The Farce that is Nigeria’s Armed Forces

Today the global media was aflutter with an announcement by senior Nigerian military officials that a deal had been reached with Boko Haram to have a ceasefire and get back the kidnapped northern girls. Boko Haram did not confirm or deny…or say anything…according to every single news report around the world that I heard or read.

I flat-out do not believe any such deal has been reached. Not even a little bit. The only thing that will convince me otherwise is when those girls are actually back home with their families and the world media can verify that fact.

Why don’t I take it seriously? In addition to the lack of any confirmation from the deciding player in the situation (Boko Haram), this year has been marked by one long series of increasingly vast fabrications and demonstrations of incompetence by Nigeria’s military and security forces.

Below are just a few of the completely absurd things that either actually happened in Nigeria or have been made up entirely by the military, just in one week of September. It’s genuinely hard to decide which ones — the facts or the fictions — are more flabbergasting. But either way, there’s no credibility anymore.

One shining week of lies and failure: Compiled September 27, 2014

From the People Who Failed to Bring Back The Nigerian Girls Comes…the receiving end of the most boring A-Team heist of all time:

Last week it was reported that government agents took $9.3m (£5.7m) in cash to South Africa to buy weapons.
[…]
South African police said last week customs officials seized the money in $100 bills in three suitcases that arrived on a private jet from Nigeria at Johannesburg’s Lanseria airport earlier in September. The two Nigerians and an Israeli allegedly did not declare the money and it was impounded.

 
Parliamentary inquiries into the affair were immediately stonewalled for “national security reasons.” Then, after re-affirming everyone’s lack of trust in them, the Nigerian government and military proceeded to initiate the most epic and ham-fisted scramble to get out of trouble probably since “the dog ate my homework.”

First they tried to claim that the kidnapped girls had been rescued only to have retracted that within hours. This is the second time they have tried to pull this.

Then they went for a lie so big it might almost work, except again for having no way to prove it or even prevent it being disproven… They announced that Boko Haram’s leadership had been dispatched with extreme prejudice and the group was rapidly collapsing overnight.

Now by this point in the week there was NO WAY I could believe anything the Nigerian military claims, let alone something as gigantic as that, without outside proof and yet it rapidly circulated in Western media:

The military claims Mohammed Bashir was an imposter posing as Boko Haram’s leader Abubakar Shekau, thought to have died in 2009

General Chris Olukolade of the Nigerian military said that Mohammed Bashir, who was killed in the latest offensive against Boko Haram, was a lookalike.

The Nigerian military has said that more than 260 Boko Haram militants have surrendered in north-eastern Nigeria.

 
Purely coincidence that they accidentally lose a ton of cash to South African customs officials, then suddenly start trying to claim they’ve rescued the kidnapped girls, and then when that’s proven false claim they’ve killed the lookalike and real leader of Boko Haram. I’m not sure they grasp how distraction tactics or plausible lies are meant to work work.

By the way: Nigeria and Cameroon’s armed forces have between them claimed to have killed the head of Boko Haram — or one of his doubles — multiple times over 5 years. Some experts think he’s been dead the whole time, like Bruce Willis. Others think he’s still alive.

Meanwhile, the claim that Boko Haram is collapsing was based on an unverified assertion of two separate incidents involving surrenders of fewer than 200 fighters … out of thousands. In contrast to those claims, Boko Haram staged multiple dramatic attacks in the 24 hours following the announcement of their purported collapse.

Wow, that held up all the way to the next day.

Trust us, this time

Again, all of that happened in, essentially, a roughly 7-8 day period preceding September 27. Now, less than a month later, we’re meant to believe that the previously “collapsing” Boko Haram has struck a major ceasefire deal and will be returning the girls, whom we’re told (without much evidence) are being treated well and are fine.

Here’s the thing: These lies matter, and they don’t mean nothing. They are deeply propagandistic, however incompetent, and this means the global media (or Western media, particularly) is complicit in this disgusting charade. There are few if any other countries where false claims of this magnitude are readily and regularly repeated with so little criticism or investigation.

Reporting false or unverified deals with insurgent groups is unwitting propaganda because it makes subsequent lack of progress appear one-sided. As in, if Nigeria’s military announces a deal and then fighting continues, it must be that Boko Haram broke the deal, instead of that there was never a deal because the government and military didn’t put in the work to make it happen. (For all we know, nothing was ever even negotiated!) We see this happen quite often during civil conflicts, as a way to score public approval points.

