WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW
PS: The
following information is not solely mine, they were sourced from the tweet of
an anonymous Twitter user by the name chief Ojukwu. They make for an
interesting read and so becomes my post for today.
I hear
people talk about stopping Boko haram funding, asking how they get their
weapons, people talking about using intelligence & all
other James
Bond/Jack Bauer stuff they watch in movies. I will try to give a little insight
covering as much ground as I can.
Bokoharam
started in 2002 founded by Mohammed Yusuf who was later executed in July 2009.
Before his death, there was a mass radicalization by him & members of his
group that led to his arrest & later execution. After his death Shekau took
over in 2009, the entire dynamics of Bokoharam changed following a mass prison
break in 2010. Many of their arrested members were released & other inmates
conscripted to join their already large ranks.
Bokoharam first started as an offshoot of
al-Qa’ida. Both local & foreign intelligence all reported that the founder
of Bokoharam Yusuf fled to Saudi Arabia to escape one of Nigeria’s major raids
on the group before 2011. It is believed certain leaders of al-Qa’ida met with
him where modalities were put in place for training of fighters, funding &
weapons acquisition. A Boko Haram spokesman once quoted to have said:
“Al-Qa’ida are our elder brothers. We enjoy financial & technical support
from them. Anything we want from them we ask them.” It is also said Bokoharam
gets cash from other terror groups such as al-Shabaab in Somalia & local
al-Qa’ida affiliates operating in Africa.
● While they have these as their international sources, they
also have the local sources of funding which bring us to the Ansaru group or
the al-Qaeda in the Lands Beyond the Sahel (Jamāʿatu Anṣāril Muslimīna fī Bilādis Sūdān) as they call themselves.
This is a splinter group/faction of BokoHaram who carry out independent
operations/attacks & also collaborate with BokoHaram & new mushroom
terror groups springing up. These groups have been known to source funds by:
1) Kidnapping: We all know about the popular chibok &
dapchi girls’ abduction that made waves. Apart from such daring kidnaps, there have been lots of kidnappings not only in the northern parts of the country but
also southern & western parts. Foreigners, government officials & rich
people are profiled then kidnapped. Our media has failed us in the way, they
have spun the narrative such that most have taken their eyes off the problem of
terrorism but instead concentrating on ethnicity/religion especially when
headlines carry phrases like 'Fulani herdsmen attacks'.
Ransom paid for kidnapping ranges from as low
as N50,000 to as high as millions of dollars. The Nigerian government will neither
deny nor affirm that ransom was paid to effect the release of some of the dapchi
& chibok girls. Families of kidnap victims have been made to pay so much
money, it is even estimated that the kidnap for ransom ring is estimated to
worth as much as N100m weekly if not more. Unfortunately, ransom monies are
difficult to track since they are paid in cash & not by bank transfers.
2) Slave trade: Apart from people being kidnapped for ransom,
there is the slavery aspect where most people abducted especially women within
a certain age are sold off either locally or across our borders. Some of these ladies
have been sold to buyers coming all the way from Mali, Chad, Niger even Egypt
& Libya. All these transactions are done in cash, gold, or exchange for
weapons.
3) Extortion: Terrorists have been known to enter
villages/towns/markets demanding protection money. Locals are forced to
contribute funds daily/weekly so their markets, cities or farms aren’t raided
& destroyed.
4) Rustling: When security forces set up an anti-rustling unit,
many people including the media came up with the narrative that the government
values the lives of Livestock to humans. What many do not know is that, these
terrorist groups use the stealing & selling off livestock to fund their operations.
Imagine 500 cows rustled in 3 towns alone, how much is a single cow? A well-fed full-grown cow can go as much as N200k-350k depending on size. So they are sold
in the cattle black-market for N100k, which is N50m in a single transaction. How
many of these sales happen daily, weekly, monthly?
5) Bank robberies: we all know how that works.
6) Smuggling & sale of drugs: A raid on a Boko haram camp some
time ago; cartons of codeine, tramadol & medicines used on livestock were
recovered in that camp. What is the average price of a bottle of codeine or
sachet of tramadol? Apart from the ones being sold illegally by some pharma
companies or the ones that come through our ports, what about the ones we have
no stock of that flow through our borders? Millions of naira made by selling
banned substances in the black market by agents of these terror groups. What I
have listed above are businesses valued at billions of naira & mostly cash
transactions that are run in such a way that partners do not know they are
indirectly funding terrorism. How easy do you think it is to track & stop
such black-market cash/gold funding? Obviously not a walk in the park.
