrains, and hostile vicinities. The notion of humanitarianism is inseparably linked to the funding flows that sustain international aid operations across the world, both for emergency and development aid. UNHCR, funded largely by voluntary contributions, relies on the donor community (comprising countries, individuals, and corporate organizations) to respond to aid needs. These

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funds comprise “not only an important aspect of displacement management by the UNHCR, but is also one of the single greatest sources of relief for displaced persons” (Ullah 2014). At the onset of emergencies, UNHCR and other aid organizations establish contacts, appeals, and promulgate funding strategies with potential and established donors. OCHA for instance ensures humanitarian financing by leading a consortium of donors in the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF), and further manages its own Country-Based Pooled Funds (CBPFs) (United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs [OCHA] 2022). Some organizations like START Fund cater to only short-term emergencies where program development and implementation last between 30 and 45 days, while other organizations manage medium and long-term emergency situations. In cooperation with countries affected by internal and external displacement, organizations carry out donor-relation strategies in the first days of an emergency and maintain their fundraising activities throughout their operations. For the most part, commitments are paid by donors or governments on a short, aggregate, or long-term basis. Because the majority of donations are in aggregated form and not immediately redeemed or disbursed, collecting them is often problematic (Ullah 2014). In 2014, donations to humanitarian situations in the Sahel were described as ‘anaemic’ by OCHA when only 30% of its US$2.2 billion annual appeal for the region had been received by July (The New Humanitarian 2014a). In 2015, WFP received US$8.7 million for the emergency in Nigeria against a total expected US$50.1 million which signalled an 82.7% shortfall (World Food Program [WFP] 2015). According to OCHA, in 2015, twelve Emergency Directors of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) developed a three-month inter-agency action plan to support the scale-up of critical protection, lifesaving response efforts, and humanitarian presence in conflict-affected areas in the northeast (Kang 2015). The humanitarian response plan (HRP) requested USD 100 million for the international response in Nigeria, of which only 46% was funded as of August 13, 2015 (Kang 2015). No sector was fully funded, and education got only 19% of funding, health 30%, shelter and NFIs 39%, and food security 69% (Kang 2015). Between 2019 and 2022, the governments of Germany, USA, Switzerland, Japan, Belgium, France, and Canada pledged US$32,688,880 to various projects for internally displaced persons and other affected populations of Boko Haram’s terrorist violence (Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

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[OCHA] 2022a). Destination organizations to implement the projects of these funds included FAO, WFP, Nigerian Humanitarian Fund, OCHA, Plan International, WHO, United Nations Children’s Fund (UNCF), Maltesers Foundation, International Organization for Migration (IOM), Norwegian refugee Council, Action Against hunger, UNDP, Nigeria INGO Forum, Ground Truth Solutions, and others. By January 2022, only US$2,509,981 of these funds had been actually paid by donor countries (Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs [OCHA] 2022a). For many donor countries and grant organizations, funding flows are often politically determined not just by political machinations in donor countries, but by those in recipient countries as well. Though “private donations are growing steadily, they are less commonly directed towards displacement protection, and state or country-sponsored displacement aid contributions remain the primary source for emergency aid and protection” (Ullah 2014). As stated earlier, private sponsorship of Boko Haram’s displacement management can have its own peculiar difficulties. State-provided budgets on their part are largely dependent not only on political considerations but also on the idea of moral necessity or humanitarian impulse to assist people in need (Ullah 2014). When emergency situations become ‘cause celebres’ as was the case with the Nigerian civil war and is the current case with the Boko Haram conflict, the idea of moral necessity catalysing humanitarian impulses is reinforced. As such, aid falls within the broad spectrum of humanitarian action taken by rich countries assisting those who are ‘less privileged’ (Ullah 2014). Many recipient countries do not care what tag aid comes with, especially countries where prolonged conflict or displacement has rendered aid a beneficial economic tool legally and illegally. However, the enormous growth of displaced populations in the last decades, statutory limits on emergency and humanitarian financing, the unpredictability of displacement tenures and the probability of displacement longevity, the insufficient burden-sharing on the part of international aid agencies and donor countries, all of these have challenged the ability and capacity of international organizations to raise adequate funds in dealing poignantly with the causes, impacts, and effects of global displacement situations.

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Misconceptions About Traditional African Hospitality and Africa’s Displacement Burden Donor fatigue is not only affecting private sector funding of displacement management. It is also a notable difficulty challenging the effectiveness of international and aid organizations. The belief and fear are that donors have grown tired of protracted situations of instability especially on the African continent, and are increasingly distracted by larger, more visible crises such as those in Syria and Yemen. For Boko Haram’s displacement and humanitarian situation, door fatigue is evident in the uneven reported funding trend of its emergency situation from 2012 to 2022 (Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs [OCHA] 2022b) (Fig. 5.1). Misconceptions about Africa’s social and societal norms are one of many factors affecting the perception of the continent’s displacement crisis, and donor attitudes towards its management. To Louise Holborn, “the decline in displacement management aid to Africa is due to a long-held view among relief agencies that traditional African hospitality provides African refugees, unlike refugees elsewhere with initial means

Fig. 5.1 UNOCHA funding trend for Boko Haram emergency 2012–2022 (Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs [OCHA] 2022b)

