Insert C
The structure and organization of Boko Haram up to 20151
p. 201-204
Texte intégral
1Boko Haram is organized on a geographical basis, with local leaders in each town or village where it has a presence. They operate a cell structure in parts of northern Nigeria where they have members, concentrated in Borno State but with a presence that extended allegedly as far south as Okene in Kogi State. Apart from its cell-like structure, Boko Haram has a Shura Council with overall command of the organization. Members operating in different areas of Borno State (and elsewhere) could work relatively autonomously within small groups with their own leader, even if they were in contact with commanders higher up the hierarchy.
Life under Boko Haram
2In 2013-2014 Boko Haram took control of more than half of Borno State and a contiguous part of Yobe State, extending its area of control to northern Adamawa State in September 2014, made possible after capturing Gwoza town (south-east Borno) on 5 August 2014. By October 2014 Boko Haram’s territorial control was at its maximum extent, creating an enormous humanitarian crisis with up to 2 million people displaced as refugees and IDPs. In contrast, a year later, after regional military action and the involvement of a private security group, Boko Haram had been pushed out of most of the towns and villages they seized in 2014 (this situation was later reversed in many areas, showing that holding territory is a challenge for both sides).
3In studying Boko Haram as a conflict actor, changes in the pattern of territorial control – with the insurgents and the military gaining and losing territory at different points in the conflict – needs to be understood. In places that Boko Haram controlled, the organization of their authority was vividly described, during this research, by local residents who for some time were unable or unwilling to escape and lived under Boko Haram. Some lived under Boko Haram for months, others for more than a year. This section does not enter into details of the atrocities committed by Boko Haram (there were many), but rather focuses on their system of administration and social control. Two IDPs from Gwoza LGA – interviewed in Malkohi camp in Yola in October 2015 – had stayed in their villages in Gwoza West (all of which fell to Boko Haram) for some months after Boko Haram took over, until they were able to escape. They and others interviewed described life under Boko Haram control.
4After capturing Gwoza town on 5 August 2014 and most of the villages in Gwoza LGA, Boko Haram told those of the inhabitants who had not escaped that they were now in Daular Musulunci (Islamic State) and no longer in Nigeria. Those interviewed were from two different villages in Gwoza West: Lemu and Jaje. After Boko Haram came in, the villagers were not permitted to ‘go to Nigeria’, and if they attempted to do so – and were caught – they would be killed. Similarly, Boko Haram did not permit strangers to ‘cross over’ from Nigeria to Daular Musulunci. They mounted checkpoints on all the roads in and out of the areas they controlled, and they patrolled the rural hinterland, even using donkeys and horses for patrol in areas of the bush they could not access on motorcycles (petrol for motorcycles was scarce by 2014-2015). Horse-riding was banned in Borno State when President Buhari’s Chief of Army Staff, General Buratai, realized that Boko Haram were using horses to get around. Boko Haram executed people they discovered travelling without permission in or out of the area. One of the ways they identified those coming in was by checking their pockets or wallet to see if they had fresh Nigerian bank notes; the notes in circulation by then in their self-declared Daular Musulunci were old and tattered.
5A question was put to one of the IDPs interviewed, a man in his fifties who had lived under Boko Haram in Lemu village: ‘What happened to the local population who remained in Daular Musulunci?’ His response is translated from Hausa as follows:
Some of the people, those who were sympathetic to Boko Haram’s cause, joined the movement. Others who did not like it had to stay because they could not leave; if they left they would be slaughtered. They stayed out of fear, because there was no way for them to move out. In all these places Boko Haram had a security network manning the roadblocks and controlling the villages. If they stopped you, you would have to identify the amir in your village and other Boko Haram officials, to show that you were living in their Daular.2
6Girls and women were not given freedom of movement even within the village and were forced to wear a niqab if they had to go outside the house. If a woman was caught outside without good reason, the husband would be given a hundred lashes. Even if a girl was unmarried, if she was aged 12 or above, she had to stay in the compound all the time. If people were caught in a mixed gathering of males and females, each would get a hundred lashes. Branches from the tamarind tree would be used to give the lashes, or strips of animal hide. The elderly women were allowed to go out to farm, even if they were unmarried, from about age 65 upwards. Generally, farming and pastoral activities reduced across Borno at the height of the insurgency, leading to food shortages and hunger among IDPs and in some of the villages. There were many other prohibitions, including against smoking. It was claimed that under Boko Haram in Lemu if a man was caught smoking, he would be given 25 lashes. If caught for a second time, he would be given forty lashes – and the third time was death.
7There was a shortage of basic supplies from 2014. This came about because it in many areas it was too dangerous to farm and because large sections of the rural population were displaced and tens of thousands had been killed. Fuel was also in short supply, and it was reported that in Gwoza West petrol suppliers sold it at the rate of 3,500 naira per litre in mid-2015 (when the government price in Nigeria was 87 naira per litre). Boko Haram improvised and used vegetable oil (specifically, the brand Turkey oil) to fuel their engines, especially grinding machines. When their supply of cartons of vegetable oil was cut off by the army, they forced captives to pound and extract oil from palm kernels. Otherwise fuel was brought into Daular Musulunci from people in towns outside, ‘in Nigeria’. It was claimed that among soldiers, police, and civilians there were people collaborating with Boko Haram, making money from the insurgency. In Gwoza LGA, when supplies of food or fuel were scarce, Boko Haram would send women to town at night, often to Madagali, because women were less likely to be checked by the army.
