By Emeka Umeagbalasi
Various handling styles adopted by
the Federal Government of Nigeria in its prosecution of war and counter
terrorism against the Boko Haram terror group have failed woefully to address
and tame the violence. Such handling styles have also exacerbated the country’s
horrible human rights situations and emboldened the violent armed opposition
groups in commission of atrocious crimes against the citizens of the country.
From planning/intelligence to field battles; and from aerial assaults to
negotiation/ceasefire to information dissemination and management, the results
have been very catastrophic and marked with total failures. Unconventional
reportorial approaches adopted by the Nigerian media in covering the insurgency
warfare have also worsened the situation. Principles guiding modern war media
coverage and report are hugely absent in Nigeria. These have deeply worried the
Security & Safety Program of International Society for Civil Liberties & the Rule of Law.
Blunders of the warfare have
remained the Federal Government’s stock in trade since the insurgency became
more disastrous and pronounced in 2009. The latest of such blunders was recent
declaration of a unilateral ceasefire by the Nigeria’s Chief of Defense Staff
without any convincing and concrete evidence of ceasefire agreement with the
Boko Haram terror group. Just like the recent Stephen Davies’s Phantom
Third Party Negotiation, all the fundamental principles guiding modern day
ceasefire agreement and declaration are also totally absent in the so called
ceasefire unilaterally declared by the Federal Government.
The declaration came days after the
Federal Government, for the first time, earned an insignificant military
advantage over the Boko Haram insurgents, which was achieved in collaboration
with the Republic of Cameroun. The swift collapse of the phantom ceasefire is
not surprising. This is because it is a clear evident that the Federal
Government till now, is yet to study and understand fundamentals of
guerrilla/insurgency/asymmetric warfare including their phases, features,
dilemmas and vulnerabilities. The good study and understanding of the Boko
Haram terror group in the context of its methodology will bring about better
counter terrorist measures to deal with them in line with the international
best practices.
Unfortunately, the terror group
appears to be better strategically positioned than the Federal Government and
its military advisers. The terror group’s adoption of asymmetric/guerrilla war
strategy against the Federal Government is one of such examples. The
terror group is ingrained and tailored along modern unconventional warfare with
a number of strategic advantages already secured against the Federal
Government.
For the records, we talk of
insurgency when a group of belligerents attempt violently and illegally to
change the way a country is governed. There are various types of insurgency
including anarchist insurgency, which best describes the present Boko Haram
terror uprising. For guerrilla warfare, it is irregular and protracted
warfare launched against a sitting government by voluntary forces usually in
small bands or commandos operating outside conventional military organizations.
For terrorism, it involves
systematic use of terror as a means of coercion or with intent to create fear
or terror in the minds of the people particularly the non combatants/civilians
so as to force a sitting government to submit to an ideological pursuit or
positional, needs and interests under contention. For asymmetric conflict, it
is a violent struggle between two or more States and non State actors or groups
who possess considerable level of unequal power relation. In this, one party is
regarded as inferior while the other is superior.
Asymmetric/guerrilla warfare is the
most difficult war strategy in that it is very difficult to crush. Those who
subscribe to this type of warfare also have different strategies to prosecute
it. Generally, there are three major phases of guerrilla warfare as developed
by Mao Zedong in 1938. Phase 1 involves Organization, Consolidation and
Preservation. Phase 2 involves Progressive Expansion (sabotage, terror, active
guerrilla warfare and deception) and Phase 3 involves resorting to conventional
warfare and abandonment of asymmetric tactics. During this phase, orthodox
combatants are formed and deployed to confront the enemy and possibly dislodge
it and takeover sit of power.
In features of asymmetric warfare
usually adopted by the inferior party (i.e. Boko Haram terror group) there are
technologically advanced weaponry, speed and precision, favorable terrain,
training and tactics, etc. In features of guerrilla warfare, there are
operations, application of terror, surprise and intelligence, population
support, blending with civilian population, withdrawal, logistics, terrain,
foreign supports and guerrilla initiative & intensity. Main tactics and strategies of guerrilla warfare are intelligence, ambush,
deception, sabotage and espionage. There are also ethical dilemmas associated
with asymmetric/guerrilla warfare such as intimidation, irresponsible attacks
on civilian population, transferred aggression and disobedience of the laws of
the war. According to Mao Zedong, when the enemy advances, we retreat; when the
enemy camps, we harass; when the enemy tires, we attack; and when the enemy
retreats, we pursue.
From the forgoing instances, it is
clear that the Federal Government of Nigeria and its military advisers were
fooled and deceived into declaring a unilateral ceasefire owing to lack of
studying and understanding the war game plan of the Boko Haram terror group
particularly against the backdrop of the terror group’s recent setbacks in its
war against the Federal Government. In the three-phase guerrilla warfare
strategies, a failure at phase two or three automatically means reverting to
Phase 1 or 2. Deception tactics such as pretentious acceptance of ceasefire
might have been applied by the Boko Haram terror group with a view to rearming
or re-strategizing. The military advantage recorded against the terror group
should have been sustained so as to force the group into a number of meaningful
concessions including real ceasefire and freeing of Chibok girls. The
unilateral declaration of ceasefire by the Federal Government of Nigeria and
its military advisers was hasty and an infantile calculation.
Condemned is also the way and manner
the Federal Government of Nigeria and its military chiefs turned Aso Rock
and the Nigerian Defense Headquarters into owambe carnival celebrating phantom
ceasefire and mirage promise for the release of held Chibok girls. On the other
hand, those who are desperate to win international awards over their internet
campaigns on held Chibok girls compounded the situation by hurriedly ferrying
themselves to CNN, Aljazeera and other international media headquarters to
celebrate phantom promises made for the release of Chibok girls; forgetting
that over 500 of such female vulnerable citizens are still under the captivity
of the terror group since January 2014 without any sign of freeing a single one
of them since then. As reports have it, release of Chibok girls has not only
become elusive but also Mubi and other strategic communities in Adamawa State
as well as Borno State have since been retaken by the butchery group with the
Federal Government and its military advisers doing little or nothing.
The worst is the continuing lukewarm
disposition of the Federal Government of Nigeria and the opposition political
parties towards all these. While the country is on fire with dozens slaughtered
daily, the political authorities are busy purchasing forms for the purpose of
contesting 2015 polls by fire by force. It does not concern them that the
terror group has become more menacing by engaging with reckless abandon in all
kinds of heinous crimes including war crimes of ethnic and religious cleansing,
forceful religious conversion, forceful movement of populations, abduction of
the under aged and child soldiering as well as humanity crimes of murder,
torture, rape and other terrorist activities. The number of those killed,
maimed, displaced and “refugeed” has continued to swell. The Presidency is in
the know that the Boko Haram terror group has killed over 13, 000 citizens
since 2009, yet it does nothing to tame it. Our estimates have also continued to
show that over 5,000 citizens have lost their lives to Boko Haram and Fulani
Islamist terror groups since January 2014.
(Umeagbalasi is Board Chairman, International Society
for Civil Liberties & the Rule of Law (41, Miss Elems Street, Onitsha Nigeria).
He is also a Criminologist & an expert in Security Studies. He is an M.Sc.
candidate in Peace Studies & Conflict Resolution)
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