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to earn a living and even integrate easily with their ‘kinfolks’ across the borders, and for the most part, officials of UNHCR have also echoed this viewpoint” (Holborn 1976). This view is maintained by Antonio Diegues who premises that “after crossing the border, refugees settle amongst local populations who have to bear much of the responsibility of providing emergency aid. When the local population is linked by ties of kinship, religion and ethnic affiliation, this kind of settlement occurs without too much difficulty and offers social and psychological advantages” (Diegues 1981). In situations of internal displacement, family, and kinsmen, as well as religious comrades are expected to provide tenets of such warm reception, congeniality, and generosity. This aptly describes Boko Haram’s displacement scenario. Apart from borders, the Hausa, and Kanuri of the Lake Chad region, and those of Niger share linguistic and cultural affinities and have coexisted as neighbours even after the areas were divided between the British and French at the Berlin Conference of 1884–1885. Nigerians and Nigeriens living across the border towns have intermarried and have ancestry interwoven between the two groups. The same can be said of Nigeria and Cameroon. Consequently, the first place to seek asylum when the threat of Boko Haram became unbearable was across the borders and within family and friends living in various states in Nigeria. Postulations of African hospitality are however a thing of the past. Gaim Kibreab asserts that “in present day Africa, the so-called traditional hospitality and assistance has become a museum piece, and there is a catalogue of evidence that shows that African refugees are not always given a welcome, emanating from tribal tradition, but are at times subjected to harassment and exploitation, and when they received a warm welcome, it was mainly due to the advantages the local population hoped to enjoy as a result of such influx” (Kibreab 1985). What is therefore more common contemporarily is to see countries who had once generously opened their doors to displaced persons shutting their borders for fear of assuming endless responsibilities, abetting an uncontrolled flow of refugees, and jeopardizing national security (Ullah 2014). Traditional African hospitality may have worked well for refugees during the years of gaining independence from colonial powers. During this period, many African governments intended to show solidarity for the independence struggles of other African countries. Most countries like Nigeria at the time also had stable economies or were experiencing resource booms and could afford to even resettle refugees in other countries like Tanzania and Zaire did

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for Burundian refugees. Thus, at this time, it was financially viable to take in asylum seekers based on compassion, brotherhood, and responsibility. Present realities however differ. Northern Cameroon for example or the Diffa region of Niger where Boko Haram refugees are fleeing to are not the same as Nigeria of 1960s. Kano, Kaduna, Katsina, and other northern states taking in IDPs from Boko Haram’s terrorist insurgence do not have better economic opportunities. The influx of displaced persons has spiked food insecurities in Fotokol and Maoura which were already threatened by bad harvests. Refusal to move hinterland (away from the border towns) by Nigerian refugees (as some wanted to be close to tend their cattle or return easily when a modicum of safety in their towns was guaranteed) means that these border towns are gradually becoming overpopulated. Hospitality in this situation can only be guaranteed for short periods of time and these communities may be driven to famine and economic crisis if aid and assistance is not available, with funding of Cameroon’s humanitarian appeal barely covering 40% of displacement needs (United Nations 2015). States taking in IDPs in Nigeria such as Katsina, Sokoto, and Kaduna must now deal with the banditry crisis that is also displacing residents of these states. They do not have the capacities and cannot afford to be ‘hospitable’ to fleeing IDPs from the northeast. Yet another misconception influencing international donors and their displacement management mechanisms is the dominant and continuing consensus among Western governments, and by extension, most of the international organizations, that Africa’s displacement problems are an African problem best resolved in Africa by Africans. While some limited aid is provided both bilaterally and multilaterally to African governments to assist them with the task (which simultaneously absolve the West’s collective conscience for lack of doing something more tangible and durable), most of the onus of support for displaced persons continues to fall upon the very countries least able to divert chronically scarce resources to implement durable solutions to displacement issues (Rogge 1991). Western nations “commonly fund large-scale displacement camps in third world countries and these camps offer politicians a convenient way to avoid making decisions about foreign wars and domestic immigration issues, keeping displaced people offshore and out of sight, rather than pushing for more permanent solutions” (Dunn 2015). While this may be true, international actors should not be held liable for the inability of African governments to stem the tide of conflicts leading to protracted displacements in their countries. As Teldah Mawarire argues and I concur,

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African countries stand accused of mismanaging their resources and allowing ethnic wars to drive millions out of their homes to seek refuge in distant lands, and if international actors leave them to solve these issues by themselves, they should not be held accountable for it (Mawarire 2015). Moreover, the popular view is that aid is voluntary, it should not be enforced, and its refusal should not be mistaken for non-interference. More so, the notion of the displacement crisis being an African problem is likewise being promoted by African countries, specifically Nigeria, who refused to accept external aid for Boko Haram IDPs at the onset of the displacement situation, only opting for aid when the situation was out of control. The initial absence of some humanitarian agencies in northeastern Nigeria was because the government projected an image that it could take care of its own problems, despite consistent high malnutrition levels and a crumbling health infrastructure (The New Humanitarian 2014b). The direction in which these misconceptions continue to sway donor decisions and functionalities of international aid agencies is an ongoing spectacle that does not augur well for displacement management. Right Plans, Zero Coordination While funding inadequacies and misconceptions need to be rectified, lack of coordination in the plans and program implementation of aid organizations pose a greater threat to effectiveness of displacement management. A considerable number of observers, defined here to include displaced persons, local, state, and federal emergency management officials, and civil society organizations critiqued the lack of coordination among international aid agencies working on ground in Bornu, Adamawa, and Yobe. An Assessment of Strengths, Vulnerabilities, and Policy Options on Boko Haram submitted to the Department of Homeland Security in 2015 revealed the tendency of donors to respond in an ad hoc manner to highly visible events rather than engaging in a more systematic and strategic manner: “all these efforts can work better if they are harmonized and coordinated effectively. There is a no information sharing policy by some of the actors involved with some of these programs, everybody is offering assistance, and we are welcoming all of them. But who is harmonizing all these things? (Pate 2015). The ‘soccer swarm principle’ has been used to explain the striking pattern in which donors have historically failed to coordinate their efforts,

