Civilian Vigilante Effort Against Boko Haram Backfires in Nigeria Uprising Collapses as Islamist Insurgency Turns its Weaponry on Nigerian Population By DREW HINSHAW GOMBE, Nigeria—A 19-year-old tailor, Abdulmuminu Mohammed, bought a $3 machete a year ago and joined his friends in a vigilante effort against Boko Haram. He says he personally placed 10 suspected members of the Islamist terror group under civilian arrest. Last month, Boko Haram struck back. Several came into the town of Damboa disguised as beggars, residents said, going house to house for alms, then gunning down those generous enough to open their doors. Around the same time, nearby fighters cut cellphone service and blew up bridges, residents said. At night, they fired guns in the air or at men who wandered outside the now-isolated town of 200,000. Spooked soldiers vanished from their posts. Mr. Mohammed and his fellow vigilantes spent their evenings nervously on benches outside their homes, armed with clubs and homemade muskets. When the Islamic insurgency finally arrived en masse, after nearly three weeks of psychological warfare and ambushes, it didnt take much to eliminate the remaining opposition. Within hours, more than 10,000 people fled on foot, officials estimate. They included Mr. Mohammed, who left his machete at home. You thought we would never come? he recalled Boko Haram fighters screaming as he dashed down a dirt road. Well, here we are! A civilian uprising in northeastern Nigeria against Boko Haram has backfired. When the army escalated its rounding up of young Boko Haram suspects last year, more than 10,000 men joined vigilante groups, according to numbers provided by group leaders. The added manpower lent hope that the tide had turned in the governments favor. Instead, it gave Boko Haram a reason to turn its weaponry on the population, killing 2,749 people, mostly civilians, this year, according to figures compiled by the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. The tactic has been a fruitful one for the Islamist insurgency, which has been fighting for half a decade to impose fundamentalist law in Africas most populous country. Despite the infusion of hundreds of fresh troops in recent months and the arrival of international advisers, local officials and Western diplomats say Boko Haram has solidified control over most of Borno state, an area about as big and populous as Ireland. From afar, the slaughter looks to many Nigerians like haphazard butchery with little underlying logic. Top government officials view the terror campaign as an attempt to sabotage President Goodluck Jonathans re-election bid in February: That is precisely what appears to be happening, said his spokesman, Reuben Abati. But to the vigilantes, the killing is brutally strategic—not random—and targeted at them, not a faraway president. By making an example of Damboa and towns like it, Boko Haram has sent more than half a million people fleeing, the United Nations says, forfeiting whole road networks in the region to the insurgents. Vigilante leaders say their men werent equipped to hold out against Boko Haram—and that the army was stretched too thin, too hobbled by its own equipment shortcomings, to protect them. The Borno state government gave the vigilantes pickup trucks and stipends, but drew the line at weaponry. Nigerias federal government also ruled out lethal aid. Mr. Mohammed says he isnt a vigilante anymore: Not for now, no. It is a script playing out across Nigerias northeast, including the town of Chibok, where 276 schoolgirls were kidnapped in April. Residents there say gunshots punctuate the night and that surrounding villages have been taken. Many say leaflets being distributed warn of an imminent Boko Haram attack. Some residents say they hide in nearby caves at night. Others spend the evenings on patrol. It is only our women and children that sleep, said the brother of one kidnapped girl who operates as a night watchman. Damboa was known as a center for the Civilian Joint Task Force, a statewide band of vigilantes, and its fall illustrates how Boko Haram is operating now. The town, 56 miles from the nearest major city, was initially infiltrated by small numbers of Boko Haram members, residents and Nigerias military say. Last year, the government declared a state of emergency in the region, giving the army free rein to haul in thousands of suspects, particularly young men. Jail conditions were horrific, according to Amnesty International. On a single day—June 29, 2013—263 bodies left one prison called Giwa Barack, according to morgue records from the nearby University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital, seen by The Wall Street Journal. On June 3, it was 103 bodies; on June 24, 115. The army denies that prisoners are mistreated and says its jail conditions are humane. Mr. Mohammed decided to join the vigilantes less out of support for the army than fear that they would have thrown him into jail if he didnt. Three of Mr. Mohammeds friends had already been jailed: Perhaps, they would pick me too, he said. His 48-year-old mother says she was proud of him: He is a man now, said Asamau Adamu. He is fighting. For a time things went his way. His crew—some as young as 10—stormed into the homes of men they suspected of Boko Haram involvement and escorted them into the hands of soldiers. The military issued a statement lauding their efforts: These gestures are commendable. A business of making muskets from steering wheel columns took off. Said Mr. Mohammeds mother: We could sleep with both eyes closed. Then things fell apart. Earlier this year, gun makers woke up to find several co-workers lying decapitated in the dirt, said Mustapha Kabuke, the treasurer of a gunsmiths guild. He moved his workshop to another town. Other vigilante-held villages began falling. In February, militants struck Izge twice, killing 90 people and burning it down the second time. Two weeks later they burned down Mainok, killing 39. They killed 96 in Bama, 48 in Jakana, another 48 in Kayamla, and more than 300 in Gamboru, according to residents and vigilante officials. Long stretches of rural roads became abandoned. When they stormed the market town of Jaba, they rounded up everybody from Damboa, said shoe salesman Buba Mallam. A case of mistaken identity led to him being tied up, hands behind his back, beaten and nearly kidnapped until they realized their error. Boko Haram was inching closer to Damboa. At the start of the month, Mr. Mohammed said they killed six of his friends who had wandered out of town. One resident, Mustapha Mohammed, said he watched them kill another three while he hid in the grass. At night gunfire rang out from the woods. One evening, the fighters drove into a military barracks in pickup trucks with machine guns mounted on them, shooting at the fleeing soldiers. They only darted back into the countryside when the military scrambled fighter jets over Damboa. The soldiers never came back. But Boko Haram did, arriving at dusk on July 17, while Mr. Mohammed was washing his face. He ran, then walked and hitchhiked over the course of two days to Gombe, a government-held town where his family regrouped. Now he wonders if some of the Civilian Joint Task Force volunteers were Boko Haram spies the whole time. Another former Damboa resident, Malam Mustapha, said that on their first day in control of the town, Boko Haram assembled women onto a road and asked why they had let their husbands and sons become vigilantes. She left the next day. There is nobody in Damboa, said Modu Ali, who walked his four children down a dirt path away from town. Only old people who cant move an inch.
Posted on: Mon, 04 Aug 2014 23:15:06 +0000
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