A Theoretical Analysis of the Fracturing of Boko Haram

Benjamin A. Okonofua

Abstract

The seeming intractability of the Boko Haram insurgency has continued to vex local, national and

international audiences worried about the costs of the escalating violence in northern Nigeria. More

worrisome has been the noticeable ideological and operational shifts in the nature of the insurgency,

including the emergence of several groups laying claim to the same neo-Salafist ideology that

provoked and drives the Boko Haram insurgency. Understanding these shifts as a function of the

fracturing of Boko Haram has become exigent. In line with this objective, I examined the broad

socio-political and cultural context within which the insurgency has occurred; theories and

paradigms that frame both the structure of Boko Haram insurgency and its fracture; the social and

intellectual currents that have produced disagreements within Boko Haram; and the alternative

hypothesis of non-fracture, which conduce the theory of functional decentralization. The major

finding of this study is that despite evidence about Boko Haram’s internal fracture, there is stronger

evidence that the sect is not fractured but functionally decentralized, a result of its reflexive

assessment of its capabilities and that of the coalition of force against it. Decentralizing control in

the nature of a franchise with multiple terror bases, potentially confuses efforts to destroy the group

and purchases a measure of relative longevity for the group.

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Introduction

Extremist violence by Jama’tu Sunna Lidda’awati Wal-Jihad or Boko Haram in

Nigeria’s northern region with a predominantly Muslim population, has yet to abate,

nearly five years after the violence first began and despite numerous attempts by the state

and other stakeholders to quash it. Although scholars differ on the causes of the violence,

there is strong unanimity about the consequences of the violence including its high

human costs: loss of lives, high levels of disease, socio-economic disparity, rising gender

inequality, educational decline, ethnic and religious polarization, and many less tangible

costs. Apart from these, the violence also threatens the political stability of the country,

the West African sub-region, and Nigeria’s relationship with key Western allies,

including the United States. These costs and the potential long lasting effect of the

violence on northern society as well as the potential for the violence to spread to other

regions of the country, creates an urgency for the counterinsurgency efforts of the

Nigerian govern. The costs of the violence, particularly the effects that it has had on

northeastern Nigeria, which is the epicenter of the violence, make that region a zone of

violence. Describing the scorched-earth impact of the conflict on northern society in this

way accounts for the gradual but precipitous slide of the region and the entire country

into chaos, particularly one that links the violence with social, cultural, economic, and

political conditions, with the capacity to provoke a civil war. New evidence that Boko

Haram is now ideologically and operationally connected to the forces of global terror

such as Al’Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and Al-Shabaab (Ploch 2011),

heightens the risks and puts pressure on the Nigerian government to quickly bring the

conflict under control either through military action or negotiation.

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Beyond the search for solutions, however, it is clear that the Boko Haram

insurgency is complex and multifactorial with myriad potential and interacting risk

factors, including the “heavy-handed military approach” (Johnson 2011) that is thought to

have transformed Boko Haram from an armless religious movement to a full-blown

terrorist organization, using many of the familiar tactics common to insurgent groups in

sub-Saharan Africa. This transformation has in turn given the Nigerian security forces,

particularly the Joint Task Force (JTF) – a combined military formation comprising

elements from all of Nigeria’s security forces, which has led the fight against Boko

Haram – the justification to respond with brute force, resulting in the reported killing of

hundreds of Boko Haram fighters as well as innocent civilians. Although the JTF has

been criticized for using a “sledge hammer to kill a fly,” the evidence suggests that its

strategy has had immense impact on Boko Haram and the violence. For example, partly

because of the JTF response to the violence, Boko Haram has made changes to its

structure and operations, including modifying how it recruits fighters and select targets

for attack. This fact is evident in the group’s recent efforts to seize territory as opposed to

its erstwhile guerilla tactics. It is also evident in the emergence of multiple Boko Haram

terror cells operating clandestinely in northern Nigeria and in neighboring countries, as

well as the emergence of factions such as Jama’tu Ansarul Muslimina Fi Biladis-Sudan

(JAMBS) or Ansaru (Sahara Reporters 2012; Jamestown Foundation 2013) and the

Yusufiyya Islamic Movement or YIM (Zenn 2012).

The emergence of multiple terror sects in a region already devastated by the Boko

Haram insurgency and that is characterized by extremely sloppy policing has multiple

implications for Nigeria and the international community. First, it threatens to escalate

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the conflict beyond northern Nigeria as has been indicated by the kidnapping of

defenseless foreigners in neighboring Cameroun (Chrisafis 2013) and the reported killing

of 7 kidnapped foreign workers by Ansaru (Gardner 2013). Second it has the potential to

create complex emergencies in neighboring fragile states that are already vulnerable to

conflict because of geo-ethnic and religious affiliations to Nigeria, internal economic

pressures, and political instability (Pharm 2012). Third, expansion of the conflict to the

south may provoke retaliation as witnessed in Edo state in 2012 (BBC News Africa 2012)

and escalate political and social tensions that might lead to another civil war (Msue

2013). Already, the Movement for the Defense of the Niger Delta (MEND), the Niger

Delta militant organization blamed for the October 2010 Independence day bombing in

Abuja, has threatened to carry out Operation Barbarossa, which is a code word for

reprisal attacks against Mosques and Muslim clerics “that propagate doctrines of hate”

beginning on May 31, 2012 (Okhomina 2013). All of these suggest that the risk for

region-wide sociopolitical breakdown and chaos is elevated with the proliferation of

terror groups in northern Nigeria in the presence of vexing social, cultural, political, and

economic conditions that gives the insurgency more salience.

These and the changing nature of the violence, including noticeable ideological

and operational shifts makes a compelling case for understanding the factors responsible

for the emergence of Boko Haram and the new terror sects in the region. Since as Lund

(2009) suggests, the application of interventions based on faulty conceptualization, even

if timely, may be worse than taking no action at all, a focus on these forces is critical to

any attempt to end the violence or, for that matter, protecting lives and property in the

region and preventing the violence to spread to other regions. This paper contributes

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hitherto unexamined insights in three ways that enhances understanding of the Boko

Haram insurgency. First, it situates the emergence of the Boko Haram terrorist

organization within the broad constellation of social, political, economic, and cultural

tensions in northern Nigeria. Second, it theorizes the process of the Boko Haram

violence, including the apparent emergence of new factions like Ansaru. Finally, it

examines the nature of popular support for Boko Haram both as a factor driving the

insurgency and as an outcome of the insurgency.

Background to Insurgency

Northern Nigeria has a long history of violent conflicts over religion and

ethnicity. Between 1960 and now, there have been at least 20 serious ethno-religious

conflicts that have produced over 100,000 deaths and billions of Naira in property

damage (Okonofua 2011). Although the state has been successful in managing these

conflicts, the threat from emergent extremist groups like Boko Haram and Ansaru has

stretched its conflict management capacity almost to breaking point. While the Boko

Haram commentariat and analysts worry that the Boko Haram insurgency indicates

growing Islamic radicalism in northern Nigeria (Adesoji 2010) and suggests possible

links between Boko Haram and Al’Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) (Zenn 2012),

the roots of the problem are far more complex and strike at the heart of the governability

crisis in Nigeria. More specifically, the Boko Haram insurgency speaks to deep

complexities in Nigeria’s troubled political history, where crescive economic fissures that

have blighted what was once a thriving, politically cohesive and powerful northern

Nigeria. In a sense, the Hausa-Fulani political class that has been at the helm of political

leadership in Nigeria since independence in 1960, helped to create two distinct but

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oppositional northern societies: a society of the super-rich and a society of the super-

poor. Under their suspect leadership, what had been a multi-polar mosaic of socially

productive energy became a layered pyramid of power and greed (Lonsdale 2008)

unequally divided between the two societies, both held together tenuously by religion

with the poor constituting a marginalized, angry, and restless periphery. In complex

ways, the insurgency suggests that want is pressing against wealth or that one part of

northern Nigeria is smashing into the other.