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and instead attempt to capture headlines with similar projects in the same areas, to the detriment of the affected population who need aid the most (Marineau and Findley 2020). Under the swarm principle, donors are “likened to children soccer players not professionally coached who inevitably swarm around the ball regardless of its location because they are unable to distinguish when it is ideal to cluster together or space themselves for strategic impact, to increase their chances of scoring a goal” (Marineau and Findley 2020). For these kids, a kick of the ball is enough, and the direction that this kick takes the ball is inconsequential. Lags in donor coordination also negate the 2005 Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness whose fundamental principle requires donor countries to coordinate and simplify information to avoid duplication. Lack of coordination on the part of international aid agencies and their implementing partners is visible in aspects of Boko Haram’s displacement management. A customary percussor to coordination lapses occurs when international agencies come with their planned aid projects from their various countries or organizations without doing an earlier reconnaissance of needs or needs assessment for displaced persons. In Maiduguri for instance, while UNICEF was activating the Safe School Initiative, the Teachers without Borders was also going on, and the mobile classroom projects also came along. While nutritional supplements, immunization, and psychosocial counselling were non-existent, more than five different aid agencies were concentrated on education. Another example of plaintive lack of coordination in the NYSC camp was the availability of toilet facilities, some built by UNICEF, others by UNHCR, yet portable drinking water was scarce. When I asked the NEMA interlocutor why the donor agencies would not do other projects, he said first, they feel they are international organizations and they know best, and the personnel they put on the ground in Maiduguri are answerable to ‘ogas ’ (bosses) in Abuja who are not on ground (Shehu 2016). These personnel do not have the power to change the blueprints they have and the ‘ogas ’ in Abuja are not on the ground to see that there are direr needs than the ones they have allocated funds for. He continues that this is not limited to international organizations alone but even private donors and civil Non-Governmental Organizations (Shehu 2016). As aid organizations concentrate on one sector or program, other needs are left unattended. The absence of coordination amongst international aid organizations has also been ascribed to trust issues. An interlocutor working for the Bornu state government in the NYSC camp offered that aid workers do

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not listen to alternative opinions because ‘they say they are not answerable to us’ national or government staff (Yunus 2016). Local knowledge and agency of national staff which necessitated their inclusion in displacement program implementation is disregarded because international donors do not trust their expertise. A liaison officer, representing a major UN agency in Maiduguri further affirmed that it was difficult being the man on the ground and reporting to officials who were not on ground (Pandogara 2016). He said if he quibbled on the need to change plans based on needs he discovered in the camps, he could be seen as ‘wanting to divert funds’ or be assumed to be corrupt (Pandogara 2016). This in turn affects coordination because donor agencies are unwilling to relinquish control over aid-funded activities particularly in countries with central and local governments that are perceived to be weak or corrupt, and donors may feel that if they are not able to directly track funds through the implementation process, elite capture of aid funding may occur (Marineau and Findley 2020). Trust and mistrust issues also impinge on carrying out needs assessment for displacement management programs, and are not restricted to the relationship between international aid agencies and their local staff or program implementers alone. A representative of a mosque-based charity opined her NGO do not trust NEMA or the state government officials working in various IDP camps due to persistent incidences of corruption and diversion of aid to private use (Ibrahim 2016). For these reasons, they would not ask these officials what needs abound in displacement camps but would rather go ahead with their own aid programming relying on their own discretion. To the mosque charity, aid getting to displaced persons was considered a better win, than coordinating with corrupt officials or asking for a needs assessment that may be fraudulent. Aid agencies have cited a lack of information on individual activities as one of the reasons why they are unable to coordinate, positing that organizations do not have visibility of each other’s aid programs, despite the many inter-agency and coordination meetings that usually happen amongst these organizations in emergency and aid contexts. This assertion however does not explain the lack of coordination in Boko Haram’s displacement management. A NEMA official had intervened in the borehole drilling tussle between two different UN agencies in Maiduguri IDP camps, yet, both UN agencies went ahead to drill the boreholes even though other needs were left unattended (Yunus 2016). Because donors want the recognition of having direct presence in most countries and

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sectors and have an interest in spending their entire budget to prevent budget decreases in coming years (Marineau and Findley 2020), coordination does not assume prominent importance in many of their planned and implemented programs. The common impact of coordination gaps is misguided aid projects which lack efficiency and efficacy. The quality of toilet facilities at the NYSC camp reflects the urgency to show returns for funds as the motivation. The staff on ground were eager to show that funds were spent on the toilets, not minding that the latrines were not deep enough. The lack of drainage systems in the camp meant the latrines got filled up sooner and started seeping out of the trenches. Coordination gaps also reduce the number of people in need who benefit from displacement management programs. Many agencies for instance focus only on displaced persons in camps to the detriment of host communities and non-host communities residing in the BAY states. Some agencies also focus only on governmentrecognized IDP camps in BAY states to the detriment of Boko Haram IDPs in other ‘unrecognized camps’ such as Kuchigoro in Abuja. Many such actions happen because agencies want their projects to be visible to other agencies, so they implement programs where such visibility is possible even if such programs do not fulfil impactful needs. Not coordinating donor efforts in addition makes it possible for some donors to ‘free ride’ on the efforts of others which negatively affects aid delivery (Marineau and Findley 2020). When donor coordination is improved in displacement management, duplication, waste, and competition can be avoided (Goetz 2001). What’s more, humanitarian organizations working in the northeast such as Mercy Corps, Search for Common Ground, and Friends Committee on National Legislation agree that reinforcing coordination mechanisms will be critical to ensure an effective humanitarian scale-up in the BAY states (Search for Common Ground [SFCG] 2014). Focus on Emergency Rather Than Development or Rehabilitative Aid Complexities in displacement management like Boko Haram’s has been further attributed to the humanitarian response’s focus on emergency and short-term aid, rather than developmental or rehabilitative aid. International aid agencies concentrate on promoting access to food, water, and basic services, and reinforce the protection of conflict affected civilians, without a real transition towards durable solutions for displaced persons, either through return, local integration, or resettlement in other parts

