Boko Haram – Made in Nigeria for sale in Cameroon

Innocent Chia: DUNIA Editor-in-Chief - Blog: ChiaReport Twitter: @InnoChia

Their kidnapping of 223 pre-puberty school girls in the village of Chibok certainly earned them global ire, but it is only one in a pantheon of brazen onslaughts that have become a trade mark against local populations since their emergence at the turn of the second millennium. In search for answers and in an attempt to understand the anatomy of the beast, the first diagnostic has been a conflagrated reading into what the name of the group means – Boko Haram = “hatred for Western education”.

This piece argues that while the atrocious actions on the ground justify such an interpretation, it may be the kind of convenient myopia that has thus far resulted in band-aid measures and no long term fixes. There is no getting to the heart of the problem, however, without recognizing that Boko Haram is, directly or indirectly, the creation of past and present regimes in Nigeria and Cameroon that granted States within the State to some Islamic leaders.

 

Space for Power                                                                                                                      There is documented evidence of the historical power and influence of the Lamido of Adamawa, in Nigeria, and the Lamido of Rey Bouba in Cameroon. As recently as in March 2014, the Lamido of Adamawa in Nigeria made a veiled threat to Nigeria, but to Cameroon as well:

“My Kingdom has been in existence hundreds of years before the so-called entity called Nigeria and the so-called civilized people from the West who are the people who came and divided us. The larger part of my kingdom is now in Cameroon and a part of it is named a state that is Adamawa State in Cameroon. If you go to Cameroon, you verify that.” -  vanguard.com

Far from attributing Boko Haram’s heinous acts of terrorism to the Monarch, his comments above provide context for understanding the nature of the territory/space in which Boko Haram is operating and who is in actual control of it – Is it the State or the Monarchy that controls the space.

My definition of politics of space refers to the physical and geographical area in which extremist groups exist, are created, left to mushroom and bourgeon through an agreement of non-meddling, often tacit, between the ruling elite and a group that could pose, or is perceived as, a reasonable threat to authority / power.

Cameroonians anecdotally tell of the towering power of the Lamido of Rey Bouba – of the local taxes that he collects from residents; of the thugs (local militia) that enforce law and order; of government officials that are subsidiaries of the Lamido, not vice versa, and take no decisions unless and until the Lamido has given his OK. 

There is little doubt that with an understanding of the history of his Northern region, Cameroon’s young and inexperienced President, Ahmadou Ahidjo, certainly felt the pressure to act in deference of the monarchs, the same ones he had grown up in awe of. The former Post Office worker with a miserly monthly wage and no immediate family ties to the powerful and influential monarchs needed to give something in exchange for the support and credibility he needed from the Monarchs. The endorsement of the French was vital, but he needed an electoral base that he could use as leverage over opponents and allies alike. The Grand North, to most from the South, was largely unknown, unexplored and even dangerous. He did not have any money to exchange for power and influence. So what did he give?

Concessions Vs Constitutional guarantees
He promised non-interference in their internal affairs – socio-economic and political order. He promised to leave them alone in their territory in exchange for their support against any opponents, neutrality against any other son from the North. He also guaranteed them access to jobs and schools through institutionalized nepotism variously guised as Regional Integration and National Unity. As it turned out, the vast majority of the jobs were low paying jobs in the military and the gendamerie that required little education. 

Open the floodgates of the military to an ethnic group did not only happen in Cameroon, it was also the case in Nigeria. You readily understand why over 90% of the military coups in Nigeria have been led by Northern / Muslim elements of the army... and one the botched attempt in Cameroon was equally led by Northrern elements. The fact, I think, is that there was not a long term strategic and tactical vision to integrate them into the civil service. The army was a way of keeping them at arms length, without a thought that this was militarizing a section of the population. The offshoots of this decadent national policy that Biya has escalated to palpitatingly devastating levels are clear to the trained eye.

Development in the North has stalled even as the South has fared better. Structures built by the regime of Ahmadou Ahidjo, including roads, football fields and schools have hardly been maintained. It is true that Africa suffers from chronic and endemic shortsightedness when it comes to any maintenance work, even on personal homes. Late into the 90’s I covered a Regional Athletics event at the Stade Omnisport de Garoua. Much as the stadium had been spruced up, parts of the synthetic turf had been ripped off - stolen by individuals and taken home.

School enrolment in the Grand North – made up of three regions that are Adamawa, North and Far North – remains the lowest in the entire country. This low enrolment in “Western Schools”, a stark contrast to the number of high profile governmental positions held by Northerners, strongly highlights the continuous influence of powerful Muslim leaders, their disconnect from the rest of the country and the prominence of Islamic schools over integrated Western schools. Of strategic import is whether the curriculum at these Islamic schools have been reviewed and approved by the State? This is of great consequence because national goals of development must be tied to the education of kids in respective schools, including at religious institutions.

These examples not only show that a huge part of the population feels left out and completely detached from the rest of the country, they reflect a local population that is ill-equipped to handle the modern structures that have paradoxically been air-dropped as part of its national cake. Therein lies the fundamental problem with the paradigm of non-intervention and systemic nepotism that Ahidjo, Paul Biya and their Nigerian peers never envisioned – There was not an alignment and integration of Islamic education with national goals. Northerners, incidentally Muslims for the most part, were never treated as a part of the whole; they were granted whole status within the rest.

