COUNTERINSURGENCY IN NORTHERN EASTERN NIGERIA 2009 TILL DATE
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COUNTERINSURGENCY IN NORTHERN EASTERN NIGERIA 2009 TILL DATE
ABSTRACT
This research focuses on counterinsurgency in Northern Eastern Nigeria from 2009 to the present. The overall population for the study is 200 residents of Borno state’s designated local governments. The researcher collected data using questionnaires as the instrument. Descriptive This study used a survey research design.
The survey used a total of 133 respondents made up of males, women, youths, and non-governmental organisations. The acquired data was organised into tables and analysed using simple percentages and frequencies.
CHAPITRE ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background of The study
Since 2009, insecurity in the context of violence has reached typically worrisome levels in Nigeria. It is a historical fact that human society has been characterised by various forms of violence since time immemorial. Traditional societies saw violence in the form of raids, tribal battles, slavery, and insurrection, among other things.
Individuals and groups engaged in these activities in order to increase their power, status, and influence over others or to register their discontent. Insurgency has occurred throughout history,
but its strategic relevance has ebbed and waned. Today, the globe has entered a new era in which insurgency is common and strategically important.
Insurgency is a strategy employed by groups that are unable to achieve their political goals through traditional forms of power seizure. Insurgency is distinguished by ongoing, asymmetric violence, ambiguity,
the utilisation of complex terrain (jungles, mountains, and urban areas), psychological warfare, and political mobilisation, all of which are intended to shield insurgents and eventually shift the balance of power in their favour.
Insurgents may aim to seize power and overthrow the incumbent government (revolutionary insurgency), or they may have more limited goals such as secession, independence, or policy change. They avoid battlegrounds where they are vulnerable and concentrate on locations where they can operate on a more equal footing.
They attempt to postpone decisive action, avoid defeat, sustain themselves, broaden their support, and hope that the power balance shifts in their favour over time (Metz, 2004: 2). Insurgencies are classified into two categories.
The first are what are known as national insurgencies, in which the principal antagonists are the insurgents and a sitting government with some legitimacy and popular support.
The insurgents and the government disagree in terms of economic class, ideology, identity (ethnicity, race, religion), or any other political component. Although the government has external backing, the battle is unmistakably between insurgents and a national government.
National insurgencies are triangular in the sense that they involve not only the two antagonists, insurgents and counterinsurgents, but also a variety of other actors who can change the antagonists’ relationship by supporting one or the other.
The population of the country is the most important of these other actors, although they may also include external states, organisations, and groups. Insurgents and counterinsurgents adopt methods that, in some ways, mirror each other, as they aim to undermine the opposing party while also winning over neutrals or people who are not committed to either side (Metz, 2004:2).
On July 26, 2009, the Boko Haram violence that began in Yobe state in 2003 was about to return in Maiduguri, Borno state. Within a week, the issue had extended to other states such as Yobe, Kano, and Bauchi. The headquarters of the sect were destroyed, and the group’s leader, along with other members, were executed extrajudicially.
Despite the fact that the group demanded for the arrest and trial of the perpetrators, the government initially took no obvious action in that direction. This government inactivity was a prescription for multiple attacks by the sect who adored Mohammed Yusuf even in death because to his significant economic and spiritual impact on them. In the first place, this is what the Nigerian government failed to accomplish for them.
Since 2009, the Northern region of Nigeria, particularly the North East, has been devoid of peace as a result of the activities of the Boko Haram sect (among other security threats), which has unleashed a series of terrorist attacks in Borno,
Yobe, Adamawa, Bauchi, Plateau, Kano, Kaduna, Katsina, Niger, and the Federal Capital Territory, claiming an estimated thirteen thousand lives between 2009 and 2013 (Olukolade, 2014),
destroying The wave of instability that has paralysed business activity in the worst-affected areas has prompted locals to warn one another and find refuge in the adage that dread of Boko Haram is the beginning of knowledge. The bombings of the Louis Edet house, the Nigerian Police Headquarters, the United Nations building, and similar other bomb blasts in Saint Theresa’s Catholic Church,
Madalla, Bauchi state, Gombe state, Kano, as well as recurring bombings and killings in various parts of Borno state and other parts of the north, demonstrate that the group can strike anywhere and at any time, and no one can claim to be safe or free from their attacks.
Their method of operation also exposes an obvious inability on the part of the government and its security agencies to manage the issue properly and amicably. So far, practically every aggressive strategy taken by the government to deal with the situation has failed and simply exacerbated the scenario, as the group has vowed to continue the wave of attacks until their demands are granted.
Every insurgency elicits a counterinsurgency (COIN) reaction, which is usually aimed at defeating it. Such a reaction is initiated primarily and directly by the state against whom the insurgency is directed, with the state typically receiving international backing as the insurgency escalates.