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of Nigeria. By 2014, many organizations already recognized the need to make displacement related aid in BAY states robust, to curate aid that restores the livelihood of displaced persons such as livestock, seeds, and tools, to develop displacement programs that prioritize displaced persons regaining their ability to earn incomes, and to make displacement responses that already incorporates the immediate transition from relief to development (Search for Common Ground [SFCG] 2014). The extent to which this recognition has influenced displacement programs is trifling. International aid organizations portend insecurity as delaying and disrupting their activities, making it possible to plan and implement only short-term programs. According to aid agencies, the volatility of Boko Haram’s terrorist insurgence and Boko Haram’s concurrent attacks on displacement camps, resettled IDPs, as well as international aid workers present stumbling blocks to long-term developmental aid. Aid organizations in Bornu have had to stop, postpone, or totally discard various projects at different stages due to actual attacks and threats of attacks on them. In February 2013, 2 vaccinators and 3 Korean doctors were killed by Boko Haram in Bornu and Yobe states respectively (Dickson 2015). Also in 2013, MSF moved into Baga following Boko Haram attacks. The organization reported treating 80 patients a day with half of them children but after five gunmen hijacked one of their vehicles along with medical supplies and other equipment, MSF abandoned the project because it was too dangerous to continue to operate (Dickson 2015). In some instances, aid agencies and their staff are not caught in accidental terrorist mishaps but are themselves targeted. In July 2020, five aid workers who had been kidnapped a month earlier by Boko Haram were executed, with Boko Haram posting a 35-minute video online as a warning to both international aid agencies and local civilians who intend to work for them (BBC 2020). Asides insecurity and attacks against aid workers greatly impacting their ability to provide both emergency and rehabilitative aid, they are also forcing aid agencies to move their staff out of affected areas which succinctly discourages long-term planning and development of aid programming. Much as the United Nations Department of Safety and Security (UNDSS) conducts regular security assessments, adopting mitigating measures and establishing protocols to ensure the safety of UN and other aid organizations’ staff, in March 2015, a low-profile presence was still adopted for all UN staff (Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs [OCHA] 2015). This permeated into other international

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aid agencies that utilize UN security protocols for their own safety mechanisms. All UN agencies operating in the area consequently had to operate through local staff, and when deploying expatriate staff, send mostly those of African origin who generally reside in Abuja. The European Union (EU) with the bulk of its 11th European Development Aid funding to Nigeria (512 million euros) earmarked for rehabilitative projects in governance, health, nutrition, and energy sectors also restricted most of their staff to Abuja in 2015 (Ravelo 2015). EU staff members were advised not to visit projects in the northeast until the donor, through risk analysis, determines it’s safe to do so (Ravelo 2015). The EU admitted that this caused major disruptions to some of their aid programs in Yobe and Adamawa, rendering work on primary health care, for example, inactive. Unable to plan and leaving only local or lower ranking staff on the ground, insecurity complicates the hierarchies of aid organizations, delays decision-making and affects the extension and overall quality of aid programs implemented. While all the above factors are detrimental to rehabilitative aid, continued emergency aid is much more detrimental to Nigeria’s displacement management. The incremental needs of displaced persons in Maiduguri and other BAY states will continue unabated if emergency aid remains the focal point for aid agencies. Reliance on provision of emergency relief as a humanitarian yardstick will also affect the capacity of aid organizations to transition from emergency to development programming. Needs will always outweigh aid, and emergency relief will not totally curb needs. As USAID assistant administrator Thomas Stall reported to the House Committee on Africa: ‘Our contributions to addressing global crises, as well as those of other donors, however, are outpaced by the rate at which needs are growing. The sheer scale and protracted nature of displacement, and growing demands on stretched humanitarian budgets present special challenges for meeting the needs of Africa’s displaced’ (United States Agency for International Development [USAID] 2015). Aid agencies need to focus more on programming like the ‘Food for Peace’ which provided cash transfers to displaced persons in north-eastern Nigeria targeting pregnant and lactating women, female-headed households, and households with children under five (United States Agency for International Development [USAID] 2018). This cash-based assistance was planned to allow people to buy nutritious foods in local markets, thereby helping to combat malnutrition and restart economic activity

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in areas ravaged by Boko Haram (United States Agency for International Development [USAID] 2018). Cash-based food interventions were assessed as a better way of dispensing emergency relief because they provide opportunities for cash to be used for rehabilitative choices by displaced persons. In the NYSC IDP camp, a displaced person had to sell his food ratio in the local market and used the funds to purchase a sewing machine. However, the conversion rate for his food versus the cash he got would have been higher if he had gotten cash directly as aid.

