Boston – By Emman Okuns.
Nigerian government has been advised to end indiscriminate counter-terrorism measures, especially “the growing practice of extra-judicial killings” in order to earn the confidence of the populace in fighting the Boko Haram insurgency.
More generally, the government must do more to be seen as siding with the people, said a Northeastern University Assistant Professor, Max Abrahms in a speech he delivered at the recent Nigeria security summit at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Prof. Abrahms who teaches public policy described terrorism as cancer-like, adding that “the reason we haven’t found a good way to combat it is because there are so many different causal pathways to getting it.”
According to him, indiscriminate violence is counterproductive for governments because it communicates to the population that it may be targeted even if it doesn’t side against the government.
“And for this reason, the safety of civilians may actually depend on joining the militants.”
He said because different Boko Haram members derive different kinds of utility from participating in the group, Nigeria needs a multi-layered counterterrorism response aimed at depriving any utility from the group.
Part of the ways to solve the problem of the insurgency, he opined, is for government to do more in sharing the nation’s wealth with the Northern part of the country in order to make Boko Haram less attractive among the poor and the unemployed.
According to him, the government, like many governments in the Muslim world must find a way to counter the ideological narrative of violent Islamists, adding: “Boko Haram looks a lot like other terrorist groups in some ways, but is different in others.
Only by appreciating both the differences and similarities can academics hope to inform the debate of how Nigeria might move forward.”
He said that terrorist actions often times get exacerbated against the civilians when government takes out their leaders, referring to the killing of Boko Haram Founder, Mohammed Yusuf in 2009 by the Nigeria’s security forces.
He referred to a forthcoming study in the journal International Organization, in which he and his co-author examined the effects of decapitation strikes against militant group leaders.
“Our sample includes pretty much every militant group that’s ever operated in the Middle East or Africa over the past several decades.
What we find is that militant groups are significantly more likely to direct their violence against the population after their leaders have been killed.”
Prof Abrahm noted that such anti-civilian action on the part of the terrorist group often boomerang or turn public opinions and reactions against them, and therefore wondered why Nigerians have not risen up against Boko Haram, considering the mayhem they have unleashed on the populace.
“I waited and waited for the Nigerian public to rise up against Boko Haram and crush it. But unfortunately, this hasn’t happened.”
Read the full text of Professor Abraham’s speech delivered on August 8, 2014:
