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BOKO HARAM: Stages Of Terror

By Karls Tsokar, Abuja
12 July 2015   |   1:00 am
THE Boko Haram was founded around 2002, nurtured through the political goal of creating an Islamic state, where Police and western education is denounced. The real menace started in 2008, when the founder of the group, a radical Islamic cleric, Mohammed Yusuf, on realising he had a good number of followers decided to take his…
A village in ruins after Boko Haram attack

A village in ruins after Boko Haram attack

THE Boko Haram was founded around 2002, nurtured through the political goal of creating an Islamic state, where Police and western education is denounced.

The real menace started in 2008, when the founder of the group, a radical Islamic cleric, Mohammed Yusuf, on realising he had a good number of followers decided to take his teaching to the extreme, harping on their perceived imperfections associated with Western education and how much their religious belief is threatened.

Suffice it to say that there were series of warning from Islamic leaders and other stakeholders in Borno State that alerted the political leadership of the threat posed by the teachings of Yusuf, but were ignored.

With poverty, unemployment, class distinction and discrimination coupled with bad governance, Yusuf convinced his followers that civilisation is bad and everything that comes with it, and must be radically rejected.

The Guardian gathered that within the month of July 2009, a clash between the now fully radicalised sect and the law enforcement resulted in the death of more than 700 people, mostly sect members. On July 26, security forces arrested nine Boko Haram members and confiscated weapons and bomb-making equipment and another clash with police during a funeral procession led to revenge attacks on police and widespread rioting in some areas in Maiduguri, Borno State, the headquarters of the sect.

A joint military task force operation was launched in response, and by July 30, more than 700 people were killed. During this short period, police stations, prisons, government offices, schools and churches were destroyed.

Yusuf was killed in 2009, without formal trial. His second in command and one of his ardent followers, reputed to be more vicious, took over the reins and introduced a more radical approach to activities of the sect, attacking the rival Islamic groups and Christian worship centres.

In September 2010, a Prison formation was attacked in Bauchi State and some of the suspected members of the group, who were being held, along with other criminal elements numbering more than 700, escaped.

Then followed the Suleja attack in December, where a bomb wired in a car parked outside the Church killed worshippers on Christmas Eve.

It marked turning point in their modus operandi. The outlook of the Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’Awati Wal-Jihad, popularly called Boko Haram, as they followed up with another massive attack on Yola prison in April 2011, where they allegedly freed 14 of their suspected members.

With the full take over of the sect leadership, Abubakar Shekau improved its operational strategies and capabilities, from drive-by shooting of policemen or government officials, to use of Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) in reckless abandon.

The Nigerian Police Force Headquarters was attacked, killing more than 10 people in June 2011. In August same year, the United Nations building was also attacked, killing hundreds in the wake.

Maintaining a steady spate of attack, the group carried out 115 well coordinated attacks in 2011 alone, killing more than 600 people, crippled the economy of the entire northeast, rendered many homeless and without a source of livelihood. Then President Goodluck Jonathan declared a partial state of emergency in Borno, Adamawa, Yobe, Plateau and Niger states, after criticism, that his government was nonchalant to the now national catastrophe.

This declaration rather than stem the tide, spurred the insurgents, as they carried out more devastating attacks. There was the January 20 attack in Kano that also killed a journalist, Eneche Akogwu, of Channels Television and about 200 others.

By the end of 2013, the United State (US) government placed a $7 million reward on Abubakar Shekau. The sect expanded its frontiers into Northern Cameroun, Chad and Niger Republic. The kidnapping of more than 300 secondary school girls in Chibok was the climax, as it brought the world’s attention on Nigeria.

The number of reported deaths due to the series of attacks by the sect in 2014 alone stood at about 2,000 civilians, religious leaders and security operatives. Including the April 14 Nyanya bombing (the same day the Chibok girls were kidnapped) that claimed many lives. The May 20 Jos twin bomb attacks also claimed about 120 lives and on June 2 in three communities in Gwoza, militants dressed in military uniforms, slaughtered more than 200 people.

The Multi-National Joint Task Force (MNJTF) between member countries of the Lake Chad Basin Commission (LCBC) and Benin Republic met in June for an extra-ordinary summit in Abuja and reviewed the security situation and emergency development plan. So as to effect the “implementation of the strategic direction for the operationalisation of the MNJTF”, because as the Nigeria’s Chief of Defence Staff, Air Chief Marshal Alex Badeh, said, “it is very important for us to build enduring structures that will have pragmatic value on the LCBC member nations and Benin. I therefore call for the immediate operationalisation of the MNJTF due to the urgent need for closer collaboration between us to curb this menace.”

Persistent and an all out airstrike and land attacks by the Nigerian military silenced the terrorists for some time sequel to the elections in March, after it was shifted from February 2015.

But with the inauguration of President Buhari, the spate of terror attacks have resumed with renewed vigor, extending into Kaduna State and threatening to explode.

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