Nigeria: Autonomy, Anarchy and Abandonment
18th November 2021
Local officials in the northwest (Niger state) claim that more Boko Haram gunmen have been arriving and have taken control of five villages. A security task force is being organized to eliminate that Boko Haram problem. For over a decade Niger State has seen increasing tribal violence and banditry. Both usually involve Fulani tribesmen, who have been active in raiding throughout northern and central Nigeria for generations. The violence is mainly about land use disputes between the nomadic Fulani herders and local farmers. The banditry and raiding are often opportunistic, with locals taking advantage of the chaos, which keeps the security forces occupied, to steal cattle to raid a remote village of another tribe and carry off anything portable of value.
In the last five years the fatalities from this tribal violence have exceeded those caused by Boko Haram, which suffered obvious and massive defeats between 2015 and 2017. That eliminated Boko Haram control of any territory and the group has been surviving through banditry ever since. Boko Haram suffered even greater losses from internal battles. In 2015 a large portion of Boko Haram declared itself part of ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) as ISWAP (Islamic State West Africa Province). In 2018 a smaller ISIL group ISGS (Islamic State in Greater Sahara) occasionally showed up in Borno.