For instance, studying the Koran alone has not guaranteed the vast majority of children of the beautiful Grand North - with its beautiful peaks and valleys, wild life and fearless people – jobs. Instead, it has opened the doors of opportunity and employment to Southerners who come as teachers, administrators and thousands of other civil service jobs. These Southerners are coming with values that are intrinsically alien to Fundamental Islamic values – women dress and do not cover their faces, men and women from the South drink openly in bars, smoke and flirt on the streets, female bosses from the South tell their Northern male employees what to do - a no-no in this male chauvinistic society.

The story is told of how Madam Yao Aissatou, previously Minister of Women’s and Social Affairs, returned from the 1995 Beijing Fourth World Conference on Women empowerment and went on tour to speak to Cameroonian women. The word on the street is that she told her Northern Muslim sisters that just because she was talking empowerment to them did not mean she did not recognize who wore the pants in her household.

Such a caveat contextualizes the paradoxes that are paramount in this part of the Muslim World. Muslims want, need and are entitled to development too. They want equal opportunities as well. They want their kids to have the same accesses as do kids from the South. They want good roads. They want good hospitals with staff that are equipped to cure their sick. They want clean drinking water. Yes, they want all of these and then some more. The questions that policy makers never addressed, and are still not addressing, were arguably the glue to the entente, the silent agreement of turning a blind eye. Muslims, like the rest of the groups at the dawn of Independence under Presidents Ahidjo and Azikiwe, needed Constitutional guarantees and not short term concessions for short-term individual gain.

The short term approach hardly could have answered pertinent questions that still require answers in any meaningful dialogue today: How can we develop the talent and resources here? What kind development do you want to achieve? Where will this project benefit the most of your needy ones? How do you think we should go about achieving such development in this area? Who do you want to work on achieving this outcome of development? What timeframe is needed to accomplish the project(s)? How do we measure success?

Answering these questions may be at the heart of the unraveling that has been going along the strip of Muslim territory straddling Nigeria and Cameroon. For far too long, these young men have seen their peers from the South bring about development in the South. These same Southerners come over on their side of the pond and erect symbolic structures while they passively watch on. Even when Southerners are not executing the projects, it is the work of Northern brothers and sisters that have obtained a “Western education” talking down to them and giving them handouts. 

“Them Vs Us”
For every Western educated person that has run for political office in their village and lost, there is always a sense, going in, that they are the best candidate because the other person is not as educated, not as well travelled…. While this is a matter worth revisiting another day, it is important that those with a Western education start answering the question of loyalty and kinship as they approach these electoral exercises. The point here is Boko Haram may be expressing the same sentiments of rejection that a local electorate gives to their own very son who comes home brandishing their Western certificates and thinks that his/her solutions are the best for the community or that the community does not know what is good for it.

These are factors that are probably discounted in the media’s embrace of the Arabic meaning of Boko Haram– “hatred for Western education” – as the favorite weapon to hang this dog because it is living up to the promise of its bad name. Yes, the World is witness to the scars of their sadism which is etched across entire communities that have been razed down; in the minds of families who have buried loved ones or treated their injured; those rendered homeless because their homes got burnt down or had to pack-up and leave in the face of looming doom.

But Islam happens to be one of the earlier religions whose leaders travelled far and wide for learning in all sectors including in science, medicine, mathematics and business. Acquiring such knowledge was a badge of honor for the religion and the community. It therefore cannot be a religion that eschews Western education or any other type of education. Just the thought of it runs counter to the weapons they are using to fight, which are made by the West. The thought that they hate Western education runs counter to the media platforms that they are deploying, which are Western. The thought of it runs counter to their lifestyles, including the cars used in hijacking.

An explanation of this “hatred” - thanks to observing communities that have been rejecting even their own children who studied abroad and are wannabe politicians across Africa - is found in the following Christian teaching: Christ hates the sin but loves the sinner. A listen at the YouTube videos of Boko Haram clearly shows that they leadership is not very educated, or hardly has an excellent command of the English language. It may or may not be a pointer to the level of education, but it is clearly a repudiation of those who think Western education entitles them to speak on behalf of these disenfranchised communities. For the West and Western education to conquer the hate, it must reach across the aisle and find value, add value and meaning to Islamic education.

Islamic values, different from the reciting of the Quran, have to be integrated into the national curriculum and not separated from the rest of Western education. That way, sons and daughters of the North will not feel threatened in their own back yards. They will be in-charge of their own destinies, running their own farms, teaching in their own integrated schools, policing their own communities not as thugs but as civil servants, administering their cities and towns as qualified administrators as opposed to quota-fillers.

Without these conversations and matching strategies of inclusiveness on the basis of equality, fairness and a level playing field, the senseless brutality may persist and the growing number of victims will forever remind us of our inaction. In a 2012 Presentation, Cameroonian blogger Tande Dibussi enumerated "social inequality, political marginalization, economic neglect" as the "driving force behind the birth and growth of Boko Haram". "Tackle these issues" he prescribed "and militant Islamic groups such as Boko Haram will lose their appeal."