Read this very interesting article by The Economist on the fight
against Boko Haram and the alleged multiple deaths of Boko
Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau. The article below..
How many times can one man die? At least four, in the
case of Abubakar Shekau, the slippery leader of Boko
Haram. Nigerian security forces celebrated his demise in
2009, 2013 and 2014, only for him to pop up again,
disconcertingly animate, on camera. When Chad’s
president said in August that his troops had killed Mr
Shekau, the jihadist was resurrected once again, this
time with a voice recording. “Woe unto liars that had
claimed I am dead,” said the voice. “Nobody can kill
me.”
This relatively mild-mannered dispatch raised questions of its
own. Most of what is known about Africa’s most notorious
terrorist derives from his gun-wielding, slave-touting videos. If
he were still at large, would he not release a film in his usual
more robust style? Most probably, he is indeed alive. Whether
he is injured is impossible to say. Experts dispute how old he
is, or how religiously scholarly. Perhaps he is not one man at
all. The army accused Boko Haram of using body doubles after
he was “killed” last year.
The organisation Mr Shekau presides over is shrouded in more
mystery still. Nigeria’s insurgency has grown a lot bloodier
since Mr Shekau took over from Mohammed Yusuf, who was
(verifiably) shot dead by police in 2009. In theory a more
conciliatory leader might offer some hope for compromise and
peace. But what if many of Boko Haram’s bomb-blasting
ideologues answer to different bosses altogether? Even the
most knowledgeable experts cannot agree on whether the
organisation consists of one army or several.
This is a worry, to say the least. Nigeria has spent six years
and billions of dollars battling the terrorists, who have killed
over 15,000 people in their bid to establish a caliphate in the
north-east. As attacks spill across borders, Chad, Cameroon
and Niger have been drawn in. A regional army is set to deploy
soon. Without basic intelligence, they are shooting in the dark.
One explanation for the sect’s opacity is geography. Boko
Haram’s fighters hole up in the forests and mountains near the
border with Cameroon, or along the desert fringes of Lake Chad.
Telephone lines are often cut. Members communicate vital
information in person. Fulan Nasrullah, a Nigerian security
analyst, says Boko Haram conscripts only from families known
to its spies, so it is not easily infiltrated.
A second view is that those who could solve the enigma do not
try hard to do so. America designated Boko Haram as a
terrorist organisation only in 2013. With a bounty of $7m on his
head, Mr Shekau is worth more to the Americans than any other
outlaw in Africa. Yet there have been only modest efforts to
train local soldiers and gather intelligence. Western
governments do not view Nigeria’s Islamists as a threat to their
interests. Compared with Islamic State, Boko Haram is not a
priority.
Within Nigeria, meanwhile, the war has made some generals
and security agents very rich. They would perhaps rather not
see it end. The official line seems to be that questions about
what Boko Haram wants and how its forces are structured are
peripheral. “Even if there is a split [between factions], we are
not looking at it that way,” says Mike Omeri, a government
spokesman.
It had better start. The stringent new president, Muhammadu
Buhari, recently gave the army three months to snuff out Boko
Haram. Before they stand a chance of doing that, they will need
to work out what they are fighting.