Since 2009, planned attacks by Boko Haram have intensified; producing between

2800 and 4000 deaths (Copeland 2013). It has also created palpable fear, apprehension,

and tension among the citizenry and government. These events – planned terrorist attacks

and their associated consequences – are no doubt important to any analysis of the security

landscape of northern Nigeria. But seeing the violence as the essence of the Boko Haram

insurgency, and hence the foci for analysis, diverts attention from other events and

processes that are more proximal to our understanding of the insurgency or its intended

outcomes. Like all moments at which national security (and power) hangs in the balance,

the events that preceded the insurgency have an intrinsic interest for us; they help explain

the present and roadmaps the future of the rebellion. For analytic purposes, it may be

important to push the religious nature of the insurgency back into the crowd of political,

economic, ethnic, and cultural perturbation that impels it. We must, at least by mention,

consider events that occurred from 1980 to 2013. I draw these accounts from newspapers,

magazines, and journals. Measured against these events, the Boko Haram violence that

has captured global imagination since 2009 should be analyzed as one phase in the milieu

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of tensions and upheavals that refer to the governability or leadership crisis in northern

Nigeria. The following précis suggest the range:

December 18, 1980: Members of the Al-Masifu sect led by Alhaji Muhammadu

Marwa Maitatsine, an immigrant from Cameroun, attacked orthodox Muslims

praying outside the Kano City Grand Mosque (Sani 2011). After several days of

fighting, 4,177 people were confirmed killed in Kano alone before the fighting

spread to four other northern states, including Kaduna (Zaria), Borno (Maiduguri

and Bukumkutu), Gongola (Jimeta, Dobeli, Zango, Yelwa, Va’atita, Rumde, and

Nassarawa), and Bauchi (Pantami). By the time the violence was brought under

control in 1985, over 30,000 people (mostly Christians) had been killed and

property valued at billions of Naira had been destroyed (Okonofua 2011).

August 1986: The news that secular Nigeria had become a full member of the

Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC), spread like wildfire in Nigeria. The

news re-opened ongoing debates about the imposition of Sharia criminal law in

northern Nigeria and was part of deliberations at the 1988 Constituent Assembly.

Proponents and opponents of Nigeria’s membership of the OIC and Sharia law

marshaled incendiary arguments that heated up the polity and cast a dark cloud

over the nation’s fragile peace (Ajayi 2000).

June 23, 1993: Nigeria’s military dictator, General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida

annuls the results of presidential elections conducted on June 12, 1993,

presumably won by Bashorun M.K.O. Abiola, a Yoruba from south west Nigeria.

The annulment of the elections, generally believed to be the freest and fairest in

Nigeria’s history, prevents power from devolving from northern Nigeria to

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southern Nigeria. Tension is high in Nigeria and the promise by many groups to

protest the annulment threatens to inflame ethno-religious passions that might

lead to civil war. Immediately following the annulment, Britain freezes new aid to

Nigeria and withdraws its military training team in protest (Dowden 1993).

April 20, 1996: The eight-year reign of Sultan Ibrahim Dasuki ends abruptly with

his deposition by General Sani Abacha, a Kanuri from Borno who was born and

raised in Kano (Erin 2012). The General Abacha government alleged that Sultan

Dasuki, a Hausa-Fulani, had committed unpardonable offences against the people,

Islam, and the state and was unceremoniously deposed and banished from Sokoto,

the seat of the Nigerian Muslim Caliphate. In the words of Colonel Yakubu

Mu’azu, the state military administrator who broadcast the Sultan’s deposition

and banishment, “the leadership role for which the state is known in the arena of

politics and religion is fast slipping out of our grip as a result of lack of honest

and sincere leadership … which are of serious consequences." Mu’azu accused

Sultan Dasuki of being “self-centered … and unable to account for all the

donations and fund given by individuals or organizations for the construction of

mosques and religious activities.” He concluded that the Sultan’s behavior was

“totally unbecoming of either the Sultan or the revered Sokoto Caliphate.” At the

point of his forceful deposition, Sultan Dasuki could only weakly utter, “this is a

coup against the Sultanate and as a leader, I should die fighting” (Fasua 2013).

May 29, 1999: Chief Olusegun Obasanjo is sworn-in as President of the Federal

Republic of Nigeria (Olori 1999) marking the first major transfer of power

(through elections) from northern Nigeria to southern Nigeria. Obasanjo’s eight-

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year rule witnessed the dramatic liberalization of the political space, which

allowed many marginal groups, including ethnic minorities to stake old and new

claims of identity, political access, and resource distribution (Okonofua 2013).

The liberalization of the political space also opened up debate about the

reintroduction of Sharia criminal law in core northern states.

October 27, 1999: Sharia criminal law is reintroduced in Zamfara State. By the

end of 2001, eleven other northern states had adopted forms of sharia law

(Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada 2003) amid apprehension and protest

by non-Muslim northerners that they may be compelled to subject themselves to

Sharia law.

October 15, 2001: Following sectarian violence between Christians and Muslims

in Kano state, the BBC reported that the violence may have been caused as much

by economic issues as by the US military action against the Taliban in

Afghanistan. It reported that “thousands of young men have no jobs and no

education, and frustrations over economic hardship leave them prey to political

opportunists who want to foment violence” (BBC 2001).

November 20, 2002: Over 100 people are killed in fighting between Muslims and

Christians in northern Nigeria following the publication of a “blasphemous”

article, which suggested that Prophet Mohammed would have liked to marry one

of the participants of the Miss World beauty pageant scheduled to hold in Abuja

on December 9, 2002 (BBC News 2002).

July 30, 2009: Nigerian security forces captures and extra-judicially kills

Mohammed Yusuf, the charismatic leader of the Boko Haram Islamist sect.

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Mohammed Yusuf’s bullet-ridden body is displayed in public as well as those of

hundreds of his supporters (AlJazeera 2009).

As the above indicates, the events run the whole gamut from the socio-political

and ethno-religious ferment that Mazrui (2001) calls “shariacracy” to issues of politics,

the environment and markets. Most of these events bear no direct relation to the Boko

Haram insurgency. Yet, in complex and meaningful ways, they are all connected to the

question of power and its loci, including the power over people’s religious culture from

which the Boko Haram insurgency directly springs. Like a house is built brick upon

brick, these events came to have significant influence on the Boko Haram insurgency. In

turn, the insurgency has altered, slightly, the political and cultural default lines in

northern Nigeria, especially the power asymmetry that has always rallied ethnic Muslim

minorities in the region. In essence, what we see as growing Islamic radicalism in

northern Nigeria is only one stage of a process that has taken many years to unfold. The

process was not all about violence, although violence (including structural violence)

appears to symbolize the process. The public engagement of these events brought about

dramatic changes in the ethno-religious and geo-political character of northern Nigeria

over the period and permitted Boko Haram to unpack all of these events into extremist

violence. How these continue to alter the dynamics of the insurgency and produced

noticeable cracks in Boko Haram’s prior unified external posture is the central focus of

this paper.

Theorizing the Boko Haram Insurgency

Many different theories have been advanced to explain revolutions and rebellions

in every part of the world including Africa. Some of these theories see insurgency as

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following a natural history in that the insurgency is typically a culmination of a series of

qualitatively unique developmental stages. These stages form a standard sequence such

that the final revolutionary or rebellious stage (the actual breakout of hostilities) cannot

occur unless other preceding stages have been complete. Although natural history

theorists are convinced that revolutions or insurgencies follow a standard order of events,

they are not in agreement as to the specific number of stages or of the nature of these

stages. For example, in Brinton’s (1938) analysis, the stages involve (in this order)

widespread governmental inefficiency, the desertion of the government by the

intellectuals, the development of popular revolutionary excitement leading to the

overthrow of the regime (or the failure of the movement), a period of rule by moderate

revolutionary elements, the rule of terror and violence, and finally a return to the status

quo ante.

