State Of Emergency In Northeast Nigeria Appears To Be Working

Followers of news reports from Nigeria will agree that before the declaration of a state of emergency in Adamawa, Yobe and Borno States, all in Northeast of Nigeria, by President Goodluck Jonathan, the newspaper headlines are always awash with killings and deaths caused by the activities of the Islamic sect, Boko Haram. In about a month since the imposition of the state of emergency the insurgents appeared to be on the run, while the local residents of the areas where the insurgents were the lords are thanking God for the intervention of the military.

Already there are reports that the local youths, in Maiduguri, Borno State which is the spiritual headquarters of the Boko Haram sect, emboldened by the successes being achieved by the Joint Military Task Force(JTF), have formed vigilante groups to identify and handover insurgents among the civil population to the JTF. From this report, it seems apparent that the JTF despite the protestations that trailed their deployment, especially the protest by the Northern Elders Forum (NEF), that the soldiers would act with impunity thereby violating the rights of the people, the army is winning the war for the hearts and minds of the local population. It is also instructive from media reports that the brave young men going after the members of Boko Haram say they can identify the insurgents, this was contrary to the earlier positions of even the Borno Elders that it was impossible to identify members of the insurgents since they do not wear combat uniform to differentiate them from the general population.

However, while the soldiers appear to be having the upper hand in the field, having dislodged the insurgents from their camps in the surrounding bushes in Maiduguri, there are fears that the insurgents have retreated to fight another day. It would be recalled that in 2009, the federal government under the leadership of Late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua used strong arm tactics against the sect by routing them and in the process its spiritual leader, Yusuf Mohammed was killed. The group retreated and appeared defeated only to come back more deadly and fearful with well coordinated attacks against security agents and civilians, while international institutions like the United Nations were not spared.

The insurgents’ ability to melt into the general population and regroup at a later date is one strategy that has served them well in the past and may still be relevant for them this time. With this in mind it would be difficult to predict the success or otherwise of the present campaign in the next one year or two, unless the people of Borno, Adamawa and Yobe States, say enough is enough and work hand in hand to ensure that their states are not fertile grounds for the recruitment of insurgents. The youths of Borno, particularly those in parts of Maiduguri have shown the way to the future. The youths are sending a message to the insurgents: “embrace peace as we will never allow Maiduguri to become another Mogadishu, Somalia.”