COINs & Nigeria (Part I)

COINs & Nigeria

May, 2013

When I tell people that I started my trip this summer in Nigeria, I’m met with a mix of reactions. Some people express jealousy at my having had the opportunity but most people express disbelief and concern that I was given permission and took the opportunity to visit the strife ridden country. And given the news coming out of Nigeria, I can understand this. Today’s Google news hits for the search term ‘Nigeria,’ barring sports and Big Brother news, turns up the following dismal headlines: “Nigerian army says kills 150 insurgents, loses 16 troops,” Archbishop Ignatius Kattey freed by Nigerian kidnappers,” and “Nigeria's Boko Haram unrest: Scores killed in Borno state.”

This May, three states within Nigeria, Borno Yobe and Adamawa, were declared to be in a state of emergency by President Goodluck Jonathon and in June, were added to the United State’s ‘Do Not Travel’ list, around when I left Nigeria. Two years ago, almost to the day I left South Africa to come home, the United Nations building in Abuja, where I spent most of my time, was bombed, killing at least 21 people. In March 2012, 12 public schools were set ablaze during the night, robbing 10,000 students of their education. Almost weekly since 2011, bombs go off in churches, schools or police stations in northeastern Nigeria.

The perpetrators of these attacks are a group known as Boko Haram, whose insurgency has killed an estimated 3,600 people since 2009 when their militant activities began after operating peacefully for a number of years prior. Little is known for sure about Boko Haram, their intentions and their membership. They are infamous for their persistent and bloody attacks in northern Nigeria and claim to be fighting against corrupt, false and irredeemable Muslims who they accuse of having corrupted the country. They claim to be fighting for a “pure” sharia law run northern Nigeria. The attack on the United Nations was an outlier on the group’s normal hit list, which focuses on soft targets like schools, churches and police stations. A public outcry forced the President Goodluck to launch an offensive against the group that has been characterized by a lack of access to the media resulting in a near media blackout, by military reports of “successes” and by brutal and counterproductive raids of Boko Haram camps and villages. Extrajudicial executions have bred fear among ordinary people living in Boko Haram strongholds and have pushed people to support the organization even as they continue to carry out bloody attacks.

The ‘war’ waged by and against Boko Haram is sadly not the only outbreak of conflict that Nigeria has seen recently. Plateau state has seen outbreaks of bloody clashes since democracy in 1999, riots have broken out in the urban centers of Kaduna and Kano, for decades there was conflict in Bauchi and, the oil-rich Niger Delta has been the stage for ongoing conflict for years. And of course, nobody can forget Nigerian-Biafran War. ‘Experts’ in the media often reduce these conflicts down to religious battles between the Muslim and Christian populations that reside side-by-side in Nigeria. A closer examination, however, reveals intense and high-stakes fights for control over different parts of the government. Violence can often be traced to one group seizing control of an element of the government over other groups in the ethnically diverse country. Given the system of patronage, control over the government means control over much of the resources.

Conflict happens for a reason. Only desperate people commit acts of heinous violence or protect the perpetrators, like what we are seeing in the news coming from Nigeria. Poverty, a sense of terrible injustice and great inequality can lead to the despair that will make people turn to organizations like Boko Haram. What the USA should have learned about efficient and humane counterinsurgency in Afghanistan, the Nigerian government should learn now in Nigeria. It isn’t about going into destitute villages and rooting out insurgents at the expense of the “hearts and minds” of the local population. Violence, no matter how swift and effective, will, at best, do nothing (to a certain extent, there’s always someone to replace that insurgent you’ve just killed) and, at worst, exacerbate an already tragic and violent situation, as we are seeing now. Instead, answers need to come by looking at what is driving the violence. I do not believe that anywhere near the majority of people who provide cover for Boko Haram want what Boko Haram claims to be fighting for. We need to begin addressing the real issues that are fueling conflict – ranging from corrupt government policies, high levels of inequality, rampant poverty and a lack of hope among the people.

An insurgency is, by definition, “an organized rebellion aimed at overthrowing a constituted government through the use of subversion and armed conflict.” Counterinsurgency (COIN) is then the type of nonconventional warfare that aims to combat an insurgency. Traditionally, COIN comes in two flavors: enemy-centric and population-centric. Briefly, enemy-centric COIN is only a shade different from convention warfare and focuses on combating the enemy and worrying about the ‘other stuff’ later. Population-centric COIN focuses on control over the population and environment involved. Modern COIN often falls somewhere in between, employing a little of both with an emphasis on “reading the insurgency.” What defines COIN against conventional warfare is not just the type of enemy but also the type of response. An insurgency is (usually) not looking to expel an organized army or invade a distant country for resources. It seeks to overthrow and replace an existing government by subverting existing institutions and turning the population over to their side. Counterinsurgency, therefore, needs to eradicate this enemy while maintaining control over the population. One of the major challenges of counterinsurgency is differentiating between the enemy and the population and knowing who to target with what kinds of offensive tactics.

Counterinsurgency, like insurgency, also isn’t a new. It has a colonial past, dating back to the 1ate 1840’s and the French in North Africa. But my interest doesn’t lie in its past so much as it does in its post colonial future and what is considered by some to be the “counter-insurgency era”.

Counterinsurgencies today are taking place all over the world – though many governments refuse to use the word because of its connotation and linkages to a long, arduous, “boots on the ground” battle. Afghanistan and Iraq aside, we are witnessing insurgencies in places like Syria, Mali, Somalia, the Philippines and most recently in Egypt. I would also argue that what we are seeing in northern Nigeria is in fact an insurgency and therefore what needs to happen there, and what is not happening there now, is a counterinsurgency technique.

While well read, I am not fluent in counterinsurgency and I don’t know exactly what a counterinsurgency should look like in Nigeria. But I feel confident in saying that what is going on now and the tactics employed by the Nigerian army are not in line with what should be going on. Working with, not against, the population, building up reliable and efficient institutions, working to alleviate poverty and other underlying causes of discontent and finally, ending the senseless violence against the population would be one place to start. The Nigerian government needs to rethink its strategy against Boko Haram quickly before we see an escalation and spread of the violence.

This isn’t an easy task. But its also the only sustainable solution to a conflict that has already taken too many lives. I want to go back to Nigeria, soon. I want to be able to visit the north without an armed guard. And I don’t think the current trajectory will enable that.

This is arguably one of the more political, if not even controversial, pieces I have posted on my blog. I implore you, if you’re reading this and you disagree to write a comment challenging me. If you prefer privacy, email me. This is a topic that I feel strongly about and I welcome a conversation about it.

As mentioned, this is also Part I of this topic. I look forward to some (more) feedback before I proceed to begin to draft Part II, which will be much more focused on COIN in Nigeria specifically.

If this is your first time here, check out my Introduction to the Blog and Introduction to Africa.