The scaling up of the counter-insurgency operation by the Nigerian military in north-east Nigeria since May 2013 mainly in Borno and portions of Yobe appears to have displaced Boko Haram insurgents from areas they had ‘captured’.
By that point, the Boko Haram muj?hidn had amassed sophisticated weapons such as heavy machine guns and, according to the Nigerian army, anti-aircraft cannons through attacks on police and military installations and the regional arms trade.
Nonetheless, substantial knowledge on what is currently going on in Borno and Yobe is far from complete. Boko Haram attacks and Nigerian military deployments against the group are currently centred in Borno and Yobe more than anywhere else. However, the militants are mobile, and the border areas remain porous, so even if the military puts pressure on them, they may be able to regroup.
Boko Haram has regional contacts with militant organisations in the Sahara, and they have been blamed for bloodshed in southern Niger and border areas in Cameroon’s far north.
At the moment, the threat presented by Boko Haram to neighbouring nations appears to be minor, but additional research in Francophone countries is needed to assess this and the level of regional state cooperation that currently exists.
In the short term, the greater challenge for the people of north-east Nigeria and the border areas of Cameroon, Niger, and Chad may not be violence per se, but rather disruptions to farming, pastoralism, trade, markets, and legitimate travel caused by insecurity and security measures implemented by governments and militaries in the region.
If the conflict is to be brought under control, the Nigerian state and neighbouring nations will need to garner more local public sympathy and cooperation than Boko Haram (http://www.sciencespo.fr).
STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
Over 2,000 civilians have died as a result of government actions to combat insurgency. The Nigerian military, for example, has been accused of killing and torturing innocent civilians in the chase of Boko Haram, and only in October 2012, thirty (unarmed) civilians were shot dead by the Nigerian military in the north-eastern city of Maiduguri in pursuit of Boko Haram.
Three weeks later, the Nigerian military carried out another operation in Maiduguri, killing seventy civilians with no link to Boko Haram. In this sequence, the Nigerian state has over-exploited the concept of a “war”
against terrorists or counter-insurgency, diminishing civil liberties and compromising on core human rights issues. As a result, it is improbable that Boko Haram or any other transnational terrorism can be defeated militarily.
The Boko Haram sect’s wave of violence in northern Nigeria has shown the breadth of the country’s failure of governance, the Nigerian state’s abysmally inadequate crisis management tradition, and its embarrassing incapacity to provide security to its residents.
It has also highlighted the need for the administration to make concerted and expanded efforts to find long-term solutions to the country’s intractable crisis.
PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
The study’s aims are as follows:
Identifying and debating the primary causes that have contributed to the outbreak of the Boko Haram insurgency in Northern Nigeria.
To assess the efficacy and adequacy of the Nigerian government’s response to the Boko Haram insurgency.
To propose potential counterinsurgency methods in Northern and Eastern Nigeria.
RESEARCH HYPOTHESES
The researcher developed the following research hypotheses in order to successfully complete the study:
H0: There are no major causes driving the Boko Haram insurgency in Northern Nigeria.
H1: There are major issues fueling the Boko Haram insurgency in Northern Nigeria.
H02: There are no effective counterinsurgency measures in Northern Eastern Nigeria.
H2: Effective counterinsurgency measures are possible in Northern and Eastern Nigeria.
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
This study is topical because it presents strategies for dealing with or avoiding insurgency, which remains an issue for Nigeria and other countries throughout the world. Similarly, this paper gives data on the potential negative consequences of counterinsurgency operations.
As a result, it gives an opportunity for governments around the world to spend extensively in human development and eliminate societal vices like poverty, illiteracy, and unemployment as a means of preventing insurgency and terrorism. To be sure, the communal duty advocated in this thesis is not only for Nigerian security,
but also for the well-being of all humans, regardless of their nation of origin. So, if various governments become acutely aware that the prevalence of insurgencies and terrorism in various parts of the world is inextricably linked to governmental lapses or poor governance,
and work tirelessly to implement some of the measures proposed in this thesis, the scourge of insurgencies and terrorism would be greatly reduced.
SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY
The study’s focus includes counterinsurgency operations in northern and eastern Nigeria from 2009 to the present. The researcher comes upon a constraint that limits the scope of the investigation;
a) RESEARCH MATERIAL AVAILABILITY: The researcher’s research material is insufficient, restricting the scope of the investigation.
b) TIME: The study’s time frame does not allow for broader coverage because the researcher must balance other academic activities and examinations with the study.
1.7 DEFINITION OF TERM
COUNTERINSURGENCY:
The United States Department of State defines counterinsurgency (COIN) as “comprehensive civilian and military efforts undertaken to simultaneously defeat and contain insurgency and address its root causes.”
INSURGENCY: is a rebellion against authority in which the rebels are not recognised as belligerents.
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