Of more relevance to this paper, however, is Davies’ (1962) J-Curve of

revolution. Although Davies does not present a scheme of stages like Brinton, he argues

that a set of qualitative developmental changes leads to revolutionary outbreaks and that

the full realization of all of these changes is necessary before a revolution or insurgency

can take place. The heart of his theory is that revolutions or insurgencies “are most likely

to occur when a prolonged period of economic or social development is followed by a

short period of sharp reversal” (Davies 1962). He finds evidence for this pattern in three

successful revolutions: 1 Dorr’s revolution in early nineteenth century Rhode Island, the

Boshelvik Revolution of 1917 in Russia, and the Egyptian Revolution of 1952. It is this

pattern that he calls the “J-curve” of need-satisfaction where the progressive period of

increasing satisfaction represents the shaft of the J and the sharp downturn represents its

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crook.

Using the J-curve, I discuss the Boko Haram uprising as deriving the long upward

slope of the J-curve from the nearly five decades of sustained political success of the

Hausa-Fulani elite within the Nigerian federation, on which the entire northern

population depended. The political power that it wielded masked the economic and social

stagnation of the region and the debilitating poverty of the majority of the northern

population. But the final “sharp reversal” precipitating the insurgency is the loss of the

presidency to the south in 1999, which exposed the utterly miserable economic and social

conditions of the north. This “awakening” heightened fears of southern (or Western)

cultural domination and produced what Mazrui (2003) calls “spiritual and identitarian”

quest in Islam, which gave immense signification to the Boko Haram sect. Despite

criticisms of Davies J-curve (there are many) including that it posits a single state of

mind for all members of the coalition, the idea of a J-curve in terms of the Boko Haram

uprising is appealing and has explanatory power, at least, in terms of the formation of the

Boko Haram insurgency.

The J-curve theory, despite its applicability to the formation of the Boko Haram

insurgency, has limited utility for discussing the emergence of several factions from

Boko Haram, with each pursuing an agenda that initially appeared to be fundamentally

different from and oppositional to the objectives of Boko Haram. Charles Tilly and John

Rule’s (1973) political process theory of revolution, which explains not only the

formation of insurgencies but also the relationship between insurgents and the political

state on one hand and insurgents themselves on the other, gives us a better framework to

understand and explain how and why factions may have formed (and may continue to

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form) from Boko Haram. From their reading of natural history theories, they suggest that

the level of conflict is likely to increase after the first major actions of the insurgency and

that the struggle between the two polities, in this case between Boko Haram and

government security forces, is likely to produce a polarized form of conflict that activates

supporters across both sides of the divide.

However, they contend that the phases of an insurgency are not dependent on

changes in the orientation of the population or in the position of any single group of

insurgents, but in the relations among contenders and government. Thus, both the

insurgency and the perceived fracturing of Boko Haram spring from two large processes

that are central to any insurgency: the struggle of those who seek to supplant

governmental authority to maintain control over areas or populations in its control, and

the breaking up of the revolutionary coalition and the effort of some members to exclude

other members from influence. The breaking up of the coalition may be follow any of

several objective and subjective conditions. It may be: a) in response to “considerable

resistance” of its attempt to gain control over a population; b) the larger coalition required

to begin the insurgency is not needed to maintain or sustain it; c) differences in the

objectives and interests of the coalesced elements have become more salient and more

serious after the initial staging of violence; and d) those elements that mobilized rapidly

in support of the insurgency because of short-term crisis but which interests are not

necessarily the interests of the core elements in the insurgency have demobilized or

formed factions more rapidly than other elements. These principles frame our analysis of

the aetiology of the Boko Haram factions as well as how local people perceive the

insurgency.

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Methods

This research utilized a qualitative approach incorporating the grounded theory

methodology (LaRossa 2005; Tashakkori and Teddlie 2003) to conduct a cross-

disciplinary content analysis of academic literature on the broad topics of socio-political

and ethno-religious conflicts in northern Nigeria. The data yielded a vast body of work,

which were sorted into relevant theoretical and analytical domains using the NVIVO data

analytic software. I also used the same approach to conduct content analysis of non-

academic literature, including newspaper and magazine articles as well as YouTube

videos, social media postings and blogs specific to the Boko Haram insurgency.

Qualitative data analysis followed a theoretical approach to understand the data as

part of a process of induction. Through a theoretically sensitive inductive coding process,

I identified a set of interpretive frames as well as the symbolic and narrative structures

that characterized them. The frames represent different interpretations about the etiology

and nature of the internal fragmentation of Boko Haram, by various sources. I moved

beyond simple content analysis to describe and analyze the frames in discursive terms.

This approach, which aims to provide an understanding of how frames relate to broader

socio-cultural, political, and economic themes, focuses on the context of texts,

particularly on the social and cultural processes that helped Boko Haram to produce ideas

critical to maintaining its hold on members and for recruiting new members as well as

ideas that produced rifts among its fold. Taken in isolation of other sources, each source

presented only a partial narrative and the aggregation of these narratives provides a

trajectory for understanding the ends and aims of the hypothesized split and its effect on

the conflict. The merit as well as predictive power of this approach lies in its careful

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utilization of multiple sources, theoretical frameworks, and methods to discursively and

interpretively analyze individual and aggregated opinions about Boko Haram and its

factions.

The Aetiology of Boko Haram’s Fragmentation

The results of this study are interesting but mixed. At one end are indications,

themselves based on objective analysis of the entire conflict landscape, that Boko Haram

is not fractured; rather, what is mistaken for fracture is the group’s adoption of a type of

loose confederacy in which constituent elements are allowed to create operationally

independent but ideologically linked groups committed to both the foundational ideas of

Boko Haram and AQIM-inspired global jihadism. Along this line, I find that Boko

Haram is caught in the web of two seemingly antinomic idea systems: a “structuralist”

one based on the invisible ideological and relational motions that drive the group’s neo-

salafist leadership and a “constructivist” one based on common sense perceptions by

marginal elements within the group that its utopian ideas have become conceptually and

materially unattainable.

At the other extreme are clear indications that several factions have formed out of

Boko Haram and the emergence of these factions is blamed primarily on some of the

same social forces that produced the Boko Haram insurgency in the first place. This

finding is not at all surprising considering the nature and character of the elements that

comprised the uprising. Using the principles of both the J-curve and political process

theories (Davies 1962, Tilly and Rule 1973) I identify discursive frames about the

aetiology of Boko Haram and its factions as indicated by Table 1 before briefly

discussing the frames. I begin my analysis with the idea of split and conclude with the

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idea of functional decentralization.

Table 1: Frames and their Key Concepts

Frame Key Indicators and Symbols

The Liberalization of the Political Space We have rights under the Nigerian

constitution; Minority populations in

northern Nigeria were marginalized by the

Hausa-Fulani elite; No ethnic group should

be allowed to monopolize power; It is our

turn to rule; Jonathan is an illegitimate

president; Jonathan is serving a presidential

term reserved for the north; On shari’a we

stand; We want a separate LGA for Hausa-

Fulani in Plateau state.

Economic Marginalization Poverty in Nigeria is a northern

phenomenon; Boko Haram has been

alienated from its source(s) of funding;

Northern governors are no longer paying

ransom to Boko Haram; Armed robbery,

kidnapping for ransom are now the primary

source of funding for Boko Haram and its

factions; Northern communities are

economically emasculated.

