The Uniqueness Of The Modus Operandi Of Boko Haram And The Need To Change Tactics In Handling Them

By Fenny Fwa

We are living with the scourge of Boko Haram insurgency. This rag tagged army of religious bigots have decimated the North East region politically, economically and socially. This region where these hoodlums are domiciled have destroyed thousands of human lives, destroyed hundreds of billions of Naira of public and private properties. 

Despite reviving our armed forces with better military equipment, despite motivating our military personnel with welfare packages, despite decapitating their military prowess and capturing virtually all the territories under the insurgents control, yet these irrepressible religious zealots are still holding the nation to its jugular and perpetrating heinous crimes inside our territories with relative ease.

The question on the lips of social scientist and military strategists is how come that a rag tagged insurgency group that lacks adequate grounding in military techniques and tactics has the capacity and the capability of holding a military power in Africa that is Nigeria for eight years without surrendering. How can our military failed to crush this insurgency with sophisticated weapons both on the air and ground, failed to trace the hide outs of the war commanders, the location of the chibok girls, the hide out where they produce their videos, the inability to identify those responsible for their information management which has been quite effective, the source of their weaponry that has never dried up as they are still being supplied and the failure to catch their elusive leader Shekau. 

With the failure of the state to completely eradicate these miscreants, it has become extremely important for the government to go back to the drawing board and fashion a way out of this quagmire that has become an embarrassment to the armed forces and the government of Nigeria. Let us look at the possible modus oprendi of these faceless group.

The first thing they do is to appeal to the Religious bigots who are plenty in the country. These gullible people are told governance has been desecrated by infidels. This informed the rottenness of the society in terms of social justice, the poverty that pervades the land. That the country needs to be purified along Islamic theoretical system and those opposed to this must be wiped out through jihad. In this particular context the target were the none Muslims. That was why the initial targets were churches and other Christian related the symbols in the society. This modus oprendi won sizable fanatical Muslims who were initially supportive of the cause of this people and were given some protection. It was therefore pretty difficult to get rid of them as they were given sanctuary by their sympathizers and given prior knowledge of any operations against them. Similarly any attack against them were condemned by even highly placed people. Remember the Borno elders condemned military actions against them. The Northern Elders forum not only condemned their killings but even threatened to report the federal government to UN for genocide.

From appealing to eradication of none Muslims, they moved to turning people against the government. They preached against the policies of government which they regarded as anti Islam and insensitive to hardship being faced by the people. To drive their point home, they started the destruction of symbols of government authority such as schools, police stations, government offices, markets and motor parks.

To be able to recruit food soldiers, they systematically worked assiduously on indoctrinating the youth already in the saturated labour market. Gifted with oratory powers and grounded in Islamic principles of social justice, they preached to those in the labour market as they tempt them with money from their sponsors. They also preached to the youth in the labour market and even those with jobs on the need to make heaven and once you die in establishing a pure Islamic state, you are assured of heaven. This massively appealed to the youth and before you knew it, the number of the insurgents had swollen.

With its acceptably amongst youth, they now move against Muslims that were opposed to this dangerous ideology, particularly some leading clerics who were murdered in cold blood and their mosques and places of abode destroyed. The BH ideologue didn't therefore spare anybody as both the Muslims and none Muslims were on the receiving. In fact at the peak of the insurgency and at its low ebb now, the killings and destruction have been targeted against the Muslims. Before the Muslims umma could come openly to unite against these miscreants, the insurgents had become very strong and entrenched and very difficult to dismantle.

The most critical and successful modus oprendi of these demented group was the infiltration of locals and the rank and file of the fighting armed forces either through inducement or using the religious card. The insurgents have sizable funds from sister organizations and foreign bodies which they use to recruit spies and informants. These informants are found in the military who inform them about impending attack which they fully prepare for it or ambush our soldiers. They induced or indoctrinated the locals who also play the same role of being their informants.

There is also the affiliation of this group with foreign terrorist groups who give them adequate funds and weapons to sustain the fight. It's believed that Al Queda and other powerful terrorists gruop have been sponsoring them. Similarly they get funding through robbing banks, forcefully carting away animals and food stuff from the locals for their feeding.

It appears this mindless vampires are always ahead of our armed forces. Having been decapitated and uprooted from areas hitherto captured by them, they have resorted to suicide bombing and guerrilla tactics of hit and run and this method has been effective.

These vampires are bent on not giving up easily and they seem to be ahead us since they can keep over 250 chibok girls in our territory and we are unable to identify the hide outs and rescue them. Similarly despite our superior military power, we are unable to capture their leader and crush the insurgency. It's quite clear that it's time now to change tactics for the purpose of crushing this insurgency for good.

My take is that we should identify all the modus oprendi of the insurgents, assemble a crack team of experts including leaders of vigilante groups (that have contributed in decapitating these hoodlums), involve also the neigbouring countries of Niger and Cameroon as well military experts from foreign countries and UN who will chart a course to crush this people.

In doing that we should not forget the most important men involved in the execution of this project- the rank and file soldiers that need to be motivated in terms of welfare packages, proper kitting , medication and also providing them adequate and sophisticated arms. Equally central is the development of the North East region that has been ravaged by poverty, hunger and disease. Once this region, especially the areas prone to insurgency are provided with infrastructural and social amenities, the locals have no business in hiding this people and the rebels will have no hiding places. Above all we must acquire state of the art equipment that will locate the hide out of these miscreants and destroy their camps, armoury and gadgets.

Let us pray that the authorities concerned will address squarely this insurgency with more vigour. This is not to say we haven't appreciated the efforts of the Buhari regime. It has done a commendable job, but it's needs to review its tactics for total victory against this insurgency that has become nightmarish.