Boko Haram: Who's afraid of Foreign Terrorist Organisation designation?

Over two years after Boko Haram attacked the UN headquarters in Abuja, the question of whether the United States should designate them as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation has returned.

African Arguments has published a good assessment of the situation by Christopher O’Connor of the National Endowment for Democracy.

He weighs the pros and cons of such a designation; there is a great desire from some quarters of Nigerian society for the US to do so, it would be a marked gesture for the US to “call a spade a spade”. 

But there has also been a concerted lobbying attempt form foreign observers to hold off on making a full declaration of FTO status. These observers say, and O’Connor agrees, that it will make a peace settlement harder.

Last year the US Department of State compromised. Instead of putting full FTO status before Congress (which Congress would have likely approved), it placed sanctions on key Boko Haram and splinter group Ansaru leaders as individuals. 

Congress is now looking to raise thequestion of FTO designation again, after another spate of violence.

But I think the African Arguments piece has missed a key point about FTO designation.

On the face of it, its hard to see why Boko Haram aren't on the list already. If organisations like Kahane Chai and Aum Shinrikyo are on it, why would the Obama administration shy away from Boko Haram?

Could it really have been that the objections of a well meaning group of Nigeria watchers was sufficient to prevent the White House pursuing Foreign Terrorist Organisation designation for Boko Haram?

The US Department of State might have had to listen to the wishes of another party who has a say in this –the Nigerian government themselves.

Why would the Federal Government of Nigeria object to the US designating Boko Haram as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation? 

As O’Connor says, FTO designation is not just a matter of calling a spade a spade. It is a legal definition that triggers a list of things that would suddenly come under the purview of the US Congress, among them is tight restrictions on international funding of the group.

Its not hard to see why the Government will not be entirely enthusiastic about this renewed question of FTO designation. What effect would it have on the government's plan for an "amnesty" for Boko Haram? The plan is along the same lines as it abated militants in the oil producing south, ie shovel cash at them and hope the problem will go away.

Wouldn't it scupper it completely?

Many people have questioned if this amnesty will be effective in its stated aims. They warn the river of cash could be diverted. But with a serious split in the ruling party troubling the PDP as the 2015 elections loom, who's to say that the stated aims are what they say they are?

The Nigerian government really hasn't had a lot to say on the record about Foreign Terrorist Organisation status. 

Last year, in one of the only public pronouncements on the FTO matter by a Jonathan-administration insider, then Ambassador to the US Adebowale Adefuye indicated to the Nigerian media that the Federal Government itself was resisting the designation.

Reports quoted him as saying designation might “add to Nigerians woes when travelling through international airports”.

Longtime watchers of Nigerian politics know this is a kind of dog-whistle phrase. Something that might impede travelling through airports is certainly eye-catching to Nigeria’s big men.

Designation of FTO status would clearly necessitate closer scrutiny of financial flows in and out of Nigeria. This would not only be in connection with Boko Haram specifically, but almost certainly have to take in Nigeria in general.

Put it this way:

The question is not what effect designation would or would not have on Boko Haram.

The real question is: “who is it moving the most suspect money in and out of Nigeria; Boko Haram or… who?”

"Localise and dull down"

Another mass shooting in the US. The media schedule for the next few days will be familiar. Roll out the  blanket coverage, cast away all other stories. Experts, talking heads, politicians, moments of silence, a roll call of names. funerals. Lots of crying people. The repeated and mostly unanswered question "why?"

People find this sort of coverage distasteful. Watching the clips of snatched mobile phone footage rolling over and over through the night only adds to feeling of desolation.

I was reminded of this part of Charlie Brooker's Newswipe today, where a forensic psychologist says that the coverage of violence should be "localised and made as boring as possible" to avoid future massacres.

This made me wonder what localised and dulled down coverage would look like. Something like this? "An incident occurred last night in a place you care absolutely nothing about. An undisclosed number of people were casualties. We cannot reveal the identity of the instigator of this incident..." But then I realised I didn't have to imagine it.

Two weeks ago in Nigeria there was a massacre of around 70 people on the Jos Plateau. It didn't get a huge deal of coverage in the UK, but that's not really  surprising. 


