Nigeria could never be described as a quiet country, but terrorist group Boko Haram's bombing campaign combined with a national strike over a fuel price increase is quite unlike anything the country has ever faced before.
President Goodluck Jonathan is caught in a perfect storm. With a death toll rising above 160 from Saturday's bombs in Kano, the credibility of the security forces, the government and the state itself has been profoundly undermined.
At first, Boko Haram looked like another messianic Islamic sect emerging from north east Nigeria that would, like others before it, burn out with its very ferocity. The biggest of those movements, Maitatsine, in the 1970s, also believed in killing infidels, and its suppression in Kano in 1980 resulted in the deaths of some 4000 people. Founded in 2002, Boko Haram calls for an Islamic Caliphate in northern Nigeria under strict Islamic law where non-Muslims will not be allowed to live. In 2009 police attacked the movement's headquarters in Maiduguri, seized its leader, Mohammed Yusuf, and executed him. Boko Haram declared war on the state and the police in particular. Already deeply despised by the population, the police became Boko's chief target.
Nigeria's police are generally held in contempt for their brutality and corruption. I once watched a pitched battle between police and soldiers which ended in a senior police officer being arrested, bound and taken away by the men in khaki. The crowd cheered. The police had been forcing street traders and motorists to pay fictitious fines. More recently, during the national election last year, I watched voters openly defying and jeering the police, but when a soldier appeared on the scene they were fearful and backed off.
No wonder then that the movement's new leader, Kabiru Umar, sometimes called Kabiru Sokoto, managed to escape from police custody recently. He was arrested and accused of organising the bombing of St Theresa's Catholic Church in Madalla on Christmas Day, killing 40 people. According to one reliable account a large but unarmed crowd marched on the police station demanding his release and the police handed him over. One eye witness was quoted as saying: "... some people came from nowhere and swooped on the police... surprisingly they [the crowd] overpowered them and captured Kabiru in handcuffs from the police. After [the police] lost him they started shooting and arresting innocent people".
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SOURCE: African Arguments
Richard Dowden
