Boko Haram Insurgency: ICG Recommendations to End the Killings (EXCERPTS)

                          EXCERPTS FROM ICG’S EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:

Africa Report No. 216 from the Brussels, Belgium-based International Crisis Group, ICG.

Curbing Violence in Nigeria (II): The Boko Haram Insurgency
Boko Haram’s four-year-old insurgency has pitted neighbour against neighbour, cost more than 4,000 lives, displaced close to half a million, destroyed hundreds of schools and government buildings and devastated an already ravaged economy in the North East, one of Nigeria’s poorest regions.

It overstretches federal security services, with no end in sight, spills over to other parts of the north and risks reaching Niger and Cameroon, weak countries poorly equipped to combat a radical Islamist armed group tapping into real governance, corruption, impunity and underdevelopment grievances shared by most people in the region.

Who is Boko Haram?

NIGERIA revels at copying.  We copy a lot and add our own dimension to things.  Sadly, one of our latest imported craze is the phenomenon known as Boko Haram.   Some of our young men have allowed themselves to be turned into terrorists and stone cold killers.  But how did we get to this sorry pass?  Why did we start keeping company with Afghanistan and other such funny places?  How did we get here, and who are these people?

Back in 2011, when it was looking like Boko Haram was going to careen out of control, former president Obasanjo stepped-in and attempted to unravel the Boko menace.

Off went OBJ to Borno State, the capital of Boko Haram.  OBJ got there on September 15, 2011 ostensibly on a condolence visit to the family of a man who was killed back in July 2009.  Obasanjo had a full and useful chat with one Baba Kura Fugu who christened himself representative of Boko Haram and spokesperson for the Fugu family.  Two days later, Mr Fugu was dead, cut down in the same manner his father, Baba Fugu Mohammed, and his brother-in-law, the founder of the original Boko Haram, Mohammed Yusuf, were cut down.