Host Countries Violation of ‘Non-Refoulement Policy’ Complicating Displacement Management The actions and in certain cases inactions of refugee host countries affected by Boko Haram’s terrorist insurgence have had bearings on the management of its internal and external displacement situation. In simultaneous multi-country displacement situations intertwined by a protracted conflict of a terrorist nature like Boko Haram is, refugee movements across proximate and porous borders abound. Such movements are made easier by the familiarity of displaced populations whose shared geographic, linguistic, and social affinities may or may not require ownership of border passes, passports, or other means of identification. Under these circumstances, the displacement of migrating populations is classified under refugee protection, and the response to their specific needs is treated as that of people who have well-founded reason to fear that their own governments cannot or will not safeguard their rights. Such protection is a temporary substitute for national protection and is meant to prevent such refugees from being returned against their will to a place where they reasonably fear being persecuted (Newland and Papademetriou 1998). For this class of displaced persons, “civil, political, economic, social, and legal rights, as well as rights to physical security, access to the courts, and protection against economic exploitation are essential, and their rights to legal protection should last for as long as international protection is required” (Newland and Papademetriou 1998). Aid organizations such as UNHCR have the responsibility to ensure that these categories of displaced persons can reach places where they can seek, and are guaranteed asylum, and that when they reach such places by themselves, they are not turned away, or denied entry.

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That refugees place a considerable burden on the host country is a fact that cannot be denied or discarded. States shoulder these burdens for several reasons. Some states do so either because they support the political cause in which the refugees are embroiled, or have sympathy for displaced co-ethnics or co-religionists, or have a desire to score political points at an adversary’s expense, or because they seek needed human resources (Ullah 2014). In the early years of political independence, host countries had the tendency not only to encourage refugee movements, but also to exaggerate their numbers because they saw the arrival of refugees as an opportunity to obtain international development assistance, and in such situations, refugee problems were being exploited by host countries to accelerate the development of their economies (Ngolle 1985). In the 1970s for instance, due to massive economic decline in their country, Ghanaians, armed with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) 1975 treaty on free movement into a member country, migrated in large numbers into Nigeria, which was willing to take them at the time because she was experiencing the oil boom and needed skilled, unskilled, and semi-skilled labour. Ghanaians were however asked to leave when Nigeria felt it needed indigenous work force for its economic development, justifying asking Ghanaians to leave on the grounds they were refugees taken in on ‘a non-permanence’ basis. Temporary asylum is not new in the displacement landscape. For Bosnian refugees living in Germany, the deal agreed upon with UNHCR was that they would be granted protection temporarily in Germany, and in exchange for that, they would be returned in ‘dignity and safety’. Examples of temporary asylum abound because international law recognizes the right to seek asylum but does not oblige states to provide it. Nations at times offer ‘temporary protection’ when they face a sudden mass influx of people that may overwhelm their regular asylum systems, and in such circumstances, people can be speedily admitted to safe countries, but without any guarantee of permanent asylum (The New Humanitarian 2005). Thus ‘temporary protection’ is helpful to both governments and asylum seekers in specific circumstances (The New Humanitarian 2005). Besides, for certain states to be willing to grant temporary protection, there needs to be some reasonable expectation and assurance that temporary protection is indeed temporary. Three factors are important in international protection as described above: access to protection, quality of protection, and respect for the principle of ‘non-refoulement’ (Ullah 2014). Access to, and quality of

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protection have already been discussed. The third factor, the principle of non-refoulement is a very important pillar in international displacement management. It is stipulated in the 1951 UNHCR refugee convention and frequently considered to be ‘the cornerstone of international refugee law’. The guarantee of non-refoulement is regarded as the essence of refugee protection. According to the principle (Article 33 of the Refugee Convention), ‘no contracting state shall expel or return (“refouler” ) a refugee in any manner whatsoever to the frontiers of territories where his/her life or freedom would be threatened on account of his race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion’” (United Nations High Commission for Refugees [UNHCR] 1951). Boko Haram’s terrorist insurgence has been widely categorized as posing life-threatening risks to affected population based on their religion, membership of the Nigerian state, and their upholding of Nigeria’s constitutional tenets. The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) positioned the nature and intensity of Boko Haram’s armed violence, its protracted nature, and Boko Haram’s level of organization as an armed group, as attesting to the existence of a non-international armed conflict in northern Nigeria (United Nations General Assembly 2015). The International Committee of the Red Cross and the International Criminal Court (ICC) have also affirmed Boko Haram terrorist insurgence as an armed conflict between the Nigerian armed forces and armed groups since May 2013. Boko Haram has furthermore conducted operations and several attacks in Cameroon, Chad, and Niger bordering northern Nigeria. All these justify the postulation of Boko Haram as a conflict posing severe threats to people displaced therefrom. They also legitimize the invocation of international treaties and enactments on the conduct of responses to the insurgency and the management of its displacement situation. All parties to the conflict are for these reasons bound by the relevant rules of treaty and customary laws applicable to non-international armed conflicts. Asides from these, Cameroon, Chad, Niger, and Nigeria are parties to the Four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and Additional Protocol II which specifically protect the people who do not take part in hostilities during conflict situations such as civilians, displaced persons, aid workers, medics, the wounded, shipwrecked, and prisoners of war, guaranteeing their safety and enjoining on them humane treatment (International Committe of the Red Cross 2014). All 4 counties are also parties to the International Covenant on Civil

