By JEAN HERSKOVITS

Published: January 02, 2012



GOVERNMENTS and newspapers around the world attributed the horrific Christmas Day bombings of churches in Nigeria to "Boko Haram" - a shadowy group that is routinely described as an extremist Islamist organization based in the northeast corner of Nigeria. Indeed, since the May inauguration of President Goodluck Jonathan, a Christian from the Niger Delta in the country's south, Boko Haram has been blamed for virtually every outbreak of violence in Nigeria.But the news media and American policy makers are chasing an elusive and ill-defined threat; there is no proof that a well-organized, ideologically coherent terrorist group called Boko Haram even exists today. Evidence suggests instead that, while the original core of the group remains active, criminal gangs have adopted the name Boko Haram to claim responsibility for attacks when it suits them.The United States must not be drawn into a Nigerian "war on terror" - rhetorical or real - that would make us appear biased toward a Christian president. Getting involved in an escalating sectarian conflict that threatens the country's unity could turn Nigerian Muslims against America without addressing any of the underlying problems that are fueling instability and sectarian strife in Nigeria.Since August, when Gen. Carter F. Ham, the commander of the United States Africa Command, warned that Boko Haram had links to Al Qaeda affiliates, the perceived threat has grown. Shortly after General Ham's warning, the United Nations' headquarters in Abuja was bombed, and simplistic explanations blaming Boko Haram for Nigeria's mounting security crisis became routine. Someone who claims to be a spokesman for Boko Haram - with a name no one recognizes and whom no one has been able to identify or meet with - has issued threats and statements claiming responsibility for attacks. Remarkably, the Nigerian government and the international news media have simply accepted what he says.
In late November, a subcommittee of the House Committee on Homeland Security issued a report with the provocative title: "Boko Haram: Emerging Threat to the U.S. Homeland." The report makes no such case, but nevertheless proposes that the organization be added to America's list of foreign terrorist organizations. The State Department's Africa bureau disagrees, but pressure from Congress and several government agencies is mounting.Boko Haram began in 2002 as a peaceful Islamic splinter group. Then politicians began exploiting it for electoral purposes. But it was not until 2009 that Boko Haram turned to violence, especially after its leader, a young Muslim cleric named Mohammed Yusuf, was killed while in police custody. Video footage of Mr. Yusuf's interrogation soon went viral, but no one was tried and punished for the crime. Seeking revenge, Boko Haram targeted the police, the military and local politicians - all of them Muslims.It was clear in 2009, as it is now, that the root cause of violence and anger in both the north and south of Nigeria is endemic poverty and hopelessness. Influential Nigerians from Maiduguri, where Boko Haram is centered, pleaded with Mr. Jonathan's government in June and July not to respond to Boko Haram with force alone. Likewise, the American ambassador, Terence P. McCulley, has emphasized, both privately and publicly, that the government must address socio-economic deprivation, which is most severe in the north. No one seems to be listening.Instead, approximately 25 percent of Nigeria's budget for 2012 is allocated for security, even though the military and police routinely respond to attacks with indiscriminate force and killing. Indeed, according to many Nigerians I've talked to from the northeast, the army is more feared than Boko Haram.
Meanwhile, Boko Haram has evolved into a franchise that includes criminal groups claiming its identity. Revealingly, Nigeria's State Security Services issued a statement on Nov. 30, identifying members of four "criminal syndicates" that send threatening text messages in the name of Boko Haram. Southern Nigerians - not northern Muslims - ran three of these four syndicates, including the one that led the American Embassy and other foreign missions to issue warnings that emptied Abuja's high-end hotels. And last week, the security services arrested a Christian southerner wearing northern Muslim garb as he set fire to a church in the Niger Delta. In Nigeria, religious terrorism is not always what it seems.None of this excuses Boko Haram's killing of innocents. But it does raise questions about a rush to judgment that obscures Nigeria's complex reality.Many Nigerians already believe that the United States unconditionally supports Mr. Jonathan's government, despite its failings. They believe this because Washington praised the April elections that international observers found credible, but that many Nigerians, especially in the north, did not. Likewise, Washington's financial support for Nigeria's security forces, despite their documented human rights abuses, further inflames Muslim Nigerians in the north.Mr. Jonathan's recent actions have not helped matters. He told Nigerians last week, "The issue of bombing is one of the burdens we must live with." On New Year's Eve, he declared a state of emergency in parts of four northern states, leading to increased military activity there. And on New Year's Day, he removed a subsidy on petroleum products, more than doubling the price of fuel. In a country where 90 percent of the population lives on $2 or less a day, anger is rising nationwide as the costs of transport and food increase dramatically.
Since Nigeria's return to civilian rule in 1999, many politicians have used ethnic and regional differences and, most disastrously, religion for their own purposes. Northern Muslims - indeed, all Nigerians - are desperate for a government that responds to their most basic needs: personal security and hope for improvement in their lives. They are outraged over government policies and expenditures that undermine both.The United States should not allow itself to be drawn into this quicksand by focusing on Boko Haram alone. Washington is already seen by many northern Muslims - including a large number of longtime admirers of America - as biased toward a Christian president from the south. The United States must work to avoid a self-fulfilling prophecy that makes us into their enemy. Placing Boko Haram on the foreign terrorist list would cement such views and make more Nigerians fear and distrust America.

