How to Tackle Terrorism in Nigeria and Africa

Please accept my humble sympathies fellow Nigerians and possibly Africans if you have been so unlucky to be at the receiving end of a demonic onslaught against innocent and defenseless citizens by a devilish Radical Islamist Sects and terrorists whose only mission seems to destroy the peace and harmony of the Nigerian state and Africa. I am not a security expert, but I’m sensible enough to read the hand writing on the wall and analyze a critical situation that must not be left unchecked. Just in case the federal government and other security agencies are looking for ideas on how to tackle the menace of terrorism, I’m freely offering advice here and hope it will be listened to or some of the ideas found useful. Even so this is my little contribution to national security so feel free to join in this discussion. Let us brainstorm and find ways to make Africa safe and Nigeria safer or where that is not possible for us Nigerians to divide and go our separate ways in the most peaceful and progressive way possible although the true motive of Terrorists is Politically motivated or  revenge and I will explain this later under how to tackle terrorism.

 What do these terrorists want?Boko Haram as a case study

From the way they operate it is quite clear they are ought to undermine the government of Nigeria by accomplishing the following;

1. Spread fear across the length and Breadth of Northern Nigeria especially among the political elite and gain relevance in the process. This is seen by the fact that they will assassinate anyone who publicly criticizes or offends them e.g foiled assassination attempt on Hafiz Ringim and assassination of ANPP governorship candidate in Borno State.

2. Turn the people against the Federal Government by undermining the efficiency of security agencies. They always brag about being able to strike whenever and wherever they want and claiming that they are stronger than our security agencies.

3. Trivialize national issues into religious crisis. Claiming that attacks against Christians are reprisals for killings and cannibalism against Muslims in Northern Nigeria. Yet they also killed a lot of Muslims in Kano recently and telling all Muslims living in the South to relocate to the North and Vice Versa or face death.

4. Promote anarchy by causing confusion and widespread panic. They have no clearly defined targets anywhere there is a public gathering is a potential target. Churches, relaxation spots, government offices, INEC and other government parastatals, Security agencies such as police, army, immigration and their base stations, Mammy Markets and sometimes attacking people by the roadside.

 5. Gaining political leverage for their cause. Claiming that more deaths and carnage will be inflicted on Nigeria firstly implies that there will be potential breakdown of law and order leading to declaration of state of emergency and curfews which weakens the state governments further and drives more attention to their demands. This makes them seem more powerful than they really are.

 How to deal with terrorists

 1. Breakdown their chain of command
After 9/11, America declared war on terrorism and set in place legislation and policies to curb them. One of such policies was to round up members of terrorist groups and interrogate them to obtain information about their operations. This information in turn was used in gaining insights into the leadership structure of al-qaeda. Terrorist groups usually suffer when their leaders are killed and Israel has demonstrated this against Hamas so the natural cause was find their leaders and sponsors, then kill them. Osama Bin laden was the financier and leader of al-qaeda using his personal resources to fund their operations his death would naturally make life difficult for the group that was why US special forces preferred to kill him rather than arrest him. 21 other al-qaeda leaders have been killed by US drones or American Marines in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq.
With the Taliban it is a totally different approach. They are more of a militant group fighting for political survival and hence are not necessarily out to hurt US interests but they might consider doing so when they are more powerful.

 2. Stop their financing

For the Taliban, the opium trade was a major source of financing before they captured power and now that they are out, seems to be their best option since Osama their former ally is gone and his financing had also stopped coming freely. With poor financing they would be low on supplies and wouldn’t be able to pay the family of suicide bombers hence massive reduction in suicide bombing – almost always the suicide bombers are from poor families and the promises made to them are very attractive e.g secure future for the loved ones they will leave behind plus the promise of heavenly bliss.

3. Ideological and Psychological Warfare

People should realize that terrorism is actually a psychological weapon that hides behind an ideological objective as its aim and these objective(s) usually come as political and economic demands. For instance Boko Haram claims it wants to practice the purest form of Islam in Northern Nigeria, who do you think they would want to effect such a change? They of course, so indirectly they are making a demand for political control of Northern Nigeria just like Al-shabbab did in Somalia and the Taliban in Afghanistan except that their Ideological objective which cannot be achieved by dialogue or diplomacy must be achieved by using fear tactics (the psychological weapon) e.g suicide bombing, random killings against defenseless citizens, armed insurgency and so on.
Since terrorism involves using instruments of fear such as death and death threats to frighten the general population and turn it against government so that government can then give in to the terrorists then the right way to deal with them is to make their efforts fruitless by not giving into their demands.No sane person yields to terrorists that is why most western governments don’t negotiate with them even in hostage situations and hi-jacking which were popular in the 60’s to 80’s. These tactics have failed them overtime and so the more fashionable thing to do these days is suicide bombing, armed insurgency and militancy all of which can be tackled effectively.
So to tackle Boko Haram do the exact opposite of what they really want you to do. Once you identify the real motive behind a terrorist act, do the exact opposite of what that act was supposed to achieve.

Written by Bee