Teaching under siege in Nigeria gripped by fear of Boko Haram
As a result of their dislodgement from urban Maiduguriin June 2013, with help of the youth vigilante group dubbed the civilian JTF, the Boko Haram insurgents have declared inhabitants of these cities as enemies.
The attack on schools and unarmed civilians is a new and dangerous phase of the insurgency. In one year, between July 2013 and February 2014, at least two secondary schools were attacked leading to the cold-blooded murder of no less than 100 children at Mamudoand Buni Yadiin Yobe state.
Schools are government institutions and are often not well-defended. They are vulnerable to insurgent attacks. The nationwide outcry that accompanies such school attacks brings home the weakness of the Nigerian state.
These attacks have forced the affected state governments to close down schools and collegesfor prolonged periods. This is in an area that is reckoned to be educationally poor-performingeven by Nigerian standards.
Low school enrolment — especially of girls— low retention rates, high number of out of school children, and grinding poverty already characterize northern Nigeria.
Anger at abduction
The abduction of school girls at Kondugain February, and the 15 April abduction of 234 girls at Chibok, in an area already under a state of emergency for one year, has exposed the futility of government counter insurgency strategy.
It brings to the fore the vulnerability of all citizens and exposes the inability of the state to effectively counter the insurgency, despite the stupendous amount of money and manpower directed at the efforts.
Parents of these abducted children, government officials, civil society organizations and all well-meaning Nigerians have condemned the abductions. Women’s groups have organised protest marchesacross Nigeria’s major cities in order to keep the issue on the front burner.
The military has assured the population that they are on the trail of the insurgents and will soon rescue the girls. But no one seems to believe them. Their record on rescue operations, scuttling Boko Haram attacks or arresting perpetrators of such violence is dismal or non-existent.
The information that the girls had been parcelled out to insurgent basesin Chad, Cameroon and Niger has reduced the hopes of their being rescued. In all probability the insurgents could use these girls for sex and as cooks. Should Nigeria fail to rescue them, it should brace for even more attacks, like the bombings in Abuja.
The escalation of this insurgency caught the security agencies unprepared. Attempts to quell the insurgency have been uncoordinated, exacerbated by bitter rivalry between the different armed services and agencies. On top of this, several incidences of extra-judicial killings, detention without trial, torture, burning of villages, looting and rape of women have all inflamed rather than contained the violence.
Lack of political will
The situation in the northeast is very complex. The most important ingredients for resolution of the emergency are political will on the side of the government — currently in short supply.
The government must be willing to address the underlying grievances, open channels for dialogue with sect members that are open to it, and vigorously follow up on a new strategy of soft options such as infrastructure and education investment.
The insurgency has set back education in an area with some of the world’s worst levels of education and human development. For many children in these communities, education remains their surest way out of poverty and destitution. The fear of Boko Haram has forced many parents to withdraw their children from schools, and this can only add to an already explosive mix of the large pool of uneducated and unemployed youth and debilitating poverty.
Kyari Mohammed is Chair, Center for Peace and Security Studies at Modibbo Adama University of Technology.This storyis published courtesy of The Conversation (under Creative Commons-Attribution/No derivatives).