Boko Haram: Why it’s time to pay attention

The sheer scale of the most recent attacks by Boko Haram militants in Nigeria have captured global attention, but Boko Haram has been carrying out attacks on civilians in northeastern Nigeria for years. For local residents, fear of attack from the ruthless group is nothing new. Though Boko Haram has also carried out attacks in Cameroon, Chad and Niger, the toll in Nigeria is the most shocking. "People don’t think of Nigeria, or this part of Nigeria, as a conflict zone. But that would be an accurate description of the area taken over by the group," said Caitriona Dowd, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Sussex and senior researcher at ACLED.

Founded in 2002, Boko Haram is an extremist group that rejects Western secular society and wants to impose Shariah — an Islamic legal system based on the Koran and fatwas — and increase its territory under a self-proclaimed Islamic caliphate. The group has denied any affiliation with Al Qaeda.

As early as 2009, Boko Haram emerged in its current form and began targeted attacks on police stations. As time went on, the tactic evolved, violence scaled up, and Boko Haram staged attacks in Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and Niger, grabbing swathes of territory. In 2010 and 2011, Boko Haram restructured and regrouped after many of its members were killed, including its leader at the time, in clashes with security forces. The toll from Boko Haram attacks since has been most significant in Nigeria.

Notably, there were also widespread abuses by security forces who were working to quell these attacks, including extrajudicial killing of civilians, according to aHuman Rights Watch (HRW) report.

Security forces have killed hundreds of Boko Haram suspects and other members of the public with no apparent links to the group, in the name of ending the threat to the country’s citizens. But the authorities have rarely prosecuted those responsible for the Boko Haram violence or security force personnel for their abuses.

According to Dowd, 2013 marked a change in the conflict after Nigeria declared a state of emergency and ramped up military response to Boko Haram. As a result, the attacks became more geographically concentrated, mostly in the northeastern Borno State of Nigeria, and the intensity of the attacks grew.

Upcoming elections in Nigeria have also added fuel to the fire. President Goodluck Jonathan, the frontrunner in the Febraury 14 elections, launched his campaign last week with no reference to the seizure of a key military base at Baga, near the border of Cameroon and Chad. The politics and what's at stake in those elections may be driving the escalation of this group’s violence, as they hope to assert their presence at a critical time in Nigeria," Dowd said.

As for international thinking on the conflict, Dowd explained that there are two major misconceptions about Boko Haram violence from outside observers. One is that the group has always been violent, and Dowd said this is certainly not the case. "There has been an evolution of their tactics," she said.

The other misconception is that Boko Haram came out of nowhere. "They have been active for a long time," Dowd said. "But certainly not at the scale that has been getting international attention over the past year."

By: Megan Specia