8In Daular Musulunci people were forced to attend Quranic classes. In the case of Lemu village – a similar situation would likely have applied in many other places – Boko Haram sent some of its members there to administer the place alongside those it forcibly recruited locally. It was reported that Boko Haram members there included Kanuris and other Borno people, a Cameroonian, and Igbos and Yorubas who were a mix of military captives and people from townships who had been captured during Boko Haram’s advance. They had been given an ultimatum to become Muslim or be killed, though it was claimed the military captives were given the choice of passing on their military know-how and training Boko Haram fighters, or converting to Islam. In general, converts were instructed for about six months in Boko Haram’s ideology. However, many Muslim IDPs who escaped from Boko Haram control described the insurgents as ‘hooligans’ (‘yan iska).
9The punishment in Lemu village for missing a Quranic lesson was ten lashes. The young boys, girls, and older residents all had daily Quranic classes for two hours each per day. The older ones had their classes in the morning for two hours, the women from 12 noon, and the children from 4 P.M., all in separate classes. Sect members taught Quranic recitation and tawhid, about the oneness of God, and the hadiths. The subjects were things many of the villagers already knew from their existing Quranic education. Boko Haram were said to pray with their fists on the ground, instead of their hands flat. It was said that in Lemu, Boko Haram members performed the ablutions, they washed, and followed the correct qibla (direction) when praying. They had beards that had to be of a certain length – three fists in length before they could be cut – and all the men had to cut their trousers above ankle length. A 54-year-old Muslim woman who had been held captive in Sambisa for four months, however, said that Boko Haram members there performed their ablutions with sand, not water – despite, she said, there being enough water in the camp – and prayed with their shoes on.3 In Sambisa – referred to as ‘the reserve’ – male and female members of Boko Haram prayed separately but sometimes went out to fight on the same missions. Where women fought, they would go out on motorcycles, with a group of women leading the way on their motorbikes, wielding guns, and the men on different motorbikes in their own group behind.
10When Boko Haram took control of a village or town they changed the leadership there, in some places killing the existing leaders. In the case of Lemu village in Gwoza LGA, to cite one example from the hundreds of places that fell under Boko Haram control, the insurgents selected an amir from among the population of the village and forced him into that role. He had no choice but to accept, against his will, as they threatened to kill him if he refused. He had not previously been associated with Boko Haram, according to the deposed bulama (village head) whom I interviewed. The newly appointed amir was answerable to the Boko Haram leadership of the wider area, some of whom may have been local to Gwoza, while others were imposed from outside.
11Shekau was referred to in Gwoza as ‘alaramma’ (someone who has memorized the entire Quran) and in one of the Sambisa camps as ‘imam’. Boko Haram used Arabic terms for their leadership structure, which reportedly included the following positions: the imam, or overall commander of Boko Haram: Abubakar Shekau; the Qāʾid (‘leader’, ‘commander’, or ‘master’); Munzir (‘cautioner’ or ‘warner’; in the Boko Haram hierarchy it may be equivalent to hakimi or district head); Naqib (‘he who investigates, verifies’); Amir (appointed at the village level). An amir would be appointed either from among Boko Haram members if there were any present in that village, or selected from among the villagers by Boko Haram when they took control. The amirs were answerable to the qāʾid and munzir, according to this account, but it needs confirmation. Boko Haram also appointed alkalis (judges) and possibly other positions. The exact structure and hierarchy in the local leadership presented here still needs to be verified and more clearly understood.
12In the case of Lemu village, after capturing it Boko Haram are reported to have rounded up the able-bodied young men and taken about 16 of them away for training. After training they returned to their village to help implement Boko Haram rule in the village and, it was claimed, were ready to kill for Boko Haram. The man recounting the experience said that after the Nigerian military started a counter-attack in the area, he and other villagers escaped to Madagali (which is near Gwoza, but across the state border in northern Adamawa) in August 2015. Among those who went to Madagali were the 16 youths from Lemu who had joined Boko Haram – some having joined Boko Haram by force, some possibly voluntarily or due to a mixture of coercion and willingness. The man who provided this account said that he reported all of them as Boko Haram members to the military in Madagali, who arrested and executed them. One of his own biological sons was among the 16 he handed over, but he said that he had to do it and it was the right course of action – because his son had joined the sect and, if he left him, ‘a small snake would grow into a big snake’ and he could even kill his parents. It does appear that even many of those who are forced into Boko Haram are indoctrinated; and because they are made to kill people (and after some time may do so willingly), they become a threat.
Notes de bas de page
1 Information contained in this insert was collected in Borno and Adamawa in 2015 and relates to the situation at that time and earlier, not to the present situation, where there have been significant changes.
2 Interview with IDP in Yola, 18 October 2015.
3 Interview with IDP in Yola, 17 October 2015.
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