Ethno-sectarian Differences Members of Boko Haram include Hausa,

Fulani, Kanuri, Ebira, Chadians and

Nigeriens; The non-Kanuri members of the

group are being betrayed by the Kanuri

members; Ancient rivalry between the

Hausa-Fulani and the Kanuri is playing out

in Boko Haram.

.

Appeal to the Mass Boko Haram through its indiscriminate

targeting has alienated itself from its

primary constituency; Popular support for

the group is low even among Muslims who

support Shari’a; Populist elements within

Boko Haram are worried about waning

popular support for the group.

Northern States’ Governors Forum Governors of northern states are working to

resolve the conflict; NGSF’s 41-member

committee on “Security, Healing and

Reconciliation” has been inaugurated;

Governors are using monetary and political

inducements to break-up Boko Haram.

The Sokoto Caliphate/Sufism The appointment of Colonel Sambo Dasuki

has changed the face of the Boko Haram

violence; Boko Haram targets emirs; The

Sultanate is using its influence to cause

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disaffection within Boko Haram; Attack on

the Sultanate diminishes support for Boko

Haram.

The Joint Task Force The JTF’s use of brutal force has alienated

Boko Haram from its base; Arrests and

killings by JTF provoke suspicion of ethnic

betrayal by sect members; JTF’s action

makes the conflict intractable.

Multiple Sovereignties Boko Haram is inhuman; Schisms between

Mamman Nur and Shekau polarized Boko

Haram; the struggle over territory plays out

as internationalization vs domestication of

violence; Elements within Boko Haram are

espousing differential, often conflicting

operational strategies based on their own

religious, cultural, ethnic, and ideological

leanings.

The Liberalization of the Political Space

Beginning in 1998 with General Abdulsalami Abubakar’s political transition

program and the dismantling of late General Sani Abacha’s political machine

(Ezechukwu 1997; Abayimo.com 2013), the political space in Nigeria witnessed dramatic

changes. These changes, which ushered in a southern elected president in 1999,

effectively broke the north’s tight control of political power and unleashed a series of

minor, but significant, political revolutions that enabled minority groups to vociferously

assert all forms of identities and rights. Minorities like the Ijaw and the Ogoni of the

Niger Delta, the Tiv and Birom of the middle belt, the Efik and Ibibio of the east as well

as other minority groups began to leverage expanding political opportunities to assert

rights that challenged the bases of Nigeria’s federalism, including issues of political

autonomy and economic access. For example, the Ijaw as well as other Niger Delta oil

producing minorities began to demand a larger percentage share of oil earnings as a

condition for their continued participation in the Nigerian project. To do this, they formed

militias and vigilante groups that engaged oil companies and the agents of the state in

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hostilities. They also sponsored series of petitions, motions, and bills at state and federal

legislative houses that eventually led to the allocation of 13 percent derivation funds to

oil-producing states in 2000 (Amaize, Oyadongha, and Omafuaire 2012) in 2000; further

widening the economic gulf between the south and the north.

This development as well as the increasing political relevance of the Yoruba (the

president at the time was Yoruba) and the Igbo (they controlled the upper legislative

house) as well as the diminishing relevance of the Hausa-Fulani political class set off

alarm bells all over northern Nigeria. The Hausa-Fulani political class responded to the

perceived ongoing evisceration of their collective political power by rallying the north

through sharia (Kenhammer 2012). Between 1999 and 2001, the twelve core northern

states adopted sharia criminal law in one form or the other (Kenhammer 2012). While

this opened up frenzied debates about the intent of sharia, particularly its political

motions, it fell far short of unifying the north for some larger political objective. One

evidence of this was the devastating defeat of the northern presidential candidates at the

2011 presidential election, which favored Goodluck Jonathan, an Ijaw from the south.

However, the liberalization of the political space and debates about sharia energized a

small group of radical northern Muslims who capitalized on the north’s troubles to

espouse neo-salafist Islamism. These groups, such as Boko Haram, mobilized the

increasingly disenchanted youths including street children or Almajirai, non-Hausa-

Fulani Muslims in the north such as the Kanuri and Ebira and Muslim groups in

Christianity-dominated parts of the north such as the cattle Fulani in Plateau State, as

core elements of their insurgency.

The coalition built at this time was basically for opportunistic. For example, the

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cattle Fulani who were outnumbered by non-Muslim, non-Hausa-Fulani ethnicities in

Plateau needed the coercive force of Boko Haram to win desired territorial concessions in

Plateau State. While they may not have bought into the ideological and political ferment

of the insurgency, they supported the insurgency for pragmatic reasons. Similarly, a

segment of the northern political class bought into the insurgency as a way to win

political legitimacy (Ploch 2011). The extremely fractious nature of elections in Nigeria

creates the necessity for ambitious politicians and political parties to court extremist

groups and cult-gangs that are used to steal electoral victories during elections. In

northern Nigeria, some politicians saw the Boko Haram uprising as opportunity to tap

into this new estate of violence to advance their political objectives (Yakubu 2010;

Adedapo 2011).

However, the core of the movement comprised of individuals dedicated, to

varying degrees, in bringing about the religious rebirth of northern Nigeria through

sharia. While some of these people like Abubakar Shekau were hardliners committed to a

neo-salafist conservative interpretation and implementation of the sharia, including the

sacking of the religious and political authority in northern Nigeria (and indeed the

national political authority), there were some moderate elements who did not want the

complete overthrow of the northern religious hierarchy led by the Sultan of Sokoto. The

goal of this segment was to purge the Caliphate of its corrosive affinity to the “infidel”

political state now being controlled by the south. Post-insurgency schisms by these

divergent groups have had profound effects on the nature of solidarity and cohesion

within Boko Haram. Thus, the odd convergence of individuals and groups with

seemingly antithetical interests under Boko Haram follows Charles Tilly’s (1978)

20

concept of “multiple sovereignty,” wherein insurgents are composed of “coalitions of

classes” or coalitions based on “language, religion, region, or some other form of

solidarity” that creates competing interests, loyalties, and power nodes within the group.

This internal composition, particularly the strong ideological, political, and ethnic

character of members of the coalition suggest that the eventual fracture of Boko Haram

was inevitable from the beginning.

Economic Marginalization

The liberalization of the Nigerian political space was not the only social force that

helped to create momentum for the insurgency or Boko Haram’s eventual fracture. At

least as important as liberalization in the shaping of the division was the perceived

economic marginalization of the northern mass. Many of the elements within Boko

Haram were persuaded to support the insurgency by the dire economic conditions in

northern Nigeria that are characterized by extremely high rates of unemployment and

poverty (Soludo 2008). Leaders of the insurgency crafted messianic messages of hope for

the poor and encouraged them to rededicate their lives to Islam through adopting radical

Islamist ideas. Moreover, many of the poor were recipients of the micro-finance scheme

instituted by Mohammed Yusuf, the deceased leader of Boko Haram (Hansen and Musa

2013). The Almajirai and other drifters that became the bulwark of the insurgency

depended on the sect for food and shelter, which made them receptive (and vulnerable) to

the radical messaging of the sect. Thus, the revolutionary conditions, including the

structural violence fully in force in northern Nigeria and which exists to this day helped

the leaders of the insurgency to forge alliance with that segment of the society that was

most vulnerable.

