BOKO HARAM: CHALLENGING THE IDEOLOGY

The recent blood gush in Baga and the accelerated gun fights in Yobe and some parts of Borno states, tied to the ever persistent sore on the Nigeria scenery, Boko Haram, demonstrates today's persistent terror threat is far from over.

It’s no longer news the world and especially democracies face an equally serious threat from home-grown terrorists. In the past two weeks, the US has been agog with the capture with the Boston bomber and the subsequent investigation of the motives behind the attacks. A close ally and relative of the US, Canada was much ‘luckier’, in that they were able to foil the attempt of a terror attack targeted on its rail system. The UK has faced such similar threats in the past and its European neighbors have not been free of the menace. Spain, France, Germany in the last 5 years has reported situations which had to do with terrorism on their soils. Some parts of Asia and the Middle East have been the hotbed of terrorist activities over the years and the situation seems to remain unabated.
Indictments for terrorists, persons providing financial support and recruits to terror cells have been ongoing in various countries. In one of such indictments, US Attorney-General Eric Holder in 2010 highlighted the sharp increase in home-grown radicalization: "We are seeing an increasing number of individuals -- including US citizens -- who have become captivated by extremist ideology and have taken steps to carry out terrorist objectives, either at home or abroad." The same is true of Nigeria, only that this present administration call the extremists “ghosts”, and we had to wait for an indictment and conviction of a terror suspect, Henry Okah in faraway South Africa. The trials of some suspects are still ongoing in Nigeria, even though some critics say it’s at a snail’s speed, I believe we would get at least one sentenced soon.

Admirably, the Obama administration's national security strategy explicitly lists as one of its goals "empowering communities to counter radicalization," and there is no doubt the same principle is been thoughtlessly pushed by the Jonathan’s camp, without bearing in mind the gap in development and national consciousness. But without identifying the ideology driving radicalization, it will be difficult to build community resilience against these insurgents’. There is no standardized explanation that can account for every case of radicalization. Yet it is clear that improved integration of communities who perceive that they are being “marginalized” and a greater sense of national social cohesion are essential to redressing local grievances and can lower the susceptibility of these communities.

At the same time, it is necessary to challenge and defeat the extremist ideology being peddled by these insurgents: our ultimate adversaries are not those already radicalized but their extremist ideology that propels individuals to wage violent attacks against the state. Many respected Islamic clerics have often said that “the ideology being espoused -- radical Islamism -- is an extremist sociopolitical ideology separate from the religion of Islam.” Now the failure to recognize its influence as a key driver that seeks to frame, motivate and justify violent extremism hampers efforts to intervene early in the radicalization process, of which the Nigeria government and community are all guilty of.
Since the inception of the first Boko Haram attacks, efforts by the Nigerian government to counter their radical beliefs of Islamism and the resultant attacks have included varied pleas for community engagement, counter-attacks and tactical counter-terrorism initiatives. Of recent, programs have been expanded to advance global engagement (the Mali intervention) and strategic communication abroad, and community engagement. At the other end of the spectrum, counter-terrorism officials in the Department of State Security Services have concentrated not only on preventing plots from being hatched but on developing fissures among Boko Haram, affiliated terror groups, their supporters and sympathizers.

Even though these strategies have brought little relief, the efforts have indeed borne fruit and the SSS and other collaborating security agencies are to be praised. Yet on their own they fall short. Engagement and counter-terrorism are critical, but the wide space between them must be addressed. Missing are policies and programs that contest the extremist narrative of these insurgents, empower and network mainstream voices already countering extremism, promote the free exchange of ideas and publicly challenge extremist voices and ideas.

Quite a handful of experts in counter terrorism have said that the reason for this gap is the government and other prominent citizen's discomfort with admitting the connection between today's terrorist threat and radical Islamism. Effectively contesting violent extremism requires countering the radical Islamist narrative. This does not mean banning despicable -- but protected -- speech; rather, it means offering alternative narratives and fostering meaningful ideological debate to strengthen the moderate Muslim center in the face of the Islamist threat.

The Nigerian government must complement the new national security strategy with a systemic, whole-of-government approach to countering violent extremism. Government security agencies presently involved in countering violent extremism do not note systemic failures so much as the lack of a coherent policy. Without clear directives instructing the inter-agency how to distribute resources and co-ordinate aspects of the mission, individual and office-wide efforts are improvised. As a result, an inconsistent and haphazard approach to the force underlying today's terrorist threat is all but guaranteed.

For instance, the aftermath of the nearly successful Christmas Day bombing on a Delta airplane in 2010, the United States admitted that they focused almost exclusively on the wrong questions. They later averred that “while it is important to learn how Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab got on the plane, it would be far more instructive if we understood why a young, wealthy, Western-educated Nigerian abandoned wealth, education and opportunity to wage violent jihad.” It is this ideology the US has developed and has since been providing desired results. It is therefore without doubt that Counter-radicalisation is an essential complement to counterterrorism, but we do the latter relatively well, but the former we barely do at all. The result: an absolute “silence” of indigenes in Boko Haram infested states, of which Baga community paid the ultimate prize of death.

Their ideology has to be attacked first not their acts. It is because of this shortcoming the Boko Haram have rejected the amnesty extended to them, rather they are of the view they are the one that should be granting amnesty to the Nigerian government, and by extension Nigerians. This shows that they see nothing wrong in their approach towards establishing their belief. The same is true of other extremists in all parts of the world. A notable reference was displayed in Pakistan, where an alleged terrorist
shouted as he was drag into a Pakistani courtroom, "We are not terrorists. We are jihadists and jihad is not terrorism."

All elements of national power should be used to counter this narrative and debunk the notion that Muslims have a religious duty to commit acts of terror. There are no guarantees that if the Nigerian government had been fully engaged in this effort since Boko Haram came on stage the amount of recruits and invariably potential suicide bombers would have been reduced. However, unless we accelerate and expand our efforts, we can be assured that others will follow in their footsteps