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and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Additionally, Niger and Nigeria are parties to the Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance. Based on the afore-mentioned international humanitarian commitments of Boko Haram affected countries, the treatment and continuous repatriation of refugees from Cameroon and Niger back to the Nigerian side of the Niger-Nigeria and Nigeria-Cameroon border was not anticipated, further dispelling any notions of African hospitality to neighbours or brothers in need. Cameroon commenced repatriation of Nigerian refugees in January 2015, and by August, 12,000 refugees were repatriated to Shahuda in Adamawa state (Daily Trust 2015). Another batch of 6,000 refugees were left at the Burnt Brick Factory, in Mubi, Adamawa state by Cameroonian authorities (Yusuf 2015). Nigerian dailies Vanguard and Daily Trust reported that before the commencement of the repatriation, Nigerian authorities made moves to get Cameroon to rescind its decision but to no avail (Daily Trust 2015; Yusuf 2015). Repartees interviewed explained that they “were transported for their 24-hour long journey in overcrowded trucks (about 150–200 people) used for transporting cows from Kusiri village in Cameroon, before being taken to the Nigerian border. They continued that a week to their deportation, the Cameroonian government ordered property owners in Kusiri to expel refugee tenants with immediate effect” (Daily Trust 2015). The refugees were then asked to move into a transit camp before they were crammed into the large trucks and brought to Nigeria (Daily Trust 2015). A returnee, Mallam Idrissa narrated that there was no prior knowledge or any communication as to where they were been moved to: ‘All of a sudden, the gendarmes will group you together and started ordering you to move towards waiting vehicles for movement to an unknown destination. After dropping a group of about 30 to 40 and they board the vehicles, the gendarmes will go for another group of people, not minding whether you or your colleagues have your little belongings and off you are thrown into the trucks’ (Yusuf 2015). Cameroonian soldiers also used physical violence, including beatings with sticks and metal poles, to force people to comply with forceful repatriations, and several allegations abound of Cameroon authorities failing to adequately register more

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than 70,000 refugees living outside the camps because they were unrecognized by the authorities (Mbiyozo 2017). Nigerian refugees arriving in Cameroon are “reportedly being ‘aggressively’ screened, accused of being members, or wives of members, of Boko Haram, tortured, and contained in remote locations away from UNHCR access” (Mbiyozo 2017). Many returnees also spoke about persecution, humiliation, deaths of refugees resulting from starvation and congestion, as well as harassment and extortion: ‘the citizens despised us, calling us all sorts of derogatory names. Some even referred to us as Boko Haram. It was a survival of the fittest. Refugee girls were not allowed to wear even headscarf due to a mischievous notion that they could carry bomb. I believed they just wanted to frustrate us to leave’ (Daily Trust 2015). It is believed that Cameroon authorities are doing all of these to “avoid complying with international law as without official recognition, migrants become easier to deport” (Mbiyozo 2017). By 2017, more than 100,000 Nigerian refugees had been repatriated from Cameroon on claims that “Nigerian refugees constitute a security and economic threat, and Nigeria is rich, has lots of room and should take care of its own people” (Mbiyozo 2017). The Nigerian authorities termed the returns a ‘dehumanization and unlawful repatriation’ of Nigerian refugees stating that the way refugees from Nigeria were threatened and returned was unacceptable and disturbing, totally against the norms and a violation of International Refuges Rights (Fulani 2015). Nigeria stated that no prior information on the specifics of the repatriation arrangement was made known to them (United Nations High Commission for Refugees [UNHCR] 2015b). Both the tripartite agreement on voluntary returns signed between Cameroon, Nigeria and the UNHCR in March 2017, as well as the public criticism of Cameroon by UNHCR in two published documents explaining the forced returns of Nigerians in May 2017 did not stop forceful repatriations. Even when the UNHCR insisted that it would not facilitate returns of Nigerian refugees because conditions in the northeast were not favourable for such returns, Cameroon and its displacement officials did not stop the repatriation of refugees, with all the illegalities of the process, and the retinue of international laws and diplomatic arrangements it contradicted. Cameroon was not the only country repatriating Nigerian refugees to the northeast where conditions were still life-threatening. On April 25, 2015, in a second attempt, Boko Haram seized the island of Karamga, Lake Chad, leading to a protracted battle with Nigerien soldiers (Reuters

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2015). As part of the response to the violence on Karamga, Niger’s government began to deport about 7,000 refugees and migrant workers back to Nigeria, with UNHCR confirming that these returns were inappropriate and put Nigerian refugees at risk (Stein 2015). The deportations added to a trend of repeated displacement for victims of Boko Haram, partly driven by the violence inside Niger itself but mostly encouraged by Nigerien government’s refusal to abide by humanitarian and diplomatic displacement and conflict laws. UNHCR called on the governments of Niger to suspend the repatriation warning that continued return would once again plunge the refugees into the heart of Nigeria’s brutal and ongoing conflict (United Nations High Commission for Refugees [UNHCR] 2015b), but this yielded no halt on repatriation. NEMA received the returnees in Yobe State and sent some to Sokoto, Kebbi, and other states, while 4,400 refugees were returned to Bornu (Stein 1986). As the returnees arrived back in Nigeria, the military were on the ground to ensure that none of them stepped out of the premises where they were been held as they were yet to be registered or profiled. With their status changing from refugee to returnee, forced repatriation marked a triple victimization for many displaced persons that had been affected by Boko Haram’s insurgence. Forced repatriation was a strain on Nigeria’s displacement management. Bringing back refugees to overcrowded and volatile areas in the northeast without the capacity to receive them placed enormous pressure on already constrained food, WASH, security, NFIs, and health facilities both in IDP camps and in host communities. International organizations scrambled to accommodate returnees. Security agents conducted screenings and personality profiling before allowing returnees to mingle with other IDPs, but this did not prevent mistrust of the new arrivals. Many returnees in the NYSC camp had to sleep outside the tents and buildings for days before they were allocated their own accommodation. Many families were separated in the process, with some not knowing if their missing family members were still in Cameroon or Niger. In these oscillating conditions, aid organizations argue that it is nearly impossible to plan development aid programs because, with such returns, a category of displaced persons will continuously need emergency relief. It was also tedious to maintain a database of displaced persons for displacement management programming because a lot of displaced persons had their status incessantly transmuting from IDP to refugee, to returnee, and in certain cases, back to refugee or IDP yet again.

