Boko haram feat Alexandra Boala interview
Boko Haram, a jihadist extremist group founded in 2002 by a Muslim cleric in Nigeria, has become an increasingly dangerous concern for the international community, and since its founding has led to 8.7 million people requiring humanitarian assistance. Its actions, applauded by the Islamic State, have debilitated Nigeria and the surrounding countries, and as such, the United Nations and its member states are doing everything they can to stand by Nigeria and help them in their time of need. I sat down (on Zoom of course) and discussed the topic with Alexandra Boala, who won the Best Delegate award in Cosbuc MUN’s Security Council in 2021, on this very topic: combating Boko Haram’s terrorist attacks in Nigeria. As such, I have put together a short introduction to the topic, as well as the interview at length, in order to provide you with both objective and rather personal insights on the situation.
Introduction to Boko Haram
Boko Haram’s basic ideology is a firm stance against Westernisation and Western secular education especially. Its initial mission was combating corruption in Nigeria and turning it into an Islamic state, but has since become increasingly radical. It began carrying out large-scale military operations in 2009 and was declared a terrorist organisation by the USA in 2013. Shortly after that, in 2014, it rose to international attention when the group kidnapped over 275 schoolgirls for slavery and to “marry them off”. The group split in two in 2015, one half keeping the name Boko Haram and the other becoming the Islamic State West African Province (ISWAP). There have been countless kidnappings and clashes between the Nigerian government and Boko Haram since, but the most significant development took place on May 19th 2021, when Boko Haram’s leader, Abubakar Shekau, killed himself in a battle between Boko Haram and ISWAP. This was only confirmed by ISWAP and not by the Nigerian government, and as such it is unclear how this will change the situation in the future, but the issue is clearly ever-changing and more urgent than ever.
The interview
Q: Could you tell me in short who Boko Haram are and why they are a problem today?
Alexandra: When you first Google it, you see that Boko Haram is a group of extremists that kidnap little girls, and you may compare them to ISIS and Middle Eastern terrorism, because they said that they want to be affiliated with them and they agree with their practices. But in reality, Boko Haram is more of a state of mind. People are prone to joining this type of group because their ideas are very popular in the most affected area (Nigeria, Niger, and the Lake Chad Basin). In fact, there are more groups, with different names, that all follow the same ideology. And it comes down to what Boko Haram is translated to, because Boko Haram means “rejecting Western tradition”.
Q: Because there are so many of these groups, and they’re interlinked in their ideologies, do you think that, when kind of trying to take them down, you have to go for all of them, or go for each one, one at a time?
Alexandra: In our committee, we discussed two points, first, we said that we’re going to take those groups down, and of course you go and try to act in a manner that is most effective in the short term, and because I represented the USA, we had a full war on terrorism; I gave our example with what we did in the Middle East. What is more important than that though, is trying to educate people, and helping them get a better financial situation. The reason behind the existence of these groups is poverty, is the fact that people don’t trust the government, and people don’t have access to schools: they think that there is no other way to escape poverty. One popular way of such groups recruiting their followers is actually giving them lots of money, or helping their family to eat, to get some clothes, and so on.
Q: You said that you were the delegate of the USA and you told me a bit about the USA's stance, but could you expand on it?
Alexandra: The USA’s stance is quite complex because, in the USA, every president has a different policy and for example, the Obama administration didn’t really want to sell weapons to the Nigerian government, because the government had been accused of human rights violations, and the army had actually tortured some prisoners. So they weren’t keen on directly sending weapons, but they helped with military assistance, personnel, and training. The Trump administration authorised selling weapons, and the Biden administration hasn’t yet taken any direct action, but they said that they’ll continue the fight against terrorism, and they really want to increase their presence in Africa. Basically, to say it in a more non-formal way, all the Western powers want to gain influence in Nigeria, so everyone offers to help with education, infrastructure, and with sending troops and equipment, because the area has a really high potential and they have a lot of oil.
Q: It's always about the oil! So then, how has the Nigerian government reacted in the past, other than these alleged human rights abuses?
Alexandra: The Nigerian government is very open, and because they are a developing country, and they rely on international aid for such situations, they accept every kind of aid that is offered to them. The problem is that their army is often outnumbered by Boko Haram fighters, and their soldiers are scared of them, and other than that, there are also spies from the terrorist groups infiltrated in the army. And this is the main reason why they still can’t fully control them.