If a country or military announces a ceasefire or peace deal with rebel or terror group and then peace doesn’t happen, the default assumption is that the rebels/terrorists sabotaged the deal. Which is certainly plausible in many situations, but that assumption actually makes it easier for the authorities to exploit. Thus, governments have an incentive to announce non-serious or even imaginary peace offers as a done deal, to strengthen their “peacemaker” credentials. They get to say “Look, we tried to make peace and they stabbed us in the back!” and then keep fighting, and the media dutifully reports that version of events.

How the media should report on claims by Nigeria’s military
  1. Until Boko Haram confirms a deal and until those kidnapped girls are back, there is no deal.
  2. The Nigerian military lies regularly, constantly, and spectacularly. Anything they assert, at this point, should be assumed false until proven true.
  3. Stop repeating anything they say, without absolute confirmation. Official sources are only worth something when they’re usually reliably factual.

It’s pretty simple. Don’t splash those headlines all over the web, TV, and radio, unless and until you have absolute proof that it’s not made up. Don’t even report unverified “progress” announcements with the caveat that it can’t be confirmed. There’s no room for benefit of the doubt anymore with the Nigerian military’s statements.

We usually don’t see such epic and false proclamations from top military officials except in North Korea, and we don’t see U.S. media outlets unironically and uncritically reporting the claims of wondrous majesty and prowess by the Dear Leader. The claims by Nigeria’s military and government on the situation in northern Nigeria consistently proven untrue within about 48 hours, but buy them a little extra time and faith that isn’t warranted. Stop helping.

boko-haram-attacks-nigerian-states-2010-2013

October 15, 2014 – Arsenal For Democracy 103

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[repeats] Guest expert Sydnee McElroy MD of the “Sawbones” podcast explains the science of vaccines (March 2013). Guest historian Pilar Quezzaire on the crisis in northern Nigeria (May 2014). Guest expert Abby Stoddard from Humanitarian Outcomes on violence against aid workers (November 2013). New introductions by Bill.

Discussion Points:

– How were vaccines invented?
– What is the significance and origin of the north-south divide in Nigeria? How did colonialism change the country? Who are the Boko Haram?
– How do kidnappings affect international humanitarian aid organizations?

Full episode:
Oct 2014, Interview Repeats – Arsenal for Democracy 103

Related links
Segment 1

Sawbones: “Dr. Mesmer and the Power of Animal Magnetism”

ABC News: “NYC Measles Outbreak Spreads to Lower East Side”
Think Progress: “Orange County, California Is Experiencing Its Worst Measles Outbreak in Decades”
New York Magazine: “Immune to Logic: Some New York City Private Schools Have Dismal Vaccination Rates”

Segment 2

More articles on Nigeria at Arsenal For Democracy

Segment 3

Humanitarian Aid Workers: Aid Worker Security Report
BBC: Sahara kidnappings: A massive money-making business
NYT: Paying Ransoms, Europe Bankrolls Qaeda Terror

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Oped | Reform Islam Vs. the Billionaire Barons

My new oped in The Globalist argues that Islam isn’t inherently backward — as is mistakenly often suggested in Western media — it’s being held back by powerful donors who support extreme versions of it and make those the focus of attention. Here’s an excerpt, discussing lack of doctrinal uniformity in Islam versus the unifying force of money to extreme causes:

Sunni Islam alone has a handful of diverging schools of thought, further splintered by the separate followings of various popular current scholars.

Unfortunately the loudest and perhaps best-organized sub-segment of the sect recently seems to be the engine driving extremist groups all over the world. But even that analysis misdiagnoses and misattributes a centralization that is not really there, beyond a superficial level.

The emerging global networks of fundamentalist Sunni Islamic terrorism of the past 5, 15 and 25 years are linked in practice only because they have voluntarily associated with each other and with a specific brand of the religion.

The networks have co-opted or completely supplanted decades-old movements in places as diverse as Mali or Philippines, which had aimed to address local poverty and institutional inequalities (or obtain independence).

This voluntary association between groups, in countries from West Africa to Southeast Asia, has only been made possible by atypically centralized funding sources that provide seed money and setup advice for local franchises before they are able to become financially self-sustaining.

Most of the franchises have not been able to reach self-sufficiency and continue only by the grace of the startup funders. The rest generally continue to receive advice from the funding sources and remain associated with the other groups for brand value and the attention that comes with it.

These funders — not preachers — are the ones who really shape existing local grievances and separatist movements into a globalized, semi-unified ideology. Without them, the decentralization inherent to Islam would continue to reign.

