The Terrors of the North-Jihadists, Bandits, and Vigilantes Grow Stronger In Nigeria

The Terrors of the North: Jihadists, Bandits and Vigilantes Grow Stronger in Nigeria Nigeria Last fall, about 50 motorcycles carrying jihadists were ridden into Mafa, a village in Yobe state in northeastern Nigeria, where they began firing at individuals at a market, at worshippers, and at people in their homes, before burning the village to the ground. More than 170 people were killed in the incident that was meant to demonstrate the power of jihadist terrorist group, Boko Haram, and its splinter group, Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), terrify those in the remote northern regions, and pay back villagers for security operations by Nigerian forces and vigilantes intended to defeat them. “This is the first time our community has faced such a devastating attack,” Buba Adamu, a local chief, expressing grief and fear, told the Associated Press. “We never imagined something like this could happen here.” Boko Haram fighters have killed 35,000 people and displaced 2 million since launching an insurgency to establish Islamic law, known as Sharia, in the early 2000s. They became notorious internationally for committing abuses against girls and young women they had captured, according to Amnesty International, most famously with the kidnapping of the hundreds of schoolgirls known as the Chibok Girls. For more than 20 years, the government’s forces have been trying to defeat the group, with mixed success. Since 2023, Nigerian military leaders said, more than 120,000 terrorists and their families have surrendered to Nigerian troops. Around half were children who otherwise would have become the next generation of terrorists. “The terrorists were reproducing children who would take over from them,” said Chief of Defense Staff Gen. Christopher Musa in the Vanguard, a Nigerian newspaper. “These children were born into violence, and if they remained in that environment, they would grow into more violent individuals.” Also, Nigerian military leaders recently said that their counter-radicalization program, called Operation Safe Corridor, has prevented 60,000 young people from joining Boko Haram. Musa and other Nigerian military leaders may be playing up Operations Safe Corridor because his forces have otherwise often fumbled their anti-Boko Haram activities, argued Responsible Statecraft. A joint force of troops from Benin, Cameroon, Chad, Niger, and Nigeria, for example, has launched six campaigns since 2014 against the group. Most were short and ended before they could defeat the terrorists. Meanwhile, a crime wave involving ransom payments, cattle rustling, and illegal mining have also swept through northern Nigeria, wrote Deutsche Welle. These criminals are not necessarily jihadists. Operation Safe Corridor won’t likely stop them because their enterprises are too lucrative in areas where economic development and opportunities are lacking. As a result, the attacks go on: For example, last month, Boko Haram attacked a Nigerian military base on the border with Niger, killing 20 soldiers. The problem now, say analysts, is that these criminal and also jihadist groups are getting stronger. In 2016, the group split, with one faction, ISWAP, becoming a part of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. But after years of conflict with its rival, ISWAP recently regrouped, according to the International Crisis Group. Meanwhile, armed criminal gangs in the north have joined with the jihadists to terrorize civilians. In Mafa and elsewhere, villagers have long been aware the government’s fight against the gangs and the extremists doesn’t keep them safe. Jihadists such as ISWAP, for example, have regularly ‘taxed’ the villages and openly shop in their markets. As a result, villagers around the region, including in Mafa, formed vigilante groups and began killing members of ISWAP and Boko Haram. The villagers were warned an attack in reprisal for the vigilantism was coming and fled. But then they were told it was safe to return. It wasn’t. After the massacre, the villagers found this note left by the group, the New York Times wrote. “You have been lulled into a false sense of security, mistakenly believing that the Army of the Caliphate’s restraint – our decision not to trouble you, pillage your property, or disrupt your commercial activities and farming – implies weakness,” the note read. “You have grown bold and boastful.” Share this story