21

However, because of its active engagement with the state, which forced it to adopt

guerilla-like tactics, it could no longer meet the basic needs of its members for food and

shelter. More importantly, hope that the group could achieve its aim of supplanting

political and traditional authority in northern Nigeria evaporated with each bombing that

claimed innocent Muslim lives. Moreover, the increasingly aggressive security campaign

mounted by the Nigerian security forces cut off the movement’s principal sources of local

funds, including committed influential politicians like the late Boji Foi (Elendu 2009) and

politicians who were blackmailed to pay ransom like Senator Ali Ndume (Nnochiri

2012). The group increasingly began to use many of the tactics such as armed robbery,

extortion, and kidnapping that it had railed against to raise funds for its operations

(Emewu 2012). This created deep spiritual conflict for some of its formerly ardent

supporters who began to associate the group not with its religious fiber but its worldly,

degenerate motion.

Thus, the lofty utopian ideals of the movement, which had coalesced support for it

increasingly became a mirage. While some of the group’s members left to join splinter

groups such as the Jama’tu Ansarul Muslimina Fi Biladis-Sudan or Ansaru and the

Yusufiyya Islamic Movement (YIM), many others retreated into personal religious

spaces to live out their beliefs. Some of the more pragmatic members of the group who

were drawn into it by political and economic expedience became increasingly

uncomfortable with its hard line positions, the escalating violence, as well as the

concomitant erosion of public support for it. The desire of these elements to convert the

group’s violence capital to political and economic capital through dialogue, especially

following the imposition of “State of Emergency” (SOE) by the federal government on

22

May 14, 2013, may create further divisions within the sect (Botelho 2013; Alachenu and

Attah 2012). The potential personal financial benefits that may accrue from dialogue may

intensify the internal troubles of Boko Haram and push more moderate factions to accept

the offer of amnesty from the Nigerian government. Already, reports in the Nigerian

press suggest that Boko Haram, because of the relentless state assault on its members

through the SOE, may have accepted the “amnesty” earlier offered by the presidency

(Africa Sportlight 2013).

Ethno-Sectarian Differences

In January 2012, the JTF captured Abu Qaqa, the erstwhile Boko Haram

spokesman and Shura Council member. Under interrogation, Abu Qaqa revealed that

Boko Haram was experiencing internal turmoil because of suspicions and rivalry among

the ethnicities that comprise it. According to Qaqa, Kanuris, who represent the majority

ethnic group in Borno State and within Boko Haram, have been selling out group

members that belong to other ethnicities (Abonyi and Shuaibu 2012), including Hausa-

Fulanis (dominant in the northeast and northwest) and Ebiras (dominant in the north

central state of Kogi). Although some doubt the veracity of Qaqa’s revelation because of

the tendency for arrested criminals (i.e. the infamous Edo bandit, Lawrence Anini) to

weave tales in order to downplay their involvement in their group’s activities, there is

sufficient historical evidence to suggest that ethnic tensions between the Kanuris of

Borno and the Hausa-Fulani or the historical rivalry between the North West and North

East that goes back many centuries and was accentuated by General Abacha’s deposition

of Sultan Dasuki in 1995, may have played a part in Boko Haram’s internal fracture

(Adeoye 2013).

23

The old Borno Empire, which comprise present day Borno and Yobe states in

Nigeria and parts of Niger, Cameroun and Chad could not be conquered by the Fulani

jihadist led by Othman Dan Fodio. This and the fact that Islam first reached Borno

Empire before the Hausa states is a continued source of tension between members of both

ethnicities (Falola and Heaton 2008). Moreover, the historic divide between the Hausa-

Fulani and Kanem-Borno Empires included sharp differences in the “way they practiced

Islam – differences that still exist between the Kanuri and Hausa-Fulani” (Stratfor 2012).

Boko Haram’s expansion beyond the northeast into the northwest meant that it crossed a

historical ethno-sectarian fault line, inflaming the ethnocentric passions of the Hausa-

Fulani majority. The group increasingly came to be seen by the Hausa-Fulani as a Kanuri

Salafist rebellion against the entrenched Sufism of the Sokoto Caliphate and the ethno-

political dominance of the Hausa-Fulani. As James Forest (2012) suggests, the

dominance of Boko Haram by ethnic Kanuris may be the most important reason why the

group and its campaign of violence did not connect among the majority Hausa-Fulani

population. Indeed, recent research to assess the amount of support for Boko Haram

among northern elites show that the group enjoys very little support (Aghedo and

Osumah 2012) even among a population that overwhelmingly favors the

institutionalization of the sharia criminal law (Kenhammer 2012). It appears, therefore,

that the synthetic racial system (Nwokeji 1994) that the British helped to develop in

Nigeria and which has troubled Nigeria all through its history is also militating against

Boko Haram’s internal cohesion. Ethnicities outside of the Kanuri, including Hausa-

Fulani, Ebira and Shuwa Arabs feel marginalized by Boko Haram’s Kanuri leadership

although they continue to stake claims to the founding ideas of the group and its late

24

leader Ustaz Mohammed Yusuf.

Also, the group’s indiscriminate attacks in states like Kano in the northwest where

the victims are predominantly Hausa-Fulani have solidified Hausa-Fulani resistance to

the group. The Kano attack, for example, was a complex operation involving the

synchronized deployment of bombs and small arms fire that led to the death of 180

people most of whom were Hausa-Fulanis. This event generated significant angst against

Boko Haram from Hausa-Fulani communities across northern Nigeria. One of the major

fallouts of the attack is believed to be the breakaway of Ansaru from Boko Haram citing

the group’s indiscriminate killing of defenseless northern Muslims (Jamestown

Foundation 2013). Ansaru pledged to restore the lost dignity of Islam in Nigeria to the

Sokoto Caliphate, an indication of the festering ethno-sectarian feud among elements that

comprised Boko Haram. The Sokoto Caliphate was established in 1804 by Othman Dan

Fodio as a confederation of emirate councils across northern Nigeria under the leadership

of the Sultan of Sokoto. The Caliphate has been the singular most cohesive socio-cultural

and political institution in Nigeria through which the Hausa-Fulani was able to

consolidate its hold on federal political power from 1960 until 19991 when Nigeria’s

fourth Republic was inaugurated with Olusegun Obasanjo, a southerner, as president.

Another immediate outcome is the decision by politicians in the northwest to stop

“monthly patronage payments” to Boko Haram and the arrest of hundreds of Boko

Haram members possibly aided by the defection of former patrons of the group “who

shifted their positions and encouraged tougher security measures” against the group

1Except for the brief period in 1966 following the Nzeogwu-led coup that brought in General Aguiyi-Ironsi and later in

1976, when General Olusegun Obanjo became Head of State following the assassination of General Murtala

Mohammed.

25

(Stratfor 2012).

Thus, the increasing local resistance to Boko Haram in northern Nigeria exposes

the group’s geographic and ethnic constraints. These constraints create immense

legitimacy crisis for the group that is angling to supplant the traditional leadership of

northern Nigeria. Instead of focusing on defined targets including the state, Boko Haram,

since the founding of Ansaru and other splinter groups, have struggled to contain internal

dissent or mutiny. Its unveiling of a new national spokesman in March 2013 was an

attempt to control its wildly flailing ship (Audu 2013).

Appeal to the Mass

From the very beginning, Boko Haram targeted its messaging to the mass of

young northerners who were seemingly going through social motions but were adrift.

These people, challenged by their material and social conditions, were open to anything

including radical Islamist ideas that helped them answer many unresolved questions

involving their larger social purpose. Many of the young men and women that became

members of Boko Haram were in advanced stages of confusion over identity: ethnic,

religious, cultural, social, and political. Also, most were distant from the political and

religious authorities in their communities and had limited resources and opportunities for

economic survival. For these people, including students of higher institutions and young

graduates, the Boko Haram’s radical messages and populist activities, which challenged

constituted authority, was an elixir. It fed their deep craving to vent against a system they

believed is corrupt, insensate and oppressive.