Jean Herskovits, a professor of history at the State University of New York, Purchase, has written on Nigerian politics since 1970.

Source: http://mobile.nytimes.com/article?a=888812&f=28&p=0

This article is reflective of a man viewing the nigerian situation from an obtuse angle. Boko Haram is an Islamic sect like so many before it. the only concern that exit with Boko Haram is the introduction of suicide bombimg to the Nigerian scene. The activities of Boko Haram has been principally in the northern part of the country where Christians an dstate agencies have been the target just like Mai tasine sect and others before it.

It is possible that other criminal gangs may be using the name to carry out their own actions but this actions do not amount to any substancial digression from the actions of Boko Haram.

Let me elighting you a little on some of the activities of Boko Haram before 2009. The group which you rightly pointed out began about the year 2002. A breakaway faction led by led by Aminu Tashen Ilimi and one other person nicknamed Mullah Umar set up a base outside Kanamma, a village in Yobe state, located on the border of Nigeria and Niger Republic. The group was said to have named their base Afghanistan. They wanted it as an independent state with its own government, territorial boundaries and people who identify with their ideologies.

In January 2004, they attacked a police station close to Kananma and another in Damaturu, carting away police arms and ammunitions. An action to which the federal government responded by sending military troops to confront them.

After two days of fierce battle, dozens of them were said to have been killed and 50 were arrested, while the rest fled and went underground. Some soldiers might have been killed also, but the military did not disclose the number of casualties. In September of the same year, another group, suspected to be linked to the sect, attacked the divisional police headquarters in Bama local government area of Borno state, killed some policemen including an assistant commissioner, and destroyed the station. The group also laid similar ambush on the divisional police headquarters in Gwoza local government, destroyed some properties and, carting away arms, moved to the Mandara hills in the local government.

The federal government responded by deploying soldiers. After two days of battle on the hills, 28 members of the group were killed while others fled. Later, security men in Cameroon arrested five members of the sect and handed over to the Nigerian government.

For three years, the sect went underground until, in May 2007, they re-appeared in Kano state shortly after the April elections, and attacked the Sharada office of the Federal Roads Safety Commission (FRSC), killing two officers on night duty. Within the same week, they were said to have attacked Panshekara police station, killing 11 policemen, including a DPO, and carted away arms. They were said to have later camped at an abandoned water works were they were again engaged by the military after another two days fight. Some were killed while others crossed River Kano and fled.

In between these attacks, Malam Muhammad Yusuf was severally arrested and questioned, mostly by the State Security Service (SSS), on charges of linkage to the group. Repeatedly, he said they were his breakaway disciples who were responsible for their own actions. Not long ago, he was acquitted by the courts for lack of evidence.

The group again went under ground. Muhammad Yusuf continued his teaching and preaching. Yusuf, according to some accounts, was not quite militant but somewhat liberal. He, it was believed, was a man who assembled a group that he could not control and, to remain in charge, he had to dance to the tunes of some key subordinates.

While mistakes have been made by security agencies in tackling Boko Haram, the group must not be underestimated because of its several splinter groups and decentralised leadership. Boko Haram is a cancer that must be carefully and surgically dealt with or the north is not the whole of Nigeria will pay dearly for it.