Since 2009, Nigeria has been engaged in a fight to contain the terrorist organisation Boko Haram. The country is now threatened by the Islamic Movement of Nigeria in a conflict that has killed six times more Nigerians than Boko Haram did in the same period. Nigeria, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria is a country between…
Since 2009, Nigeria has been engaged in a fight to contain the terrorist organisation Boko Haram. The country is now threatened by the Islamic Movement of Nigeria in a conflict that has killed six times more Nigerians than Boko Haram did in the same period.
Background
Nigeria, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria is a country between Central and West Africa. It is often referred to as the “giant of Africa” owing to its large population and economy; with 186 million inhabitants, Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa and the seventh most populous country in the world. Nigeria is divided roughly in half between Christians, who live mostly in the southern part of the country, and Muslims, who live mostly in the north. A minority of the population practice religions indigenous to Nigeria. It overtook South Africa to become Africa’s largest economy in 2014 and has also been identified as an emerging global power. However, it currently has a “low” Human Development Index, ranking 152nd in the world.
Boko Haram is a jihadist militant organization based in northeastern Nigeria. The Boko Haram insurgency began in 2009 when the jihadist rebel group Boko Haram started an armed rebellion against the government of Nigeria. In 2012, tensions within Boko Haram resulted in a gradual split of the group between a Salafist conservative faction led by Abu Usmatul al-Ansari, and the more dominant, violent faction led by Abubakar Shekau. By 2015, part of the group split into al-Qaeda affiliated Ansaru, and Shekau’s faction became ISIL’s West Africa branch.
In 2013, over 1,000 people died as a result of the conflict. The violence escalated dramatically in 2014, with 10,849 deaths. In 2014, the insurgency spread to neighbouring Cameroon, Chad, and Niger thus becoming a major regional conflict. In 2015, a coalition offensive forced Boko Haram to retreat into the Sambisa Forest. The insurgency took place within the context of long-standing issues of religious violence between Nigeria’s Muslim and Christian communities. Boko Haram has been called the world’s deadliest terrorist group, in terms of the number of people it has killed.
Analysis
Since 2016, another lesser-known conflict has overtaken the Boko Haram crisis as the deadliest conflict in Nigeria, killing six times more Nigerians than Boko Haram did in the same period. It is being spearheaded by the Shiite Islamist Movement of Nigeria (IMN), whose leader has been in jail since December 2015.
Nigeria’s Muslims are mainly Sunnis and there was no real voice for the Shiite minority until IMN was founded in the 1980s by Zakzaky. Michael Olufemi Sodipo, the project coordinator for the Peace Initiative Network, a Nigerian peacebuilding organization, said the movement grew out of student enthusiasm for the Iranian revolution. The number of Shiites in the country is estimated at three million, a number big enough to scare the central government. “The Shia ideology is in opposition of what the establishment follows, which is Saudi Arabian Wahhabism. And the IMN has a lot of followers in the north.” Sodipo said.
More than 300 people died in the 2016 Zaria massacre which left parts of the town in ruins.
Nigerians all over the country are increasingly worried that the IMN could turn into a second Boko Haram. The movement itself denies any plans to take up arms. IMN spokesman Ibrahim Musa said that he rejects analogies between his movement and Boko Haram: “The Islamic movement is guided by and led by the principles of Islam, and Islam is a religion of peace. It only calls on people to understand it, it doesn’t force people to follow it,” he said.
However, Boko Haram also started as a non-violent group that turned deadly after its leader, Mohammed Yusuf, was killed by the police in 2009. Ibrahim Gwamna Msheliza, a political analyst from Maiduguri, says the central authorities have learned nothing from what happened in the northeast. “Instead of listening to these people and trying to address their problems, they come up and start shooting people,” he said adding that radicalizing the group will only lead to more violence.
Protests by the IMN are regularly dispersed by the police. Michael Olufemi Sodipo wants to prevent more violence from happening. He was in Kaduna in 2015 when the massacre took place. He was also in Kano in November 2016, when at least 10 people were killed by the police. But he won’t give up hope for peace. “In 2017 we organized a dialogue between the police and IMN and other Islamic sects in Kano. The result was that everybody showed respect to each other,” he said. As Kano has been spared clashes since then, the activist believes the initiative succeeded.
Assessment
Our assessment is that the upcoming elections in Nigeria will further exacerbate tensions between the IMN and police, a conflict that we believe is likely to grow larger and more menacing in the coming months. It is possible that Saudi Arabia could be engaged in a proxy war in Nigeria as in Yemen, in which case it would be essential for the international community to offer their help and support.
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