A nation at war (3)

Aliyu Musa

Epidemiologists have argued that conflict can be treated like an epidemic or a disease that potentially spreads with the active support of human agents and an enabling environment. Last week I mentioned three factors that specifically make violent conflicts endure and spread: host, agent and environment.

In a lecture a fortnight ago at the University of South Florida I explained the intrinsic interconnectedness of these three factors and how this could make the Boko Haram insurgence difficult to conclusively defeat, even though the insurgents now appear to beat a hasty retreat, as it were.

Looking back at the emergence of the sect itself one could argue that the environment has played a substantial role in this, particularly due to the harsh realities. The main incentive, possibly for those who swelled the ranks of the insurgents, was a bid to escape from reality. And that reality was (and still is) poverty.

Many of those who were initially duped by Muhammad Ali into signing up had been carefully assessed and found to be vulnerable either due to this poverty factor or greed (in the case of leaders like Muhammad Yusuf). When Yusuf, eventually, became the sect’s leader he also took advantage of the vulnerability of his ever attentive and faithful listeners that congregated in large numbers to listen to his sermons.

It was always easy for that escape to be fathomed out of the lectures Yusuf charismatically delivered. But in reality the lectures were meant to serve the selfish interests of a few, just like the corrupt ‘yan boko the sect claimed to direct its venom at.

But the enabling conditions are so vast and susceptible that the environment easily plays host to the violence, albeit through gradual but determined processes. In 2009 Mali, Algeria, Mauritania and the north of Cameroon were so effortlessly accessible to scampering insurgents that the distressed fighters dissolved with such speed that everyone thought that the last of them had been had. But history has since proven us all wrong.

Acting as active agents, Boko Haram insurgents have a clear agenda and to achieve this they deliberately manipulate other factors, including the fragility of the environment that hosts the conflict or is considered a potential host. Again, this explains why they easily melt into civilian population in Nigeria and across the Sahel.

That they have retreated without putting up any spirited fight should mean they have an alternative strategy they hope to fall back on and hit back when least expected to. Thus, the seeming victory of our soldiers in Hausari Camp and other places the insurgents once effectively occupied should be treated with caution because there are several causal mechanisms to upturn the situation.

Across the Sahel Boko Haram fighters are able to get help from insurgents that are able and willing to lend them such. For example there were reports of cooperation between them and the insurgents in Mali, where expertise and weapons were generously shared. It was similarly in that spirit that kidnappings were carried out or bombs set off and followed by demands on behalf of a group operating in one place by another sect, operating in a different environment.

But the most disturbing causal mechanism is the porous state of Nigeria’s borders as well as those of neighbouring countries, the Sahel region inclusive. This means there will be free flow of weapons and mass movements of people and others factors that are capable of keeping the insurgence alive.

Following the French-led, although not entirely altruistic, military operation in Mali earlier in the year Niger turned host to the insurgents that were making a great escape from Mali. Last month MUJAO, originally operating in Mali, owned up two suicide bomb attacks on the country’s military and a French-owned uranium mine.

The most important question Nigeria’s political and military leaders should be asking now is what has happened to the bulk of Boko Haram fighters? We know too well that only a fraction of the sect’s numerical strength has been either decimated or captured. So, where have the rest fighters disappeared?

The answer is not too far from the obvious. Any of the fragile neighbouring countries could be playing host to them even inadvertently. And before long they might be in the right position to pull yet another surprise unless they are, themselves, taken unawares and the environment is made less conducive for them or the conflict to be hosted or spread.