I would like to give if I may a little context to this pretty awful Boko Haram thing. Until 2009 they were a non violent movement that was advocating a non western education for children. Listening to the radio I heard the following story. The then leader of Boko Haram (at that point a non-violent political organistation) was arrested by the authorities. A day or so later he was returned to his community,,,, as a corpse!
In short the authorities executed the leader of Boko Haram in cold blood.
Just for the record, I am no fan of Boko Haram, they are an awful piece of work, I am not a muslim, and I know if I was to meet up with them my fate as a westerner would be exceptionally grim. They kill and rape, torture etc,,, generally they are yuck, just putting that out there.
After the authorities executed the leader of boko haram, the second teir of Boko Haram took over, they were much more radical than the guy that was their before, and they started doing things that were pretty bad (ok,,, amazingly bad)
If you ask the question, why did the group come into being in the first place. Historically the first western education in Northern Nigeria was done by Christian missionaries. Of course the local populace was concerned, were missionaries focused on pure education, or were they attempting to convert their students to Christianity? I will let you figure out that one.Timeframe for this was not hundreds of years ago, this area of Nigeria was really first ruled by westerners relatively recently, roughly 150 to 50 years ago, well within living memory
The government in Nigeria is corrupt (pretty corrupt actually), scams abound. Transparency International rates Nigeria 27/100 (not good) and 136 out of 175 nations. They do a fraction better than Somalia 8/100 and 174th of 175. By comparison Botswana gets a quite respectable score of 63/100. There has been a lot written of collusion between rebels in the oil rich Niger delta and officials in the Nigerian government.
So, we can probably conclude that the government of Nigeria,,, is not really super flash. Hard to build good will to a nation state when those in charge of that nation state are most interested in enriching themselves. It is true that is a generalisation, however if anyone wants to pipe in and tell me how I have got this particular point all wrong, then please go for it.
So, a history of western education that was at times attempting to convert muslim
children to Christianity, a pretty woeful government that did little for the people, a fairly ineffective law and order presence, the execution of a political dissident, it seems to have been the spark,, and now it has all gone off.
The air force of Nigeria seems a fraction more suited to fighting nation states. They have 12 Chengdu F-7s (upgraded Chinese Mig 21s) of which only two are operational (good value for money?), a few alphajets and a few Let L-39s, is not going to be an amazingly effective against hundreds or thousands of infantry scattered over thousands and thousands of square miles.
It seems to me, have religious and cultural differences in a nation state, a government that at times seem to value their own self interest as number one, and the community a far second, the risk of bad things happening is high. We have seen this in South Sudan, in Chad, in Somalia, in CAF, in Zaire, Liberia, Libya, Rwanda, just to name a few in the last decade.
I think last year there was a time when there was not a single example of a nation state at war with another nation state. It seems thesedays the norm is more fighting insurgent groups, freedom fighters etc.
It all becomes a bit murky, if an insurgent group comes to power and becomes the government, do they automatically go from being bad guys to good guys? A couple months back an insurgent group over-ran the capital of Yemen, Saana. I think they have formed a coalition with the old government? Do they now go from being the bad guys,,, to kinda ok? or is more shades of grey? The more you look into it, the more of a headache I seem to get.
Just to repeat, I am no fan of Boko Haram, they kill, rape, murder. They would kill me in a heartbeat (as I am a westerner) given half a chance. What is perhaps not suprising is that it happened at all, maybe it was inevitable given the mix of poverty, poor government, corruption, cultural and religious differences.
I dont think expensive jets are going to work either (Nigeria wants Cessna Scorpion jets now). Seems a mix of trying to fix the corruption, maybe a degree of autonomy, a more accountable government combined with some sound counter insurgency operations by the military might fix it.
Nigeria's army has about 130,000 members, not very high as the population is closer to 175 million. Nigeria has the largest economy in Africa (I wonder if this includes Internet scams) and spends 1.5% of its GDP on defense(better than some NATO members). Given the sad state of affairs, that 1.5% apparently isn't being spend very well.
