A bigger massacre, but no hashtags for Nigeria

In Nigeria, where elections are being held, political elite is studiously ignoring the rampage of Boko Haram. Can the elections really go on? Apparently they can, writes Alan Philps

The Nigerian presidential election is said to be influencing the government's response to the latest Boko Haram massacre. Photo: Akintunde Akinleye / Reuters

For the past nine days, much of the world’s attention has been on Paris, where French-born jihadists killed 17 people, spurring global sympathy for the victims and political support for the people of France. At the same time, a far worse massacre took place in north-eastern Nigeria, claiming up to 2,000 lives, but it gained only an infinitesimal proportion of the coverage given to France.

Much ink has been spilt to explain why the Paris attacks became a social media sensation while the slaughter in Nigeria seems to have been greeted with a shrug. The reasons are many, but as details of Boko Haram’s latest rampage emerge, it is worth looking at the Nigerian insurgency in its own terms for what it means for the stability of Africa’s biggest economy.

It is now clear that the Nigerian military’s claim that fewer than 150 people were killed, is a paper-thin attempt to play down the massacre. Satellite photographs released by Amnesty International, show that Baga and Doron Baga, two towns on the northeastern border, were almost wiped off the map during four days of violence. More than 4,000 structures have been damaged or destroyed.

The attack seems to have been a punitive raid to discourage the people from joining the army-supported militia, the Civilian Joint Task Force. Amnesty International reports that Boko Haram fighters went from house to house searching for militia members and shooting men of fighting age.

Boko Haram has effectively carved out a “state” with a population of some 1.7 million people. The Nigerian army has proved incapable of counter-attacking, and is focusing its resources on the defence of the city of Maiduguri. The fight against Boko Haram is in the hands of the Nigerian army’s 7th Division, where morale is low, in part because of accusations that the officers steal the soldiers’ pay.

The obvious parallel here is not with Paris but with Iraq: both countries have self-declared “caliphates” on their territory. Both had well-funded armies that became cash cows for the top brass rather than fighting forces. In both countries, the state came to be seen in outlying regions as alien, allowing militant groups to thrive on a sense of oppression and impoverishment.

However, the parallels should not be taken too far. In Iraq the seizure by ISIL of a swath of northern and western territory prompted a national crisis, a change of prime minister and outside intervention to try to roll back the jihadists. In Nigeria, Goodluck Jonathan has remained stunningly silent in public about the massacre, and the military has only spoken to dispute the casualty figures.

The president, who hails from the mainly Christian, oil-producing south of Nigeria, is running for re-election next month so he has hardly been short of opportunities to speak out. It seems the elite want to give the impression that this is a small, isolated conflict that Nigeria can live with, even though it cost the lives of 10,000 people last year.

Serious foreign intervention remains a distant prospect. Nigeria sees itself as the regional power and is wary of accepting foreign military help, for fear the president will look weak. The Nigerian military’s record of human rights abuses means the US military is not rushing to get alongside it. In 2013, the Nigerian army was accused of committing its own massacre in Baga to punish the population for sheltering Boko Haram militants.

The insurgent group began as a movement for Islamic values in the north, reacting to the dominance of the Christian south where wealth and commercial activity are focused. Its original leader, Mohammed Yusuf, died in police custody in 2009, causing the group to split. Under the more ruthless leadership of its current “emir”, Abubakar Shekau, it aspires to spread its influence to neighbouring states.

So how can an insurgency take hold of part of the country with a vibrant democracy like Nigeria?

One reason is that democracies suffer from a weakness that regular elections disrupt the business of the state. Iraq, a democracy more in name than in reality, has seen long periods of paralysis while politicians bicker over sharing power.

A second is that Nigerian democracy is all about the division of money from oil exports. Corrupt networks of patronage that are renegotiated after each election hold together a country of different ethnic, linguistic and religious communities. In the great scramble for money, the north-east is marginalised.

A third reason is that violence is part of the Nigerian political process. The political barons need muscle at election time and some criminal elements in Boko Haram had murky links to politicians opposed to Mr Jonathan, and may still do to this day.

An inkling of the president’s thought processes emerged after 276 schoolgirls were kidnapped from Chibok last April. Most of the girls remain missing but while their case prompted sympathy around the world, the president made clear he thought the kidnapping was encouraged by his political opponents in the north to prevent his re-election.

His logic seems to be that with three states racked by the insurgency and 1.5 million internally displaced, a credible election next month will be impossible.

Predictions of a return to military rule seem exaggerated, as is the fracture of the state between north and south. But it is instructive that the leading opposition candidate is the former military ruler, Muhammadu Buhari. He would normally be seen as a man from the past but is being taken seriously as a replacement for the current leadership that thinks only of its survival.

Alan Philps is a commentator on global affairs

On Twitter: @aphilps