Baker Institute paper: Boko Haram may be reaching its bitter end in Nigeria

Militant Islamist group Boko Haram may be reaching its bitter end in Nigeria as the country’s military plans a massive ground invasion of the insurgents’ long-controlled safe zone, the Sambisa Forest, according to a new research paper from Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy.

Credit: thinkstockphotos.com/Rice University

Any direct involvement of the United States and its European allies at this time would only play into the hands of the insurgents and help broaden the international appeal of Boko Haram to other jihadist groups, according to the paper, “Boko Haram: Whose Islamic State?” But the U.S. can aid the counterterrorism efforts of the regional Multinational Joint Task Force by contributing to the pool of United Nations-sourced special funds for the task force and providing enhanced counterterrorism training, as well as intelligence and communication support, to the Nigerian forces and their partners, said the paper’s author, Michael Nwankpa.

Nwankpa is a visiting scholar at the Baker Institute and a researcher at the University of Roehampton’s Crucible Centre for Human Rights Research in London.

“The regional Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF) has the upper hand in this clash as Boko Haram is running out of steam, having been subjected to constant aerial bombardment since February,” he said. “Outgoing Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan has refused the offer of the United Nations to send troops, expressing confidence in the MNJTF’s ability to rout Boko Haram before the May 29 handover to the new president.”

Nwankpa said this approach is the right decision. “However, Boko Haram remains deadly as long as sharia (the moral code and religious law of Islam) is the precondition for political and economic gains to the Muslim north.”

Nwankpa’s paper provides an overview of Boko Haram’s rise to power and its tactics, the ideological and religious context for the group, the politics of sharia and U.S. options.

“It is evident that Boko Haram is driven by an internal struggle within the Muslim leadership in northern Nigeria,” Nwankpa said. “The situation in northern Nigeria is similar to the global struggle in Islamic societies over the definition and meaning of Islam.”

However, the Nigerian case is peculiar, he said. “There is very little disagreement among the different Islamic factions in northern Nigeria about the concept of sharia. Even its Muslim critics acknowledge its relevance while trying to prevent it from taking precedence over the Nigerian constitution. The bone of contention is the contest between the different Muslim groups over the monopoly of sharia, and this struggle will continue as long as sharia is the sine qua non for political and economic gains to the Muslim north,” Nwankpa said.