The recent release of scores of abducted school boys is doubtless a huge relief for Nigeria, where families often have to contend with bandits holding innocent civilians hostage for a ransom. The childrens’ return to freedom is but a temporary reprieve for the government of President Muhammadu Buhari, whose response to the decade-old Boko Haram jihadist insurgency has come under increasing scrutiny.
Failure to combat insurgency
A former army general and military ruler in the 1980s, Mr. Buhari, now in his second term, has repeatedly insisted that Boko Haram has been defeated. But the many splinter groups that have emerged, the deaths of about 36,000 people, and the displacement of nearly two million tell a different story. Casualties from landmine explosions, banned by the United Nations in 1997, in Nigeria are the fifth highest in the world, according to the Mines Advisory Group.
The gruesome abduction of over 600 boys on December 11 night, reportedly carried out by proxies of Boko Haram, in Katsina in the country’s north-western region shows how the organisation has expanded into new territory. The ghastly incident was a chilling reminder of the 2014 kidnapping of 276 girls in the town of Chibok in the north-eastern Ekiti province. Many of them are still missing. The massacre of at least 110 rice farmers and fishermen in November, coinciding with local elections in the north-eastern State of Borno, is the most brutal incident this year, according to Nigeria’s UN humanitarian coordinator.
Abuja has sought to deflect responsibility for the sectarian campaign that has exploited religious divisions between the Muslims in the north and Christians in the south. Comparing the decade-long challenge to the 1967 Biafran civil war, former President Goodluck Jonathan in 2012 admitted to Boko Haram’s infiltration into Nigeria’s legislative, executive and the security services. He initially played down the 2014 Chibok abductions, whereas the country’s First Lady at the time dismissed the outcry against the horror as discrediting her husband’s re-election prospects. The national security adviser in 2015 blamed cowardice by soldiers for the army’s failures, while admitting that new equipment had not been procured for several years.
Contrast this with the assessment of the regional leaders. In 2014, the Borno State Governor was quite candid in saying that Boko Haram was better equipped than the Nigerian army. Last August, the current Governor of Borno pointed to sabotage within the military as the reason for the failure to combat the insurgency.
Photo story | The Chibok girls and their saga of abduction
By November 2018, the situation had worsened for the government, with the killing of some 100 Nigerian soldiers on the country’s border with Niger. A Boko Haram faction called the Islamic State in West Africa Province claimed that it had carried out the attacks, which put the government under increased spotlight. But even as Nigeria’s House of Representatives and the Senate have called for the heads of the armed forces, appointees of Mr. Buhari, to step down, the latter has maintained that the decision was a presidential prerogative.
Crackdown on protests
The official stance of denial stretches beyond tackling insurgency. This was evident in the crackdown on countrywide protests in October demanding the disbanding of the infamous federal Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS). The unrest, which was triggered by visuals going viral of one of the SARS officers shooting down a man in Lagos city, left at least 15 people dead, according to Amnesty International. The Special Weapons and Tactics Team that has replaced SARS is seen as a cure worse than the ailment. Regulators slapped a fine on media houses that covered the indiscriminate shootings by security forces and blocked the accounts of financiers of the protests. Last year, prominent global charities engaged in humanitarian relief were accused of collusion with the insurgents and expelled.
Two decades since the return to democracy, Nigeria must do more to uphold the rule of law.
garimella.subramaniam@thehindu.co.in