Journeys through Extremism: The Experiences of Forced Recruits in Boko Haram (original) (raw)
Related papers
Social, Economic, and Civic Reintegration of Former Boko Haram Affiliates
United Nations University, 2021
What Does It Mean to Reintegrate After Armed Group Involvement? 4 Overview 4 Findings 4 Policy and Programmatic Implications 8 KEY FINDINGS • In and around Maiduguri, community members' willingness to engage socially, economically, and civically with former Boko Haram associates is generally high. • Across almost all types of engagement, support for engaging with men leaving Boko Haram appears lower than support for engagement with women leaving the group. This suggests the public-although generally supportive of reintegration-views male former associates differently, likely due to fear. • While most people want former Boko Haram associates to be able to live a peaceful life once they return to the community, there appear to be limitations to that sentiment as fewer people thought they should be safe from reprisals. This Findings Report, and the research that supported it, were undertaken as part of UNU-CPR's Managing Exits from Armed Conflict (MEAC) project. MEAC is a multi-donor, multi-partner initiative to develop a unified, rigorous approach to examining how and why individuals exit armed conflict and evaluating the efficacy of interventions meant to support their transitions. While the Findings Report benefited from feedback from MEAC's donors and institutional partners, it does not necessarily represent their official policies or positions.
This essay describes the recruitment strategies being employed by the Boko Haram terrorist organisation, particularly among the children and youths in Northern Nigeria. These young elements are frequently used as fighters, suicide bombers, spies and human shields. It focuses on the Islamic ideology of the sect and possible easy recruitment from the mass of Almajirai in many northern states of the country. Those factors that facilitate their metamorphosis from street begging to warriors are examined in this essay.
Anatomy of Boko Haram: The Rise and Decline of a Violent Group in Nigeria
The Nigerian Army has recently initiated a new military operation in the northeast region of the country and around Lake Chad to eradicate the remaining Boko Haram militants. Major General David Ahmadu, army chief of Training and Operations, said the operation would last four months and involve the deployment of additional six army brigades and other military assets in Borno state, where the insurgents remain active.(1) Boko Haram insurgency is believed to have claimed at least 100,000 lives, displaced more than 2.6 million people, caused pain to over 52, 311 orphans and 54,911 widows, and led to about $9 billion worth of damage.(2) UNICEF blames the militant group for killing around 2,295 teachers and destroying more than 1400 schools destroyed since the conflict started nearly nine years ago. Boko Haram waged a short-lived uprising surged in violence under President Goodluck Jonathan's administration, and has grown resilient under President Muhammadu Buhari's administration. This paper examines the trend of Boko Haram’s violence, and aims at explaining the group, societal, state and international dynamics that have shaped its rise and decline.
Journal of Modern African Studies, 2018
Boko Haram’s operations and ideology have been the subject of increasing research in recent years. This article, in contrast, explores the culture of Boko Haram through an ethnographic analysis of the group’s internal videos that were not intended for public release. The authors find that in their everyday lives Boko Haram foot soldiers are different from the image the group presents to the world in propaganda videos. While unmistakably a violent movement, in territories under the group’s control that it attempted to administer, foot soldiers participated in conflict resolution with elders, explained the group’s position on external alliances to villagers, engaged in recreation to pass time off the battlefield and created bonds of solidarity with other members of the group. Using insights from anthropology and the examination of ‘Jihadi Culture’, this article’s insights help us understand how and why Boko Haram foot soldiers fight beyond the group’s public ideology or stated goals: for many of them, it is simply a lifestyle.
Boko Haram’s recruitment processes: Ideological and pragmatic considerations
2020
At the crossroads of major trade routes and characterised by intense human circulations, the area that encompasses northern Nigeria and southern Niger is a privileged space to study transnational religious dynamics. Islam is, indeed, an essential feature of this region assuming today new forms in terms of discourses, practices, and modes of dissemination. In order to capture their changing complexity and diversity, regional Islamic dynamics need to be observed from both sides of the Niger-Nigeria border, where religious patterns echo each other but also obey different socio-political injunctions. While studying the processes of religious renewal and mutation, it is necessary to pay attention to the varied forms these processes take, to their direct and indirect effects and to the channels of transmission used. An interdisciplinary team of seven researchers from Niger, Nigeria, France and the United Kingdom was set up to conduct this transnational study; all authors carried out ethnographic
Reports Anatomy of Boko Haram: The Rise and Decline of a Violent Group in Nigeria
The Nigerian Army has recently initiated a new military operation in the northeast region of the country and around Lake Chad to eradicate the remaining Boko Haram militants. Major General David Ahmadu, army chief of Training and Operations, said the operation would last four months and involve the deployment of additional six army brigades and other military assets in Borno state, where the insurgents remain active.(1) Boko Haram insurgency is believed to have claimed at least 100,000 lives, displaced more than 2.6 million people, caused pain to over 52, 311 orphans and 54,911 widows, and led to about $9 billion worth of damage.(2) UNICEF blames the militant group for killing around 2,295 teachers and destroying more than 1400 schools destroyed since the conflict started nearly nine years ago. Boko Haram waged a short-lived uprising surged in violence under President Goodluck Jonathan's administration, and has grown resilient under President Muhammadu Buhari's administration. This paper examines the trend of Boko Haram’s violence, and aims at explaining the group, societal, state and international dynamics that have shaped its rise and decline.
On counterinsurgency, Idayat Hassan and Zacharias Pieri argue that: • The familiarity of anti-Boko Haram vigilantes in the Civilian JTF (CJTF) with local languages and the local terrain in northeastern Nigeria makes them uniquely capable of combating Boko Haram at a grassroots level. • Fears have arisen over the possibility that the CJTF will ‘turn bad’ as so often happens with civil- ian-based armed groups (CBAGs). • The Nigerian government has to address concerns of CJTF members regarding their future em- ployment, education, and training and provide them a legitimate path into the armed forces. Failure to act will only serve to further delegitimize the state.
Baptism By Fire: Boko Haram and the Reign of Terror in Nigeria
The rise of Boko Haram, a radical Islamist sect, has heightened the state of insecurity in Nigeria and beyond, triggering deadly bomb attacks on police forces, government officials, places of worship, public institutions, and innocent civilians. With the violence showing no signs of abating, this paper advances two theoretical approaches—a state-failure thesis and a frustration-aggression thesis—to explain the Boko Haram phenomenon in terms of its evolution, intent, enemies, and radicalization. The overarching focus of the paper, however, is on the factors that fan the flames of the terrorist insurgency, including security deficiency, endemic elite corruption and military brutality, continued economic challenges, decrepit and underdeveloped infrastructures, and inaccurate reporting. Accordingly, one way of resolving the Boko Haram impasse would be to address the causal efficacy of each of the foregoing trigger factors. It is hoped that when these issues are addressed, the likelihood that the discontented, aggrieved, and frustrated youth of northern Nigeria will gravitate toward terrorism as an option will be significantly reduced, or even eliminated.