There are many reasons why local support is important to the leadership of Boko

Haram. First, they provide a pool of potential warriors that could be enlisted and

26

deployed against the state. Second, Boko Haram desires to supplant the political and

religious leadership of the north through a jihad. There can be no successful jihad without

the mass that believes in the message of the jihadists and are willing to contribute sweat

and blood to the struggle. Third, the contributions of members through piety and labor

(including farm labor) were crucial to the group’s ability to generate local funds. Thus,

Boko Haram’s inability to connect with the Hausa-Fulani population and other marginal

ethnicities in the north was a direct hit on their financing and became a source of internal

turmoil. To reorder this course, Boko Haram changed its tactics and adopted some of the

populism of groups like Al-Qaida. In some instances, Boko Haram has distributed leaflets

to warn of impending attacks and to justify the attack using populist rhetoric in an effort

to portray themselves as sensitive to the needs and safety of local Muslim populations or

to generate empathy and inspire loyalty among the Muslim ummah (The Will 2012). At

other times, it has disseminated Islamist information through social media, including

Facebook and Twitter. The above suggests that Boko Haram seeks the type of legitimacy

that the Sokoto Caliphate has, which comes from the support of the northern mass. The

inability of the group to transform into a legitimate alternative regional Muslim authority

and growing rejection of the group among what ought to be its core constituency of

support, the poor and disenfranchised, created internal legitimacy crisis within the

organization. The breakaway group Ansaru as well as the Yusufiya Islamic Movement

inferred Boko Haram’s alienation from the population as primary reason for breaking

away from the group (Joseph 2011; Bey and Tack 2013).

Documents found in Mali by the Associated Press suggest that Ansaru may have

been inspired to break away from Boko Haram by the teachings of the AQIM spiritual

27

leader Abdelmalek Droukdel. In a confidential letter, which revealed a sharp division

within AQIM over the celerity and rigidity of the application of Islamic law, Droukdel

cautioned against actions that were likely to alienate the people from the group. He

counseled that the implementation of the sharia (or of the insurgency) must take the

environment into consideration otherwise it will “lead to people rejecting the religion,

and engender hatred toward mujahedeen” (Callimachi 2013). This advice has turned out

to be prescient in Kano where the indiscriminate killing of over 180 people, mainly

Hausa-Fulani Muslims, effectively turned the people, who had been cautiously sitting on

the fence, against the Boko Haram. Similarly, the development of camps in northeastern

forests (i.e. Sambisa forest) by Boko Haram from where they launch attacks that

disproportionately kill local Muslims, has helped to mobilize local support against the

group. For example, volunteer youth groups such as the “Civilian Joint Task Force”

(CJTF) have formed in northern Nigeria with the aim of liberating local communities

from Boko Haram. In many places, the youths have taken over stop and search work

from soldiers believing that they are more capable, because of their connections to local

communities, to identify insurgents (Ibrahim and Sawab 2013).

The Northern States Governors Forum

The Northern States Governors Forum (NSGF), a committee of elected civilian

governors in northern Nigeria, may have contributed to the internal fracture of Boko

Haram. The NSGF established a 41-member panel on “Security, Healing and

Reconciliation” headed by Ambassador Zakari Ibrahim, a former Director-General of the

Nigeria Intelligence Agency (NIA), to engage Boko Haram in dialogue. It is believed that

this “peace offensive” produced the split “over ceasefire” between Sheikh Abu Idris and

28

Abubakar Shekau (Aziken 2013) and facilitated the march towards “amnesty” for Boko

Haram (Huhu Online 2013). The governors of Nigerian states are very powerful and have

exclusive control over that part of the state’s allocation known as “security vote.” The

security vote is a loose term to describe budgetary monthly allocations to states

exclusively for the maintenance of security. The governors have no requirement to

account for how they spend the “security vote” and often have misused this privilege

through complex corruption schemes where violence is orchestrated as a way to justify

the misappropriation of the security vote. However, in this case, the governors may have

used this advantage to penetrate the group by providing huge funds to more moderate

elements within the group, creating suspicion and disaffection among members.

The Sokoto Calipahte

A major factor in Boko Haram’s internal crisis is the Sokoto Caliphate. The

Caliphate, which provides the spiritual signification for the Hausa-Fulani elite, has been

under direct attack by Boko Haram in recent times. The Emirs of Fika and Kano as well

as the Shehu of Borno (although he does not belong in the Caliphate), have all been

targeted by Boko Haram (Ahmed 2013). This development, apart from alienating the

mass from the group, also gave the Caliphate the motivation to mobilize against the

group. A direct outcome of the traditional counter-offensive against Boko Haram is the

loss of support among a segment of the Hausa-Fulani political class, religious leaders,

traditional rulers, and staff of local governments. This means that Boko Haram cannot

gain any foothold among the dominant Hausa-Fulani Muslim population who are

primarily Sufis and take their cues from the Sultanate. Part of the offensive against the

more radical elements of the movement was to make the leadership of the group paranoid

29

about potential internal moles and to use this moment of pervasive distrust and suspicion

to persuade more moderate elements to seize the opportunity for dialogue. For example,

Abu Qaqa confirmed to investigators that there was a tension of distrust within Boko

Haram over suspicions that the Kanuri members of the organization were informing on

non-Kanuri members. Also, the mass arrest of Boko Haram members in the northwest

may have been aided by information received from disenchanted members of the group

(Stratfor 2012) even as Boko Haram has carried out several internal cleansing exercises,

targeting members suspected of disloyalty (Abonyi and Shuaibu 2012).

Apart from attacks on its members and challenge to its traditional authority, the

Sultanate may have been motivated to move against Boko Haram by the appointment of

retired army colonel Sambo Dasuki, a scion of the Sokoto Caliphate, as the National

Security Adviser (Obia 2012). Before his appointment, the government appeared to be

making no headway and an increasingly exasperated President Jonathan suggested that

Boko Haram had taken over his government (Adetayo 2012). Through Dasuki’s

influence, the northern traditional leadership, which for the most part appeared to

passively support the insurgency that was initially seen as a political challenge to

Jonathan’s presidency, began to rally against Boko Haram. To forestall this, Boko Haram

carried out planned attacks against some powerful Emirs including the Emir of Kano

(Tukur 2013) and extended its operations into Sokoto (Bello, Nzeshi, Aminu, Shiklam,

Olugbode, and Shuaibu 2012), the seat of the Caliphate. That offensive obliterated all

illusions that the Caliphate had about the group and triggered the traditional offensive

that has been immensely successful in alienating Boko Haram from the Muslim ummah.

It is conceivable that the recent call for amnesty for members of Boko Haram by the

30

Sultan of Sokoto and the northern political establishment, is to provide a soft landing for

moderate members of the group and to use the financial rewards that is likely to follow

the establishment of a “amnesty” program to attack some of the social causes of the

insurgency, including poverty and unemployment.

The Joint Task Force (JTF)

The internal fragmentation of Boko Haram or its change in strategy from a

monolith to a decentralized force has been blamed partly on the operations of the JTF,

which continues to adopt brute force as the main response to the Boko Haram insurgency.

In many ways, the JTF is also responsible for the apparent transformation of Boko Haram

from a separatist ethno-sectarian movement interested primarily in the creation and

maintenance of spiritual enclaves in Nigeria to an Islamist terror group waging jihad

against the Nigerian state, Christians, infidel Muslims and Westerners (Madueke 2012).

What is not in doubt, however, is that the increasingly aggressive efforts by the JTF

bolstered by the SOE, has produced substantial results in that it has put the terror

movement on the back foot and created or increased suspicions and divisions among

group members. As I have observed already, group members are increasingly suspicious

of each other and there is an ethnic twinge to their anxiety. Through ceaseless raids, the

JTF has cut of communication and sometimes financial support from the group and

increased their internal woes.