Q: In that case, you don’t really think that their reaction and the measures that they’ve taken in the past are enough to combat them?
Alexandra: It’s not about if the measures were effective because, for example, if this was happening in the USA, and the US army would take action, this situation would be over. But, because they simply do not have the necessary forces, equipment, and training, they aren’t able to take down such a group.
Q: And other than obviously helping with infrastructure and education and so on, is the UN and the international community doing anything else to help them?
Alexandra: The UN is not directly doing anything in the area, but Nigeria is receiving help through its international relations, from the US, from China, from Russia; they are buying weapons from these countries. But the United Nations hasn’t authorised any operation yet.
What we did in our Security Council was to create international cooperation. We all sent our military there on a mission to take care of it. But of course, in real life, it goes deeper than that, and what I believe is the most effective solution is other states helping the Nigerian army prepare to fight Boko Haram, and also learning the tactics used in anti-terrorism warfare.
Q: That was going to be my next question, but what solutions did you discuss at CosbucMUN, other than the ones you mentioned?
Alexandra: We discussed a lot about education and such things, because you have to mention them, but because we were the Security Council, we could agree to military action, so we sent that international group with an equal number of forces from all the P5 countries. We also agreed to collaborate with the Nigerian government to assess the situation, because they don't really know how many fighters there are and all the possibilities of this group. And also, we deployed international soldiers to guard schools; one of Boko Haram’s ways of threatening the Nigerian citizens is kidnapping young people from schools, so the parents are afraid to let them go. We thought that if we sent some guards to protect the schools in the most vulnerable areas, Boko Haram wouldn’t kidnap those children anymore, or they would be discouraged to do so.
Q: But the thing is that, as you mentioned before, there are a lot of terrorist organisations in Africa and around the world, so why is Boko Haram special, and why are they so special that the UNSC feels the need to tackle them?
Alexandra: To be honest, the difference between Boko Haram and other groups is the way they act, is the fact that they target young children especially, and they kidnap them. All the groups have the same ideology in common, and, usually, the UNSC will try to discuss the most threatening ones. Because Boko Haram has gained so much influence in the region, and for the past 10 years, it’s been a growing danger, of course it had to be talked about in the UNSC.
Q: I don’t know if you read the news, but I think around May 20th, there were some articles that said that the leader allegedly killed himself in a suicide bombing. Do you think they’re true, and how do you think this is going to affect the fight against Boko Haram in the future?
Alexandra: I think that, to be honest, it’s not really relevant who their leader is, because you can kill a leader, or he can kill himself, but another one is going to appear. They all believe in the same things, the same ideology, so even if they weren’t a group, some of them would act on their own; but because they act together, they’re more powerful. I wouldn’t say that it’s going to have a direct effect on how the government fights against them, but what we know from previous terrorist organisations, is if their leader dies, the people that followed him will make him a martyr and will believe that they should fight more for that organisation.
Q: As we reach the end of the interview, what do you personally think of the situation?
Alexandra: I think it’s a lot to talk about, because when two cultures crash, there’s obviously going to be some kind of violence. Nigeria is trying to follow the Western lifestyle, and I think it’s great that girls are getting an education, that children have the opportunity to make a living and to learn new things. But corruption is the biggest issue in Africa, and this leads to so much insecurity. So I believe that especially in this area, Boko Haram is a response to the fact that people think that their governors are corrupt, that Western ideas are bad because they only see their leaders doing what they do, and they associate it with what a Western ideology is. Some close-minded people may not react well to seeing women go to school and have rights, and as we know, there has always been a fight against new things, liberalism, education, and so on.
Q: I get it. Is there anything else that you want to add before we finish?
Alexandra: I think it all comes down to education, but I’d also like to say that the final idea of the committee was that this is a repeating cycle: because people don’t have access to education, they can’t get a good job; because they can’t get a good job, the economy is bad; because the economy is bad, the country doesn’t have resources. And then, a new politician appears, promising everything, but they’re corrupt, and because of this, people don’t have the opportunity to go to school, and this cycle of injustice and poverty eventually leads to such organisations being born.
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