The efforts to create a caliphate spanning the globe aren’t springing up from the grassroots of abandoned and impoverished desert populations. Rather it springs fully formed from the men bearing suitcases of cash and ideological directives on what must be done and said to keep it coming.

This money is coming from fundraisers in Qatar and Kuwait and donors in those countries, as well as in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and beyond. If those donor networks were broken and permanently dismantled, it would break apart the emerging coalition of co-associating local movements subscribing to a hardline, Islamic globalism.

 
If you click through, I also cite a specific example of a very progressive, high-ranking Muslim leader in Nigeria.

Nigeria’s Goodluck Jonathan should not be re-elected president

Nigeria’s president, Goodluck Jonathan, is seeking yet another term in office, even after basically everything has fallen apart under his administration. His campaign team decided that the slogan #BringBackGoodluck2015 was somehow appropriate after he blatantly ignored, waved away, and disrespected #BringBackOurGirls. Now he’s being deservedly dragged by Nigerian Twitter for it, as reported by the BBC. My personal favorite:

But, aside from this latest (and certainly minor) show of incompetence and tone-deafness, let’s back out to look at the wider situation. Girls kidnapped, northern insurgency spreading across Nigeria and into its neighbors, Boko Haram proclaiming itself an independent Islamic State and laying siege to northern cities of 1 million people, sections of Nigeria’s army mutinying over alleged supply shortages, mysterious pilfering of counterinsurgency resources, ongoing attacks in the capital, alleged war crimes by state security forces… and so on.

All the while, the President’s plan was recently summed up by a local paper as simply: We Hope To Defeat Boko Haram But Not Now.

Look, I’m not going to blame President Jonathan for everything that has happened, and I’m not even sure his passivity and inactivity in the face of chaos is entirely his own fault. Consider his background and rise to power. He’s a zoologist and a hydrobiologist by training, who was an environmental minister briefly, and fortuitously became governor after being chosen to be a lieutenant governor in his state under a corrupt governor who later resigned; then he was unexpectedly chosen as running mate by the outgoing president orchestrating the 2007 PDP ticket that won, and suddenly he became president when the elected president died in office.

Although he subsequently won his own term, Goodluck Jonathan was never meant to be president. I suspect that his lack of both political establishment credentials and military experience, which seemed so promising for effecting transformative change when he became president, actually made him hopelessly dependent on the usual political cronies and military generals. He lacked both the constituency and independent experience to challenge them when they gave him bad advice. Unfortunately, he happened to enter office at a time of mounting crises in the country and the region. Now he’s just floundering.

It’s clear President Jonathan is now very far out of his depth and lacks either the will or the political base to govern and restore order (certainly not in a responsible, inclusive, and democratic manner). Whether or not it is his fault, the terrorism and insurgency situation has been rapidly spiraling out of control for nearly four consecutive years, since the end of 2010. Things are objectively worse on the security and stability front now than they were four years ago, and worse now than they were six months ago or two months ago. He is not turning things around.

Re-electing Goodluck Jonathan next year to another four-year term as president seems like the wrong direction for Nigeria.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry meets with Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan. (Credit: U.S. State Department.)

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry meets with Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan. (Credit: U.S. State Department.)

Boko Haram grabs wife of Cameroon Deputy PM

Boko Haram has kidnapped the wife of Deputy Prime Minister Amadou Ali of Cameroon and local officials in the same town, following an announcement that Cameroon’s military would join a multi-national coalition against them. Deputy Prime Minister Ali narrowly escaped his home during the assault, which took place in Kolofata, a border town extremely far in the north of Cameroon, in a region that was once part of an empire centering in northern Nigeria.

The country, which is located next to Nigeria, Boko Haram’s home base, had said it was going to war with Boko Haram back in May of this year when hundreds of Nigerian schoolgirls were kidnapped in a raid. The girls are believed to have been taken to the forests near the border with northern Cameroon.

kolofata-cameroon-region-map

Cameroon — a country once carved out of colonial remainders by Imperial Germany and then split at random by France and Britain before re-merging itself after independence — now finds itself as an unusually stable dictatorship wedged between the rising conflict in northern Nigeria and the genocidal civil war in Central African Republic, exposed along lengthy borders on both sides. The populations in northeast Nigeria and northern Cameroon have long had cultural and economic interchange, since the border was an arbitrary colonial one crossing through an existing society.