I asked the Guardian correspondents on Twitter if the paper was going to cover it. One responded that there was only room for one African crisis at a time. "Unfortunately Jos will prob be in the news again soon" she said. To be fair to them I'm sure they were keen to cover it. But to the news desk, was the killing of scores of people in a corner of Nigeria too local, too dull? 


In fact, the Nigerian media itself does its best to localise and dull-down coverage of massacres. 


There are few really thorough investigations. You never really hear anything detailed about the perpetrators. Numbers of the dead are always wrong, usually played down. The victims are hardly ever individually named, unless they are somehow connected to politics. Indeed, if a journalist did go into detail and examine the situation on the ground, it is seen as "mischief making". It is assumed that the journalist, or whoever it is delivering the information, has an angle of their own to grind.


Some of this is to do with a natural fear of reprisals. But when you ask people about the causes of violence many shrug and say "it is all political" or they might say bigoted things about the ethnic groups responsible. It's a local problem, they say. It will never be solved, they say. 


What can we say about this localising and dulling down? Is it showing us something? A terrifying thought: if  you accept that killing is dull and is another locality's problem, are you quietly accepting that violence is legitimate?  

The indigo dusk

Islamic healing and Bori spirit possession in Kano

How does Islam encounter traditional beliefs in Kano? The following is taken from Susan O'Brien's PhD thesis Power and Paradox in Hausa Bori, published by the University of Madison, Wisconsin in 2000.

It is a transcript of a discussion between a Malam -an Islamic healer- and a number of spirits dwelling inside a young girl called Fatima. She has been divorced and has had trouble finding a new husband, she also suffers from headaches and bad dreams. She has come to the clinic of the Malam and he and two assistants have read out verses from the Holy Qur'an to draw out the spirits.

A spirit "appears on Fatima", O'Brien says. He identifies himself as a Sarki (king) called Sarkin Duna.

Mallam: Are you a Muslim?
Duna: No
M: So you are an unbeliever.
D: Yes, of course.
M: I want you to accept Islam.
D: In Islam, there is no power.
M: You can retain your power if you become a Muslim, nobody will stop your leadership.
D: I want to become a Muslim but in Islam there is no wine and women, and these are my favourite things. I cannot do without them.
M: Of course there is no wine nor women in Islam, but if you accept Islam, God will provide you with something more sweet than alcohol and women. Islam is a simple religion. God created Adam and the spirits so that they could worship him, and that is why we want you to accept Islam. Accept Islam and you will become our brothers and we will forgive you all of your sins.
The Malams convince Duna to convert and he takes the Muslim name Umar.
M: I am very happy to hear that Umar is an important name in Islam. Now Umar your religion will not be complete until you stop what you are doing?
Duna/Umar: What am I doing?
M: You see your presence in the body of this woman is not good because you are causing her to suffer and prevent her from getting married. Therefore we want you to leave the body of this woman.
U: It is a difficult thing.
M: It is simpler than accepting Islam and when you accept Islam. If you leave her body, God will provide you with something better than her body.
U: I swear it is difficult.
M: Why did you enter into her?
U: I saw her and fell in love with her.
M: Now how old are you?
U: I am forty years old.
M: Umar, please, how many are you in her body?
U: We are seven.*

Not all of these kinds of exchange are as lucid, O'Brien says, some of these exchanges are done with the supplicant emitting only growls, howls or cries. I presume that this exchange is done in Fatima's voice. This exorcism continues and Umar is persuaded to leave. At one stage O'Brien describes what happened to Umar as a "beating". Fatima herself reports no memory of the exchange. During the next two hours the other spirits who reveal themselves include Duma's daughter, then a sun-worshipping spirit called Sanusi who lives in Fatima's left leg and a spirit called Saudatu who lives in Fatima's back. Saudatu confesses that she is in the habit of "inviting our men into her [Fatima]" a revelation that shocks the Malams. A Muslim spirit called Mero tells the Malams he causes her to "do whatever she wants". Eventually, a spirit of a christian preacher called John reveals that Fatima's susceptibility to spirits is caused by her aunt, who cursed her before she was born by concealing charms in her father's well.

