Nigeria's Boko Haram attacks are misunderstood as regional Islamist threat

As in much of West Africa, governance in Nigeria was for decades characterized by the predatory rapaciousness of governing elites and incomplete institutional development plaguing everything from rule of law to social services. Political competition often centered on getting access to the state to control natural resources, including oil. Governance has been based around tribal, clan, or family loyalties.

More than 10 years after the dictatorship of Gen. Sani Abacha ended, the attitude that government positions are a means to enrich oneself and one’s patronage network rather than a service to the overall Nigerian polity has been only slowly changing in Nigeria.

Parochial interests and loyalties also dominate jihadi cooperation across the region. Although AQIM, Al Shabaab, and Boko Haram may communicate over the same jihadi web pages and copy each other’s tactics, their global proclamations often clash with their local interests and necessities.

How successfully outside terrorist groups navigate new geographic territories depends on their understanding of local culture and the complex relationships between politicians, unofficial powerbrokers, and (il)legal economic networks.

Crucially, their success “out of area” also depends on sensitivity to the social constraints and entanglements of their local affiliates.

For example, until the emergence of Al Shabaab in Somalia, Al Qaeda Core in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region  struggled to establish a base there and found the Somali clan rivalries to be maddeningly confounding and not conducive to global jihad. Al Shabaab’s recent troubles have come precisely from its military and social overreach.

Instead of reflexively portraying Boko Haram as a new Al Qaeda affiliate of a monolithic global jihad, US counterterrorism policy needs a more nuanced approach. It should exploit the natural rivalries and misunderstandings among the various terrorist groups. And it should avoid inadvertently driving the often competing and fractious actors together.

The United States must also be cautious when considering training security forces in West Africa. Some governments there can view counterterrorism and counternarcotics aid as yet another form of rent to be exploited for power and profit maximization – as they often viewed anti-communism aid. Instead of effectively countering terrorism, such aid may undermine institutional development and accountable governance.

Nigeria must move beyond the blunt use of lethal force by improving intelligence-gathering and building healthier civil-military relations. Sending tanks to the streets and declaring a state of emergency, as President Jonathan Goodluck did a few days ago, may appease the angry public, but it is not an effective counterterrorism policy.

The United States must encourage the Nigerian government to address the political, economic, and religious insecurities that give resonance to Boko Haram’s ideology.

Finally, the Nigerian government must also empower and protect the many moderate Islamic leaders in the north who have stood up against Boko Haram even while facing assassinations. Ultimately, the real solutions to the Boko Haram menace are local.
 
Vanda Felbab-Brown is a fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC and James J.F. Forest is associate professor at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell.

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