The only problem is that the brutal response of the JTF, particularly its alleged

serial abuse of innocent people in communities where there is apparent reluctance by

local populations to volunteer critical information, is also alienating the people from the

it. In an era of increasing dissatisfaction with the political state and with the growing fear

among northern populations of southern political domination, the JTF’s response, which

31

Boko Haram has interpreted as a Western project to destroy Islam by targeting pious

northern Muslims, has the potential to vitiate whatever gains it has made against

insurgents that are intensely disliked by the people. For example, there are suggestions

that in Maiduguri, the command center of Boko Haram, the JTF has failed to inspire

citizen trust and confidence (Madueke 2012). In one report, Sani, a Graduate Assistant at

the Ahmadu Bello University, observes:

Whether we admit it or not, Boko Haram is a reflection of government’s insensitivity to

the plight of poor Nigerians … The so-called terrorists are poor Nigerians who are tired

of poverty, deprivation and the lack of basic social amenities as a result of corruption

among government officials. The government and JTF must know that the use of force is

very counter-productive in this context because the people are only crying out for a better

life. So give it to them instead of killing them (Madueke 2012).

Multiple Sovereignties

There are strong indications that the fracture of Boko Haram is not unconnected

to schisms between the top leadership of Boko Haram, particularly between Mamman

Nur and Abubakar Shekau. It is suggested that Mamman Nur introduced Abubakar

Shekau to Mohammed Yusuf in Maiduguri, the capital of Bornu State. All three were

theology students under the assassinated Sheikh Adam, with Shekau being the most

introverted and radical (BBC News Africa 2012). While Shekau was the acknowledged

deputy to Yusuf, Nur was the third in command (Kalu 2011). When the 2009 Boko

Haram insurrection was brutally put down by state security forces, Shekau and Nur went

underground and began to operate clandestinely. Until Boko Haram resurfaced in 2010,

Nur is believed to have led the group and coordinated its revival while Shekau

convalesced from bullet wounds he sustained during the 2009 revolt. Shekau returned in

2010 to take back control from Nur to the chagrin of some Boko Haram leaders who

prefer Nur’s leadership style as well as his vast links to terrorist networks in the Sahel,

including al-Shabaab (Jamestown Foundation 2013).

32

The disagreements between Nur loyalists and those who back Shekau have

created multiple sovereignties within Boko Haram with different factions pursuing

different (sometimes complimentary, sometimes oppositional) agendas. For example, on

November 25, 2012, Ansaru attacked the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS)

headquarters in Abuja and freed 37 of its members as well as 286 other prisoners. On

November 29, 2012, Shekau praised the action, which also freed the wife of Kabiru

Sokoto, the mastermind of the 2011 Christmas Day church bombing in Abuja, Nigeria’s

capital (Jamestown Foundation 2013). Yet, on November 26, 2012, Ansaru accused

Shekau of ordering the execution of an Ansaru member for “taking a moderate stance on

religious matters” (YouTube 2012). It also criticized Shekau for using “extreme actions”

to legitimate his leadership. In an earlier video on June 2, 2012, Ansaru emphasized that

the killing of a fellow Muslim was a sin second only to the sin of not accepting sharia law

and was “inexcusable” (Jamestown Foundation 2013). Similarly, Nur’s faction is

believed to have carried out the killing of Mohammed Yusuf’s cousin, Babakura Fugu,

shortly after he met with former President Olusegun Obasanjo in September 2011 and

reportedly accepted financial compensation for the extra-judicial killing of Yusuf.

Shekau’s faction condemned Fugu’s assassination as “immoral” (Jamestown Foundation

2013).

Apart from conflict over strategy, disagreements within Boko Haram have also

been over ideology. Ansaru is interested in forging sustained links with the AQIM faction

led by Droukdel, which cautions against acts that potentially victimize other Muslims

irrespective of their sectarian affiliations. Instead of targeting local Muslims and non-

threatening Christians, focus should be on Western Christian targets. Along this line,

33

Ansaru has seized several foreign hostages in Kaduna, Kano, and Bauchi and demanded

ransom payments for their release. In all instances where it has kidnapped foreigners, it

has reported killing them in reprisal for attempts by local and foreign security forces to

forcefully secure their release. In contrast to Ansaru’s interest in internationalizing the

violence, Shekau’s Boko Haram has maintained its resolute commitment to upstaging the

political and spiritual order in northern Nigeria and instituting “pure” sharia, although as

recent messages from Shekau shows, this position is shifting (Zenn 2013).

Functional Decentralization

As the above demonstrates, some of the forces that gave verve and fillip to the

formation of Boko Haram have also contributed significantly to its hypothesized fracture.

The theory of Boko Haram’s fracture is hinged more on the claims of emergent factions

than on any clear ideological and operational differences. However, the history of ethnic

tension between Kanuris and Hausa-Fulanis in northern Nigeria provides some credible

context for the split theory. Political opportunity and resource mobilization theories also

suggest that insurgent groups like Boko Haram have the tendency to fracture because of

operational and ideological exigencies encapsulated in the concept of multiple

sovereignties. Yet, there is a more compelling but less nuanced theory about Boko

Haram’s fracture that has received very little attention from the research community. It is

that Boko Haram is not internally fractured; instead, what is mistaken for fracture is the

functional decentralization of the operations of the group in order to make it more

effective in its war against the Nigerian state.

Abubakar Shekau, the spiritual and operational leader of Boko Haram, dismissed

suggestions that Boko Haram is fractured by observing, “the brotherhood remains one

34

indivisible entity. There is no split and there is no splinter group” (Yusufislamicbrothers

N.D.). Oxford University’s Raufu Mustapha agrees. According to him, the only group

operating in northern Nigeria is Boko Haram and anyone who doubts this is “in denial”

(Walker 2012). The reason for the confusion about Boko Haram is that the group has

“constantly morphed and changed its nature as it has gone through various incarnations,”

making it extremely difficult to “pin down the organization and define it” (Walker 2012).

Following the expansion of Boko Haram’s activities into Kogi state, Jacob Zenn

suggested the existence of a “Kogi Boko Haram faction, which may be distinct from

“Kanuri” and “Hausa” Boko Haram factions in the north” (Zenn 2012). The “Kanuri”

Boko Haram faction may refer to Shekau’s Boko Haram, while the “Hausa” faction

possibly indicates Ansaru and/or YIM. However, Zenn suggests that all factions derive

their “operational capabilities” from “interacting with Boko Haram’s operatives, weapons

traffickers and criminal networks in the north” (Zenn 2012). Ahmad Salkida, one of the

few people with direct access to the top leadership of the group, agrees. According to

him, the state and its security forces are fixated tantalizingly on the idea of Boko Haram’s

internal fracture in deliberate denial of the fact that the group remains a single, undivided

entity (Salkida 2013).

This idea that Boko Haram is unified but functionally decentralized necessitates a

different type of analysis than the “split theory.” This analysis situates Boko Haram and

the factions within a continuum, with each activated as a specific reaction to a particular

moment based on distinct capabilities. This does not mean that tensions and

disagreements do not exist within Boko Haram. Like any social group, such tensions can

be expected. However, the tensions and disagreements are not sufficient to create the

35

type of divisions that have been suggested. Thus, the hypothesis that deep-rooted

ideological and operational disagreement that has produced the acrimonious

balkanization of the group with each faction pursuing antithetical interests, may not hold

water. If indeed the group was fractured, we would have noticed intense perturbation and

agitation among the factions in a manner reminiscent of the fratricidal conflicts between

breakaway factions in the Niger Delta insurgency. That has not happened; instead,

Shekau’s “faction” has staged several “beheadings” of members suspected of “defecting”

to other factions without any form of reprisal from those factions. In Nigeria where

armed groups are known to avenge attacks on their members, this silence is more than

odd. It suggests that Boko Haram, which has not changed its 30-member Shura council -

its highest decision-making body - since 2010 (Rice 2012), is not fractured; just

operationally reordered to confuse efforts by the state to destroy it.