The government of Cameroon, approaching the 32nd year of President Paul Biya’s tenure (4th longest in Africa) has taken a hard line previously against neighboring rebel factions operating within its borders, knowing that letting them build up typically means trouble for the host country eventually. Now it may have dragged itself definitively into this conflict by publicly siding against Boko Haram.

It seems to have begun in earnest:

Cameroon’s long and porous border with Nigeria means Boko Haram fighters can come and go at will, attacking police stations and villages, and spreading terror throughout the region, says BBC Africa editor Mary Harper.

The group has attacked Cameroon three times in as many days in the past week, killing at least four soldiers, Reuters reports.

On Friday, more than 20 members of the militant group were jailed in Cameroon on charges of possessing illegal firearms and plotting an insurrection.

Arsenal For Democracy 84: Interview on Nigerian History

Topics: Nigeria, Michael Sam & Jason Collins. People: Bill, Nate, Greg, and guest historian Pilar Quezzaire.
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Discussion Points:

– What is the significance and origin of the north-south divide in Nigeria? How did colonialism change the country? Who are the Boko Haram?
– Why “sharia law” is not a unique challenge. What could Nigeria be doing better to combat terrorism and unrest in the regions the Boko Haram dominate? Should the U.S. and Europe treat Boko Haram as part of a global terrorist network or more as a separate, localized problem?
– Arsenal for Nate and Greg Talking Sports: Michael Sam is drafted to the St. Louis Rams & Jason Collins has been playing for the Nets into the NBA playoffs.

Part 1 – Nigeria:
Part 1 – Nigeria – AFD 84
Part 2 – Sports: Sam / Collins
Part 2 – Sports: Sam/Collins – AFD 84

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#BringBackOurGirls: US will send hostage team to Nigeria

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If you want to see a multi-national popular pressure / “awareness” campaign that has actually made a difference, you’ll want to check out the #BringBackOurGirls effort all over social media in the United States and Nigeria.

The northern Nigerian separatist extremist group “Boko Haram” — background briefing here — recently kidnapped over two hundred girls from a boarding school as child brides for their members and sympathizers (and as a source of revenue). The Nigerian government, which has been more or less overwhelmed in the face of wave after wave of massive terrorist attacks by Boko Haram in the past several years, initially responded with relative indifference — essentially writing off the girls as just more unrecoverable casualties of the terrorists.

This prompted very justified outrage within the country — which is Africa’s largest economy, most populous nation, and the biggest power in West Africa — and within the major Nigerian diaspora population in the United States. This led to the creation of the #BringBackOurGirls campaign targeting three groups of people: Nigerian government officials, U.S. media and celebrities, and U.S. officials. After a slow start at the beginning, it caught fire and has gone viral. Tonight in particular, it is finally blowing up on Twitter, especially among celebs, although fortunately the two governments had begun grinding into action already.

The first and third groups of people are, of course, the ones most empowered to do something about the situation. But the celebs and U.S. media are key in force-multiplying the pressure on the U.S. officials. And that’s what we’ve finally seen happen, at very high levels.

Reversing course, Nigeria’s government and (very sizable) military have vowed to make an active effort to rescue the kidnapped girls — which is a huge improvement over the plan to do nothing.

And rather than ignoring the situation (or trying to find a way to bomb the problem away), the U.S. government is making specific and useful commitments to help bring the girls back, by sending a team of experts in hostage negotiation and recovery. According to Thompson Reuters reporting:

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the American embassy in Nigeria is “prepared to form a coordination cell” that would include U.S. military personnel and law enforcement officials with expertise in investigations and hostage negotiations.

The U.S. “coordination cell” also would include people who could provide expertise on providing victim assistance, Psaki said.

 
It’s a reasonably small and easy commitment to make but it could make a very real difference.

Keep up the pressure. This effort has affirmed, in my mind, that a persistent social media campaign with clear, narrow, and specific goals to mobilize government resources in multiple countries is possible. And it’s a much worthier cause than some of the other viral campaigns we’ve seen.

Unfortunately, the New York Times reported today that Boko Haram has kidnapped more girls in a new, smaller attack. Let’s hope the U.S. effort will result in everyone coming home as safely as possible.

Beyond that and the immediate Nigerian government response, the only true countermeasure in the long-term to the overall terror campaign raging across northern Nigeria will be to inject substantially more development aid and investment into the country’s north. That can provide jobs to disaffected and disenfranchised potential recruits, discouraging them from joining such terrible organizations.

Want to put names to the numbers? Here are 180 names of those girls kidnapped in Nigeria in the initial attack.