Boko Haram: The Mystery Solved

[jchima]

Karl Marx’s thesis that economic conditions determine the basis of existence is yet to be proved wrong. It is one tool I always apply in the course of discovering the real motives behind what people say or do. But I must confess that unravelling “Boko Haram”, which many now call insurgency in the north, has put this scientific method in doubt for the past five years.

Somebody solved the riddle on Wednesday: former Senate president and former minister Dr Iyorchia Ayu. In brief, this is what Ayu said at the 5th Convocation Lecture of the Adekunle Ajasin University:



The oil wealth beneath the Chad Basin is fanning the embers of insurgency in the country because prominent businessmen and politicians in both Nigeria and Chad, in association with French companies, have invested heavily in oil exploration and exploitation. They are the principal financiers of, and arms suppliers to, Boko Haram. The group’s destabilisation of the north-eastern part of Nigeria benefits these investors because it delays exploration and production on the Nigerian side of Lake Chad.

The Lake Chad Basin is estimated to have a reserve of 2.32billion barrels of oil, and 14.65trillion cubic feet of natural gas. The oil and gas flows underground across the countries sharing the Lake Chad Basin: Nigeria, Chad, Niger and Cameroun. Using 3D drilling, Chad is not only tapping oil within its territory but also from Nigeria, to push up its production levels.

Boko Haram is made up of Nigerians and a large number of Chadians from the Chadian provinces of Lac and Hadjer Lamis – provinces that share a long border with north-eastern Nigeria around the Lake Chad region and provide Boko Haram with trained Chadian fighters.

The drying up of Lake Chad, once the largest water body in Africa, is affecting the economic and social life of over 30 million people in the four countries around the lake. This has resulted in the migration of many farmers and herdsmen as well as engineered local conflicts between Camerounian and Nigerian nationals; fishermen are fighting farmers and herdsmen to stop diverting water from the lake to their farms and livestock.

The disappearance of Lake Chad and subsidiary rivers has also created a large population of unemployed and discontented youth who have become a reserve army easily available for recruitment by the insurgents.

So far, Boko Haram has not attacked any territory in Chad but has a cluster of bases in Chad from where it launches its terrorist activities in Nigeria. President Idris Deby of Chad is said to have cordial relations with the insurgents.

The accuracy of Ayu’s postulation could be doubted only by fools. Many of us have often pointed fingers at politicians as those behind terrorism in the country. But Ayu has mentioned the type of politicians – those with economic interests to protect. Therefore, Boko Haram is not sponsored by anyone aspiring to be the president of Nigeria. It is not backed by the PDP or the APC. Also, Boko Haram has nothing to do with Islam or Christianity, north or south. Neither is it a crusade against western education.
Source: Boko Haram The Mystery Solved - eReporter

 

[Daniyel]

Such a mystery.

 

[waltky]

America funding fight against Boko Haram...

U.S. directs up to $45 million to support countries fighting Boko Haram
Thu Sep 24, 2015 - The White House said on Thursday that it would send up to $45 million in defense services, including military training, to support African countries in their efforts to defeat the militant Islamist group Boko Haram.

Niger soldiers provide security for an anti-Boko Haram summit in Diffa city, Niger

Benin, Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria will receive support that builds on the training and military equipment the United States has already supplied in the fight against the group, White House National Security Council spokesman Ned Price said in a statement.

U.S. directs up to $45 million to support countries fighting Boko Haram | Reuters

 

[waltky]

How Boko Haram treats it's women...

How Boko Haram trains abducted women, girls to be suicide bombers
Friday, April 8, 2016 — Hold the bomb under your armpit to keep it steady, the women and girls were taught. Sever your enemy's head from behind, to minimize struggling. "If you cut from the back of the neck, they die faster," said Rahila Amos, a Nigerian grandmother describing the meticulous instruction she received from Boko Haram to become a suicide bomber.

Of all the many horrors of Boko Haram's rampage across West Africa — the attacks on mosques, churches and schools; the mass killings of civilians; the entire villages left in ashes after militants tear through — one of the most baffling has been its ability to turn captured women and girls into killers. Boko Haram, one of the world's deadliest extremist groups, has used at least 105 women and girls in suicide attacks since June 2014, when a woman set off a bomb at an army barracks in Nigeria, according to the Long War Journal, which tracks terrorist activity.

Since then, women and girls, often with bombs hidden in baskets or under their clothes, have killed hundreds of people in attacks on fish and vegetable markets, schools, a river dock and even camps for people who fled their homes to escape the violence. "This isn't something you can defeat or eradicate outright," said Issa Tchiroma Bakary, the minister of communications in Cameroon, where 22 female suicide bombers were identified since the start of this year. "You don't know who is who. When you see a young girl moving toward you, you don't know if she's hiding a bomb."

Soldiers cannot open fire on every woman or girl who looks suspicious, he added. "They know where we have the Achilles' heel," Bakary said of Boko Haram. Boko Haram's abuse of women first shocked the world two years ago, when it stormed a school in Nigeria and fled with about 300 girls, many of whom were never found. Hundreds of other women and girls have been abducted, imprisoned, raped and sometimes intentionally impregnated, perhaps with the goal of creating a new generation of fighters.

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See also:

'We don't want them.' Boko Haram women captives spurned on return home
April 7, 2016 — After three months of sexual abuse, Jummai Usman managed to escape the clutches of the Islamist terrorist group Boko Haram. But when she returned to her village of Bama last year, her loved ones shunned her.

"I was treated as if I was also Boko Haram," said Usman, 45, a mother of eight who now lives in a refugee camp here. "My relations, friends and neighbors were suspicious of me. I didn’t like the way people treated me back there, like they were suspecting I could lead the insurgents back to attack them. So I left." Usman's plight is increasingly common in Nigeria, according to a recent report by UNICEF and International Alert, a London-based charity that works to prevent violent conflict around the world. More than 2,000 women and girls abducted by Boko Haram since 2012 face mistrust and persecution when they eventually return home, the report found.

In its best known abduction, Boko Haram seized more than 200 girls two years ago from a school in Chibok. Most are still missing. "These findings show a pressing need to do more to re-integrate those returning from captivity by Boko Haram," said Kimairis Toogood, International Alert's adviser in Nigeria. "Many of these girls already face lasting trauma of sexual violence and being separated from their families, so we must ensure they get all the support they need when they finally return."

A Nigerian solider stands in front of the remains of the Government Girls Secondary School Chibok in Nigeria on March 25, 2016. Boko Haram kidnapped 276 teenagers from the school nearly two years ago, and most remain missing.​

The United Nations is appealing to the Nigerian government to help people like Usman reintegrate into society. "Issues of recovery and rehabilitation are very important. The future of Nigeria is at risk," warned Maud de Boer-Buquicchio, the U.N.’s envoy on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography.

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