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Many host countries involved attempted to justify defying international humanitarian treaties and reinforcing negative complications in Boko Haram’s displacement management. When Chad repatriated some refugees back to Nigeria, it was explained on the grounds of a need to carry out military operations against Boko Haram in the Lake Chad region as the group had been terrorizing the border town of Ngouboua (12 miles away from the Nigerian border) since February 2015. Baga Sola in the Lake Chad region was also attacked in October 2015, killing at least 30 people (BBC 2015). On the Nigerien side, at least 38 people were killed in Lamina and Ungumawo in the Diffa region (Haynes 2015). Niger and Chad because of these attacks announced that they were moving civilians out of the area to avoid civilian casualties when military action commenced. Cameroon on its part began repatriation following a series of suicide bomb attacks in 2015. Maroua town in Cameroon’s far north was attacked twice in July 2015, as well as Kerawa town. Cameroon reported that Boko Haram militants were either infiltrating border controls by disguising as refugees to carry out their attacks or recruiting refugees to aid their attacks (International Crisis Group 2016). These justifications however disguise more poignant issues affecting Boko Haram host countries which directly constrains their ability to offer the desired refuge and protection to Boko Haram’s displaced. Local populations in many host communities across Lake Chad borders are extremely poor and vulnerable. The Diffa region of Niger which absorbed over 100,000 Nigerian refugees into host communities has suffered droughts and floods consistently. This has interrupted farming activities, increased indebtedness of villagers, driven up acute malnutrition in adults and children, heightened poverty, and availability of basic and serviceable amenities. Being the region closest to Boko Haram’s terrorist insurgence, Diffa has also suffered trade disruptions, border closures, as well as disruptions to its regional livestock trade upon which a majority if its 590,000 population was dependent on (Thurston 2015). Apart from the humanitarian emergency, Diffa and Niger are also confronted with terrorist incursions from Boko Haram who were not only attacking the area but simultaneously paying young people to fight and gather intelligence (Fessy 2014). In 2015, Niger itself ranked 188 out of 188 countries in the Human Development Index, making it the poorest and least developed country in the world, and in the same year, 1.8 million people were adjudged to be food insecure throughout the country (World Food Program [WFP] 2017). The North of Cameroon, with its semi-arid,

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Sahelian desert climate is not any different. Many villagers in the border areas with Nigeria survive on small-scale farming and artisanship with little hope of assistance from a central government accused of abandoning the north for the more favoured south. When the borders with Nigeria were closed in February 2014, unemployment, food prices and social vices such as stealing increased, and the economy of the northern part of the country became strangulated. Cameroon is further weighed down by the influx of refugees from Central African Republic (CAR), Rwanda, and other refugees fleeing ethnic and other conflicts on the continent numbering about 240,000 as of August 2014 (United Nations High Commission for Refugees [UNHCR] 2015a). By November 2020, there were 608,000 persons of concern in Cameroon’s far north which included 115,000 Nigerian refugees and over 357,000 IDPs all displaced by Boko Haram related conflict (United Nations High Commission for Refugees [UNHCR] 2021). In the Lake Chad region, Chad, a country regarded as the 4th poorest in the world in 2015 is having its meagre resources strained between the country’s 13 million inhabitants and refugees that make up over 640,000 of that number, who arrived to seek asylum from the Central African Republic, Darfur, and Sudan (Vale 2016). All three countries are ineligible to cater to their own indigenous population, talk more of an added burden of refugees from Nigeria. As scarce resources increasingly became exhausted and Boko Haram turned towards them in desperate attacks, the simplest and painless option for host countries was to repatriate Nigerian refugee populations even though the source country was also ill-equipped to receive them. In such situations, the options open to host countries are limited. Local integration is difficult or close to impossible due to resource strain and the unmanageability of refugee numbers trooping in from Nigeria due to ongoing Boko Haram attacks. The probability that Boko Haram’s displacement will also be interminable prevented Nigeria’s neighbours from making permanent commitments regarding the displacement situation. Voluntary repatriation was another illogical option to host countries because no refugee would have been willing to return to Nigeria with continued Boko Haram hostilities, and the volatilities associated with counterinsurgency operations. Aid from international organizations and donor agencies may have encouraged the host countries to bear Nigeria’s refugee burdens. However, with numbers running into hundreds of thousands, with resources already severely constrained, and with social and political tensions already exacerbated by refugees’ presence, as was

