Boko Haram's attacks have intensified since President Jonathan took power last April, in the country's cleanest election since the end of military rule in 1999. Jonathan pledged to fight graft and attract investment. But he is a Christian southerner, and in the eyes of many Muslim northerners it was a northerner's turn to rule.
That backdrop doesn't explain how the group went from drive-by shootings and crude petrol bombs to shaping explosives for suicide missions against the United Nations.
A video posted on YouTube on January 11 suggests the group's leadership would like to be seen as part of a global jihad. Abubakar Shekau, who has run the group since Yusuf was killed, appears in the 15-minute tape wearing a camouflage bullet-proof jacket, sitting in front of two Kalashnikov rifles. His beard, headscarf and hand gestures recall the style of video pronouncements made by the late al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. But Shekau's message hits local notes.
"The reason why I am giving this broadcast is the recent comments of Goodluck Jonathan about us and that of the leader of the Christians and other statements by others, describing us as a cancer to Nigeria. We are neither a cancer nor a disease. If people don't know us, God knows us," Shekau says. He then goes on to cite common complaints about Nigerian politics.
Most of the public evidence about what Boko Haram wants and how it operates comes from its avowed spokesman, Abu Qaqa, a mysterious figure who often pops up after an attack to claim responsibility and explain the motives.
Speaking by phone to a handful of reporters in Maiduguri in November, Abu Qaqa spoke of the links between al Qaeda and Boko Haram. "We are together with al Qaeda," he said. "They are promoting the cause of Islam, just as we are doing. Therefore they help us in our struggle and we help them, too."
But Qaqa offered no concrete details of those ties; the rest of the conversation focused on local issues. He said the group isn't affiliated with Nigerian political parties and described the sect's anger at the governor of Borno state. In claiming the recent Kano attacks, which killed at least 186 people, he cited the killing and arbitrary arrest and detention of Boko Haram members.
Nigerian and Western security experts believe a small, increasingly ambitious and sophisticated group of extremists controls the very top of the group. A handful of those members have received training outside Nigeria, including from AQIM.
Nigeria-based security sources who track Boko Haram told Reuters that members of the group have been going to training camps with brigades of Algerian AQIM for the past six years. Small units of five or six members train at a time; no more than a few dozen have been trained in total, the sources said.
The foreign minister of neighboring Niger told Reuters last week that members of Boko Haram received explosives training at AQIM camps in the Sahel region, which runs along the southern edge of the Sahara desert. The U.N. Security Council said this month that it had been told that Boko Haram members had received training in AQIM camps in Mali.
Experts say the group has become a convenient cover for opportunists. Criminals, political thugs and gangs hide beneath the umbrella of Boko Haram, making it hard to judge its size and scope.
Most of its foot-soldiers are disillusioned young men who have only loose ties to religious ideology, and are easily drawn in because there are little or no opportunities elsewhere. Jonathan has begun to acknowledge this, telling Reuters last week that the government would "revitalize" northern agriculture to provide jobs for youths who might otherwise be "recruited" by Boko Haram.
Aisha Alkali, a human rights campaigner in Maiduguri, says young men in northern Nigeria feel forced to adopt violence to defend themselves. "If you push people to the wall, if you leave them with nothing and take everything, where will they go?" asks Alkali, shrouded in a traditional black abaya and burka with only her eyes and impeccably manicured hands showing. "You make people something they were not."
Soldiers patrol the streets of Maiduguri in large numbers these days. By day, they hunch in roadside bunkers; at night, they regularly fight with Boko Haram units. Bomb blasts and gunshots punctuate the dark.
Amnesty International says the joint military task force (JTF) in the city has been behind dozens of unlawful killings there, further stirring the unrest. A report by the human rights watchdog says houses have been raided and burned by the JTF.
One of the JTF commanders in Maiduguri told Reuters there had been "excesses," but said mostly the military were doing a good job under difficult conditions.
Yirami Bwala, a 42-year-old shop owner, lost his 18-year-old son Markus in a Boko Haram bomb attack in Maiduguri in January. "Most Boko Haram members are just a bunch of illiterates who have been misled about their religion and what tolerance is all about," he said a day after the attack. "The military only make things worse by robbing people and attacking innocent, peaceful people."
More than a quarter of Nigeria's 2012 budget has been allocated to security spending. But with the number of attacks up - at least 250 people have been killed in the first three weeks of 2012 alone, according to Human Rights Watch - criticism of the way Jonathan has handled the violence is growing.
President Jonathan told Reuters that Boko Haram militants have infiltrated the military, police and his own government. He sacked the chief of police and his six deputies last week, after the key suspect in the Christmas Day bombings escaped less than 24 hours after being arrested, in what Nigerian security sources said were "unusual and suspicious" circumstances.
The leader of the nation of 160 million people has also said that tackling Boko Haram could be worse than Nigeria's civil war, if only because the enemy is faceless and unknown. Some analysts believe Boko Haram may be targeting Christians to trigger a religious conflict.
Nigeria has been here before. In 2009 it ended a militant insurgency in the southeastern Niger Delta by offering an amnesty. The government hints that a new broad political settlement may be on the cards. But dealing with a splintered and secretive group like Boko Haram will be difficult.
Olusegun Obasanjo, a former president and a southern Christian, visited the family of Boko Haram founder Yusuf last September for peace talks. Days later, gunmen killed Yusuf's brother-in-law. Boko Haram denied involvement in the killing. But someone wanted the dialogue to end.
Concluded (Reuters)
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