O'Brien's work on this subject explores the way the Islamic healing practice of rukiyya, or recitation of the Qur'an sanctioned by Wahabbi scholars, has met the Hausa belief in bori spirits. I read it as a kind of compromise that has provided what she calls a "narrative of inclusion" for people who may have transgressed societal regulations or drifted into societal marginalisation due to their spirit possession.

This is particularly important for women, who live perpetually in what O'Brien says is a near impossible situation of being a good Muslim woman in northern Nigeria.  

* O'Brien, S Power and Paradox in Hausa Bori, University of Madison Wisconsin, 2000, page 259.

USIP report on Boko Haram

Here you can find a link to the report I have written for the United States Institute of Peace on Boko Haram.
It's a review of what we know about the group's history, and what has contributed to the situation as we find it. I looked at what some other researchers in the field say and spoke to many journalist friends in Nigeria and outside who have covered the group.
You can also find it here on my archive page.

Two views of Boko Haram and northern Nigeria

This morning I read this comment piece in the Daily Mail. In it, historian and author Michael Burleigh says the international press have it dangerously wrong on Nigeria, and Boko Haram violence is being understated by journalists, who have a "rosy view" of the militant group. This group will stop at nothing to attack western interests and bring about a "grim hand-chopping regime", he says.

I was reminded, in a curious way, about this op-ed piece sent to me by a fellow Naijaphile a few days ago. In it the President of the American University Yola, Margee Ensign, says that religious intolerance is not Nigeria's problem, much of the Boko Haram violence has been overstated, and the press (particularly the international press) are getting it dangerously wrong on Nigeria.

They are almost diametrically opposite views, except they both agree that journalists (people like me) have it wrong.

Burleigh doesn't acknowledge that Boko Haram is a sect, a group with extreme views. He conflates Boko Haram with all muslims, and sees the forces affecting northern Nigeria, which help Boko Haram, in very simplistic terms. His very scanty knowledge of the situation doesn't seem to be a hindrance on his writing about the subject.

But he may have a point when he says that many of Boko Haram's attacks on Christians don't really fit into the motive of "vengeance against a corrupt state" used to explain Boko Haram's existence.

On her part, Ensign almost acknowledges too much complexity, as if she has trouble seeing the bigger picture. She seems to say if someone who burned a church down was NOT in fact a Muslim, it is evidence that society isn't broken; a baffling position for someone not used to northern Nigeria.

But she is right when she says it is not religious intolerance that will cause Nigeria to split. If that happens it will be because the people who wield power can no longer agree to divide up the spoils, not because of their religious differences.



A few weeks ago I deleted a comment that had been left on my post about police execution and the role it plays in strengthening Boko Haram.

The poster accused me of being too sympathetic to the group and told me that I was deluded if I thought that Muslims weren't trying to take over the world. People like me should stop making excuses and wake up, the comment said.

Only they said it in much more forceful and unpleasant terms.

It has also been said by friends that my opinions on Boko Haram are too sensationalist and over-dramatic.

I have a publication coming out soon on Boko Haram, but after that I'm going to take a break from writing about these people I think.

I'm tired of being in the middle of these two views of northern Nigeria and I want this blog to be about more than just these Boko Haram people.

"If you Tarka me, I go Daboh you"

Godwin Daboh Adzuana will be remembered for a great contribution to Nigerian Pidgin.

Mr Daboh, who died last week, was a Nigerian political godfather, acting behind the curtain, sticking his fingers in many pies.

But back in the days when military leader Yakubu Gowon was in charge, in fact it was just before he was deposed in a coup, Daboh was a relatively unknown businessman from Benue state.

Gowon's publicity man Joseph Tarka had made an announcement that the government encouraged people to report corrupt officials.

Daboh took the opportunity to do exactly that, and provided information that Tarka was as bent as every other six-bob note in the government.

Tarka was forced to resign, and so the phrase "If you Tarka me, I go Daboh you" was born.

Daboh didn't do what he did out of a sense of moral probity, however.

How about this for a scorching obit.

The phrase encapsulates that old military-era problem, which has unfortunately hung over into today's Nigerian society: Everyone is up to their neck in it, if you try and dunk me, I'll pull you under.