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the case in Niger and Cameroon, opposition to local integration from both indigenous populations and political forces mandated that other options be more forcefully explored. Repatriations become less voluntary, and return of refugees commenced to Nigeria, which was ill-prepared, incapable, and less than anxious to receive them. The actions of Niger, Cameroon, and Chad typify Africa’s displacement landscape. Acting on the proven premise that refugee populations lead to strain on available resources of host countries, the notion of African hospitality, as well as international humanitarian ethics were trampled upon. More importantly, not wanting refugees on their soil and forcefully repatriating refugees back to conflict zones was also a reflection of these host countries’ displacement management competencies. However, refugee population if properly managed could lead to the economic and social development of host countries, as well as limit the efforts of the aid industries and international organizations in such countries. This is demonstrated in the ‘Yes in My Backyard (YIMBY)’ policy adopted for refugees living in Kakuma Refugee camp in Kenya’s Turkana district (Sanghi 2015). The camp established in 1992 hosts inhabitants fleeing from conflict in South Sudan, political crisis in Ethiopia, as well as civil war, famine, and drought in Somalia (The Sentinel Project 2021). The influx of refugees led to the emergence of a vibrant economy beneficial to the refugees in particular and the host community in general so much that when UNHCR commenced talks about closing Kakuma in the early 2000s as a result of the South Sudan peace agreement, there was an uproar among the host community who saw the camp as its main source employment, business opportunities, and commercial goods (Sanghi 2015). Refugees owned and operated electronic shops and restaurants that are serving not just refugees but also the host communities and even aid workers; host community traders were selling firewood to refugees, and local Turkanas were employed as household helps by refugees with means (Sanghi 2015). The interaction and relationship between refugee and the host country were not only economic but social and cultural, including intermarriages. Consequent to this, the focus of the aid industry in Kakuma was no longer humanitarian but developmental assistance geared towards building well-structured schools and hospitals at the edges of the camp and host community. This was deliberate so that the underprivileged host community residents could take advantage of the relatively high-quality schools and hospitals built for

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refugees. The schools established by aid agencies were of such high standards that Kenyans gave up their citizenship to register as refugees so their children could benefit from these education facilities (Voice of America [VOA] 2022). Such Kenyans became in essence ‘stateless’ in their own countries. Kakuma displays what host community/refugee relationship could be. Armed with the non-temporality of their situation (the camp had been open since 1992) and with a population of 185,000 as of 2015, refugees sought to reduce their overall vulnerability and dependency on aid, sharply contrasting the ‘not in my backyard’ (NIMBY) way of treating refugees that were displayed by Cameroon, Chad, and Niger against Nigerian refugees.

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Index

A Aid misappropriation, 13, 14, 122 Aid organizations, 10–12, 146, 148, 151, 152, 155–157, 162

146, 147, 150, 154, 157, 159, 162, 164, 165 Conflict management, 7, 11, 13 Counterterrorism, 48, 64, 65, 85

B Biafra civil war, 22 Boko Haram, 5, 7, 9–15, 19, 21, 22, 26, 28–31, 33–43, 47–60, 62–79, 85–93, 95, 98, 99, 112, 114–118, 120, 122, 124, 134–137, 143, 144, 146–155, 157, 159–164

D Displacement, 7, 9–11, 14, 15, 48, 85, 88–97, 109, 114, 118, 122, 124, 125, 128, 133–137, 139, 141–151, 153, 155–159, 161, 162, 164, 165 Displacement management, 89, 93, 96, 107, 118, 120, 134–137, 140–144, 146–148, 150–154, 156, 159, 162, 163, 165

C Camp management, 120, 127, 138, 141 Civil war, 7–13, 15, 22, 32, 47, 89, 134, 136, 147, 165 Colonialism, 3, 24, 25, 28 Conflict, 3–7, 12–15, 22, 27, 30, 41, 66, 117, 133, 134, 139, 144,

E Emergency management, 89, 143, 151 Extremism, 54, 57 F Foreign intervention, 13

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 M. Abdulazeez Malefakis, Humanitarian Displacement and Boko Haram in Nigeria, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99784-7

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174

INDEX

H Host communities, 15, 86–88, 90, 95, 106, 107, 109, 110, 114–118, 120, 123, 126, 127, 137, 142, 154, 162, 163, 165, 166 Humanitarian aid, 7, 9, 10, 12, 125, 134, 135, 143 Humanitarian crisis, 10, 14, 15, 144

N Nigeria, 1–9, 11–15, 19–28, 30–34, 36, 37, 40, 41, 43, 47–49, 51, 52, 60, 61, 65–67, 69–76, 78, 79, 85, 87–90, 93, 94, 97–99, 117, 120, 122, 124, 133–137, 141–144, 146, 147, 149–151, 155, 156, 158–165 Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), 13, 111, 113, 114, 123, 139, 140, 152, 153 Northern Nigeria, 2, 3, 6, 8, 19–25, 27–29, 31–33, 41, 42, 51, 61–63, 78, 127, 159

I IDP camp, 35, 85, 88–93, 98, 99, 101, 104–107, 111, 115–117, 119, 120, 124–126, 135, 153, 154, 157, 162 Insurgency, 5, 11, 13, 22, 29–31, 36, 37, 47, 48, 59, 66, 71, 73, 76, 77, 79, 88–90, 95, 99, 106, 117, 118, 120, 126, 133, 144, 159 Internally displaced persons (IDPs), 15, 48, 88–90, 93–97, 99, 107, 109, 110, 115–118, 120, 123–128, 133, 135, 136, 142, 143, 145, 150, 151, 154, 155, 162, 164 International organizations, 89, 95, 96, 111, 118, 120, 134, 138, 145, 147, 150, 152, 162, 164, 165 Islam, 21–23, 25–29, 31, 48, 49, 51–58, 60, 68

R Radicalism, 36, 53, 60 Refugees, 48, 88, 89, 91, 92, 94, 95, 98, 99, 115, 133, 137–140, 145, 147–150, 157–166 Relief organizations, 13 Religion, 3, 4, 6, 21–23, 27, 28, 38, 53, 55, 57, 61, 149, 159 Religious fundamentalism, 22 Repatriation, 88, 142, 160–165 Returnees, 94, 99, 106, 115, 123, 125, 160–162

L Lake Chad Basin, 32, 73, 74, 76, 89

W West Africa, 76

T Terrorism, 22, 43, 54, 57, 58, 69, 73, 133, 136, 143