Weapons acquisition:
Small arms
like Ak47, handguns & even RPGs are easily acquired if you have the right
contact. With corruption/corrupt officials we have weapons entering through our
ports. We also have the big weapons like tanks, armored personnel carriers,
trucks that have been adapted to carry heavy machine guns, anti-aircraft guns,
mortars, bombs, shells, etc. that are acquired from international arms black
markets & brought in by road through the Sahel via our porous borders.
Since the war broke out in Libya with their military armory throw open, there
has been easy access to sophisticated weapons to these terrorists.
Countries
like Iran, parts of eastern Europe/former soviet countries, etc. are all big
markets for weapons with no regulations. Some of these weapons are flown by air
as supplies & parachuted in caches to coordinates given by insurgents right
inside forests, mountains, regions within the conflict areas or desert areas
outside & later smuggled in. I read people refer to Boko haram as a ragtag
group, you might call them that because of how they look in their videos or
when arrested but there is nothing ragtag about their operations. First of all,
they are a well-coordinated group. They are so coordinated that most members do
not know themselves, do not know certain leaders, etc. They are broken into
cells, sectors, divisions, etc. & each is independent of the other. They use
both sophisticated & crude means of communication. While you expect them
to use the conventional cell phone/SMS/emails to pass info among members, most
commanders use satellite phones which connect to other members by designated
frequency through orbiting satellites. This is different from normal cell
phones that use cell sites/towers that can easily be tracked.
Instead of
sending emails, they set up several email addresses & share passwords of
these email accounts among cell leaders/commanders. When messages are composed,
instead of clicking on send, they are saved in draft. Every member who has the
password regularly opens the email & goes straight to draft to read &
then delete. With this method, there is no case of email sent from one address
to another making it difficult to track since there is no originating IP. They
also use social media; imagine someone setting up a twitter account with the
face of a pretty lady all clothed properly. Daily she posts tweets like Hadiths
or just normal good stuff. It is normal that people will start following such a
handle. What many do not know is, among the
regular
followers are also members of different cells. These members already know
handles or profiles that belong to their commanders using fake pictures. So one
of such handles does a tweet like, 'I will be traveling to Baga to see the fish
market tomorrow. Travel time, 2pm.' This could be nothing, it could also mean a
message
to cells
around that area to plan a strike in that particular location by 2pm. There are
lots & lots of ways these people communicate that are very difficult to
track.
This is not
an excuse or justification; this is simply stating that successes are 50%
intelligence & 50% sheer luck. What about their fighting numbers? The U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) estimated
that not less than 10,000 boys were reportedly abducted and trained by Boko
Haram between 2014 & 2016. With the dismantling of ISIS in Iraq &
Syria, more fighters are moving through the Sahel to West African countries
like Mali, Chad, Niger, Nigeria, and Cameroun to join in the Fighting.
In October
2017, 4 US, 5 Niger soldiers were killed & 10 wounded in the 'Tongo Tongo
ambush' that happened in Niger republic. Since 2013 to date, 41 French
soldiers have died in the Sahel
fighting Islamic terrorist groups, the numbers increased in just one year. 71 soldiers were
killed with 12 injured December 2019 in an attack on a military base in Innate
of western Niger. There is more to the war; the armed forces will not put out
certain information on ongoing operations for security reasons. I am putting
these out so people will understand that the war isn't like some movie game or
conventional war where you go bomb their bases. The enemy has no base, the
enemy is mobile, the enemy could be that mai-shai, or mai-lemu, or meat seller
you patronize. They hide in plain sight; they use human shields.
An American
parent will report a child who suddenly starts exhibiting strange behavior or
lifestyle. A wife will report the husband if she sees him reading
jihadist/militant material online. Our own people will either shield them or
take them for evil spirits to be cast out. It’s a very complicated war such
that I have my doubts it will be ending in the next 10 years (I pray it does).
So when spinning conspiracy theories about people feeding fat or whatever
enters our imagination ask yourself, if it were that easy how come US troops
are still dying in Afghanistan? How come al-Shabaab kicked the US ass in
Somalia & has waxed strong even in Kenya for over 15 years? Insurgency is
more than what you read on social media. As usual we are a people who know
about soccer more than footballers and coaches, as we sit behind our devices to
insult Lampard, Ole, Lukaku, or Ronaldo. A few Google clicks & we all become
experts in warfare/insurgency. Let me stop before they say I am being paid 30k
to launder government.
Note: These
stories do not represent the government or any agency (civil/military), they
are my personal views.
Please
leave your thoughts and opinions in the comments box provided below.
Have
a fruitful day!
Olusola
Bodunrin is a graduate of Philosophy from the University of Ado-Ekiti. He is a
professional writer, he writes articles for publication and he anchors – ‘What
You Should Know’ on SHEGZSABLEZS’ blog.
Comments
Post a Comment