The functional decentralization of Boko Haram is both eclectic and reflexive and

merges three interconnected motions: rationalism, integrativism, and transformativism.

These motions predicate on differing assumptions about the condition of the insurgency

in regards to the desired end state. The rationalist approach, for example, focuses on

attracting funding from global forces of terror such as AQIM as well as generating

internal funding from illegitimate activities, including kidnapping for ransom, armed

robbery, drug trafficking, threat, and blackmail. The bottom line is to restructure the sect

and align it to global terror capital as a way to unlock international and local funding.

The integrative approach aims to resolve internal controversies, disagreements,

and conflicts including disagreements involving the ethnic composition of the group and

its leadership. The goal is to harmonize views, provide legitimate platforms for

36

individuals to assert themselves within the group, and give individuals a stake in the

organization through the creation of local franchises such as Ansaru. It generally follows

a tokenistic pattern, which allows marginal ethnicities (including the Hausa-Fulani)

within Boko Haram to gain limited capital. Now able to assert some form of authority

within the ethno-sectarian discursive frame of the dominant ethnicity within Boko Haram

– the Kanuri – these other ethnicities are able to take initiative and to operate relatively

independently of the center, thereby extending the reach of the organization.

The transformative approach is attuned to ongoing narratives about the etiology,

nature, scope, and consequences of the insurgency. To counter negative stereotypes, the

group seeks to change its image as an indiscriminate terror merchant that kills Muslims

and non-Muslims; becoming a self-conscious, self-righteous, populist movement whose

sole mission is the defense of Allah and Muslims through the development of a new

pedagogy of violence. This cannot be done under the existing framework of Boko Haram,

which has gained notoriety from its operations. Thus, in order to transform its image and

to embrace more moderate Muslims who are alarmed at the escalation of the violence,

particularly the indiscriminate targeting of Muslims and non-Muslims alike, but desire

some form of spiritual reordering of northern society, including to purge the Sultanate of

its connections to the political state, the façade of an acrimonious Boko Haram split was

created. It is for this reason that Ansaru, while dedicated to the practice of pure sharia, is

condemning what it sees as Boko Haram’s operational excesses. It is also for this reason

(that is to attract more moderate Muslims) that Ansaru is more focused on the

international campaign against Western secular democracy, an issue that resonates among

Muslims in northern Nigeria. It is also for this reason that the YIM is returning to the

37

original Boko Haram program of creating spiritual enclaves where members can practice

a form of spiritual hygiene. Considering the increasing local and national opposition to

Boko Haram, particularly its inability to connect with Hausa-Fulani Muslims, this is a

good end-game strategy, where some elements of the group and the groups doctrines are

preserved into the future. This means that Boko Haram may never be completely

destroyed in the present dispensation, resurfacing decades from now under a new name

but with the same ideology.

Conclusion

The characteristic response of most commentators on the Boko Haram conflict is

to suggest Boko Haram as an extra-ordinary movement, a unique species of uncommon

form and impelled by extra-ordinary forces, including radical Islam. The net result of

these suggestions is that extra-ordinary measures, including unnecessarily brutal action

from Nigeria’s security forces are needed to neutralize this threat that is spiraling out of

control. Sensationalizing the Boko Haram insurgency in this way has helped to befuddle

understanding of the Boko Haram threat including its potential fragmentation. Although

the character of the insurgency (suicide bombings, VBIEDs, cross-border kidnappings,

etc.) may seem extra-ordinary (and actually are significant milestones) suggesting a clear-

cut break from past ethno-religious violence in northern Nigeria, the insurgency is still,

conceptually and materially, the stuff of normal ethno-religious conflict in northern

Nigeria. I do not subscribe to the intuitive disposition of seeing the violence as radically

different from others or existing outside of the normal social processes that produced it.

Despite its uniqueness, the Boko Haram insurgency follows a coherent,

characteristic history of poor governance and public dissatisfaction with the system of

38

governance. Unlike the “Arab Spring” revolts across northern Africa, which developed

almost sporadically, although amplified by long-standing internal grievances and

tensions, the Boko Haram insurgency followed a series of local and national events

culminating in the north’s loss of national political power in 1999. That loss exposed the

north’s economic marginality as well as the desperate economic and social conditions of

the northern mass; conditions that were masked by the nearly four decades of Hausa-

Fulani political domination. The death of President Umaru Yar’Adua before he had

completed his first term and the subsequent elevation of Goodluck Jonathan, his vice-

president, to the presidency, aggravated injuries that had not yet healed from the 1999

loss of power. This situation created two general conditions in northern Nigeria. The first

is what Charles Tilly (1978:200) calls a revolutionary situation, which allowed marginal

groups like Boko Haram to believe that conflict with the state is necessary and feasible.

The second condition is dual sovereignty. Charles Tilly (1978:200) described dual

sovereignty as the “appearance of contenders or coalitions of contenders, advancing

exclusive alternative claims to the control over the government …; commitment to those

claims by a significant segment of the subject population …; the incapacity or

willingness of the government or its agents to suppress the challenger coalition.”

The leadership that Boko Haram envisages is an alternative paradigm of good

governance and religious purity that is itself based in ancestry. In this case, there is only

one ancestry, the sharia, a body of ancient history rooted in scriptures. Boko Haram

believes that sharia is God’s law, but in Nigeria it is undergoing relentless assault by the

forces of materialism, secularism, Westernization, globalization, and ungodliness (2001).

It is, therefore, the responsibility of “true” Muslims in northern Nigeria under the moral

39

guidance of the Boko Haram leadership to rise in defense of Islam (and sharia) and save

the north from economic strangulation and eternal damnation. The sharia movement and

ultimately Boko Haram’s emphasis on the practice of pure sharia became both a protest

against the stultifying economic conditions of the north and the unwanted growing

salience of Western culture in northern society. Through globalization, Western culture,

including sexual liberalism, secular democracy, and other elements of that culture were

taking root in northern society, ostensibly distorting community as it was known in

northern Nigeria.

Yet, it is not the economic and social conditions that produced the insurgency or

the immediate and long-term impact of the insurgency that has driven public debates

recently. It is the idea that Boko Haram is, at last, fractured, suggesting that the end of the

insurgency is near (or has come), that is dominating reporting about the group. Even the

media coverage of the State of Emergency is part of the larger narrative of split and it is

analyzed in conjunction with the application of “amnesty” for repentant Boko Haram

insurgents. The split theory is being promoted with frenzy despite the fact that Boko

Haram and the factions continue to be linked ideologically and operationally. This paper

suggests that the hypothesized fracture is more appropriately a strategic reordering of

forces within Boko Haram based upon the group’s reflexive self-evaluation of its chances

for success given the climate of opposition to it. This strategic repositioning has the

intended consequence of obfuscating and confusing intelligence about the group’s

operations, secure direly needed resource support from global jihadists, and resolve

internal contradictions. In this sense, “fracture” is more appropriately a metonym for

“functional decentralization.” Although this appears to negate Tilly and Rules’s theory

40

that structural forces within insurgent movements such as differences in personal

objectives, ethnic and class consciousness, power assymetry, etc. always lead to the

disintegration of insurgent groups, Boko Haram, perhaps due to the nature of its ideology

and the unique conditions that helped bring it to form, continues to be a resilient group

that appears, so far, to have defied the tremendous odds against it, including the natural

tendency for groups like it to fracture and or disintegrate.

41

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