Understanding Boko Haram’s Mass Abductions – By Michael Baca

[Elisabeth Janaina]

Understanding Boko Haram’s Mass Abductions – By Michael Baca
Posted on April 16, 2015 by AfricanArgumentsEditor
ChibokGirls

The ‘Chibok Girls’, abducted in 2014 and now missing for over a year.

The first anniversary of the Chibok kidnappings served as a grim
reminder of Boko Haram’s proclivity toward abducting noncombatants.
While comprehensive statistics remain absent, available information
suggests Boko Haram has kidnapped/conscripted thousands of civilians
over the course of its violent struggle with Abuja. Most of these
seizures seem to have occurred since Boko Haram’s evolution in 2013
from a primarily urban-centered guerrilla movement to a largely rural
insurgency. The timing is likely not a coincidence. Reports indicate
Boko Haram’s relocation to the countryside created recruitment
challenges that the group sought to partly address through abductions.

Boko Haram already had an expanding presence in the northeast’s rural
hinterlands prior to 2013. Yet the real geographical shift probably
began in May of that year, when the Nigerian government declared a
state of emergency and proceeded to surge military forces into
northeastern cities. In the face of this offensive, many Boko Haram
elements seem to have abandoned their urban hideouts and regrouped in
the bush. This apparent setback ultimately proved advantageous for
Boko Haram. Northeastern Nigeria’s insecure countryside provided an
ideal environment for the Salafi-jihadi group to operate in; left
largely unmolested by Nigerian security forces, Boko Haram augmented
its military capability and eventually captured vast swaths of
territory from Abuja.

There was only one problem: by repositioning most of its forces
outside of the northeast’s major towns, Boko Haram appears to have cut
itself off from its base. Established in the teeming neighborhoods of
Maiduguri – northeastern Nigeria’s largest city – Boko Haram had drawn
much of its early support from two demographics. The first consisted
of individuals from Maiduguri’s burgeoning underclass, while the
second featured university students. Many members of these groups had
grown disillusioned with the lack of economic opportunities and
rampant political corruption. A general breakdown in lineage and
communal-based support structures helped to heighten their collective
sense of alienation.

Within this context, Boko Haram’s harsh critique of the Nigerian
sociopolitical system resonated with many of Maiduguri’s denizens.
Further, Boko Haram membership offered disaffected individuals the
opportunity to join a social network with purported linkages across
northeastern Nigeria and beyond. Abuja’s violent July 2009 crackdown
on Boko Haram seems to have further strengthened the appeal of Boko
Haram’s revolutionary ideology among certain segments of Maiduguri’s
populace. The reported draconian tactics employed by Nigerian security
forces in the aftermath of Boko Haram’s 2010 reemergence, which
allegedly included extrajudicial killings and mass detentions, simply
drove more urban dwellers into the arms of the Salafi-jihadi movement.

In the northeast’s countryside, Boko Haram encountered a far less
sympathetic audience. Besides containing a substantial number of
Christian and polytheistic communities, rural northeastern Nigeria
also possesses a Muslim population that generally adheres to syncretic
forms of Islam that incorporate facets of indigenous religions. What
is more, rural Muslims likely hold less antagonistic attitudes toward
the Nigerian government, due in part to a lack of contact with Abuja’s
agents. Traditional institutions – particularly those pertaining to
political or religious authority – still wield a degree of influence
among many local inhabitants, presenting a conservative bulwark
against Islamic radicalization.

Operating among host populations less than receptive to its worldview,
Boko Haram faced a choice. The Salafi-jihadi group could either alter
its messaging to broaden its rural appeal or seek to entrench itself
in the countryside through armed coercion. By electing to pursue the
latter option, Boko Haram’s leadership created a new challenge for its
movement. Battlefield attrition led to a constant need for fresh
recruits, yet Boko Haram’s available manpower pool consisted of few
committed activists. Boko Haram likely identified large-scale
abductions as one avenue to overcome this challenge.

To attract more volunteers, Boko Haram appears to have increasingly
relied on material incentives. Apart from dispensing money and
plundered property to its followers, Boko Haram has allegedly
distributed women captured during raids on vulnerable settlements. In
a region where males usually need some wealth in order to marry, the
prospect of obtaining a “wife” must surely prove enticing to many
destitute youths who otherwise have little use for Boko Haram’s
Islamist message. Militants can also barter their female captives for
goods or monetary compensation from local human traffickers.

In addition to utilizing kidnapped women and girls for recruitment
efforts, Boko Haram seems to have deployed a number of its female
prisoners as suicide bombers. This militarization of abductees has
extended to male captives, especially adolescents. Accounts coming out
of northeastern Nigeria and northern Cameroon indicate that a large
percentage of Boko Haram’s fighters are now drawn from war captives
and conscripts. Although forced to join Boko Haram under duress, these
individuals presumably serve the Salafi-jihadi group as reliable foot
soldiers reportedly willing to carry out frontal assaults on armed
positions.

Boko Haram likely achieves this level of obedience by alienating its
prisoners from their natal communities and subsequently socializing
them into the Salafi-jihadi group’s rank and file. According to
testimonies provided by several deserters, Boko Haram frequently kills
its captives’ relatives in front of them, severing their familial
ties. Stripped of their social bonds, many prisoners appear to become
more vulnerable to Boko Haram’s indoctrination techniques, which
seemingly mold them into pliant fighters. Those who risk execution by
attempting to escape from Boko Haram’s camps often find themselves
ostracized upon their return to territory controlled by Nigeria or its
neighbors. Given such bleak prospects, it should not come as a
surprise that so many conscripted combatants remain with Boko Haram.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of these individuals will need to be
reintegrated into society in the event of a Boko Haram defeat. Failure
to do so could create a floating body of disaffected youths bereft of
opportunities and susceptible to joining other violent non-state
actors. Indeed, this potential security challenge may emerge as one of
Boko Haram’s most enduring legacies.

Michael W. Baca is an Africa analyst. The views expressed in this
article are solely those of the author.
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