MAIDUGURI, Nigeria — In brutally poor neighborhoods and mansions alike, this city choked by military checkpoints seethes with rumors, paranoia and conspiracy theories. Even academics like to assert a favorite: The homegrown Islamic extremist movement that is terrorizing northern Nigeria
MAIDUGURI, Nigeria — In brutally poor neighborhoods and mansions alike, this city choked by military checkpoints seethes with rumors, paranoia and conspiracy theories. Even academics like to assert a favorite: The homegrown Islamic extremist movement that is terrorizing northern Nigeria is a CIA creation.
Others are convinced that the extremist group known as Boko Haram is a plot by the southern-led Nigerian government to create an eternal crisis in the north.
How else to explain Boko Haram’s transformation from a group of bearded radicals stashing homemade weapons to an organization that has half the country on military alert and U.S. lawmakers warning of threats to American interests?
But outsiders have a more chilling explanation: The group has capitalized on ties to a neighboring Al Qaeda offshoot and access to large amounts of explosives, ammunition and weapons, some of which may be flowing out of Libya since the fall of Moammar Gadhafi’s regime.
That has not only made the group a danger to the Nigerian government, which appears uncertain how to deal with an increasingly bloody insurgency here in the mostly Muslim north, but has also raised the specter of a broader holy war.
A U.S. House subcommittee on counter-terrorism and intelligence concluded in November that Boko Haram could pose a growing threat to U.S. interests and called on the State Department to consider designating it a terrorist organization. A January report to the U.N. Security Council said members of the group received training from al- Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb last year in Mali.
Since the beginning of 2011, Boko Haram has killed more than 1,000 people in a Taliban-style campaign to topple the government and impose sharia, Islamic law, across Africa’s most populous country. The escalating series of suicide car bombings and coordinated assaults has rattled the capital, Abuja, central Nigeria and even the predominantly Christian south.
In August, it attacked the Abuja headquarters of the U.N., described by a Boko Haram spokesman as a “forum of all global evil,” killing 25 people. The U.S. Embassy in Nigeria warned last month that Boko Haram might carry out attacks on major Abuja hotels, echoing a similar warning late last year. It has prohibited staff members from visiting northern Nigeria.
The group, whose name means “Western education is a sin,” also recently warned all Christians to leave northern Nigeria, prompting many to pack up and head south, an ominous development in a country already riven by horrific religious and ethnic violence.
The group’s leader, Abubakar Shekau, flanked by four masked and armed men, warned in an al-Qaida-style video last month that the group would “devour” Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan and his government, rebuffing Jonathan’s earlier claim that the insurgency would be crushed by midyear.
“We are proud soldiers of Allah. We will never give up as we fight the infidels. We will emerge as winners,” Shekau said. “We will finish you and end your government.”
Boko Haram radically changed its tactics and ideology after mid-2010 when a leader of al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb said in an interview that his group would give the militants weapons and training, analyst J. Peter Pham contended in a paper last month for the Africa Center for Strategic Studies at the National Defense University in Washington.
Boko Haram was once obsessed only with its fight against the Nigerian government, but its rhetoric is increasingly focused on international enemies.
The first outward sign of its transformation came in June. The group, known for drive-by assassinations and attacks on police and army outposts, launched Nigeria’s first suicide bombing, against the police headquarters in Abuja, followed two months later by the suicide bombing of the U.N. headquarters there.
Complicating the problem is corruption in Nigeria’s security forces, which has seen Boko Haram suspects “escape” from police custody more than once. Jonathan said in January that the extremists had infiltrated the government and security agencies.
“Some of them are in the executive arm of government, some are in the parliamentary arm of government, while some of them are even in the judiciary. Some are also in the armed forces, the police and other security agencies,” he said.
He said in a recent interview that that there was “no doubt” that Boko Haram had links with Islamic extremist groups in Africa.
In Maiduguri, Boko Haram’s birthplace and main base, the group is so powerful and its support so extensive that no part of society is untouched.
“These people, Boko Haram, are people from this town,” said Mohammad Kaigama of the city’s motorcycle taxi association. “They are there in any part of society. Whatever group that you know, they are in it. I don’t know if some of them are my members.”
In the city, a handsome student sat on a mat in the small courtyard of his home, a thin cat wandering nearby. He spoke perfect English and had a dazzling smile to match his big ambition to go to college.
A few years ago, it was a different story when, to his mother’s despair, he dropped out of school and joined Boko Haram.
In desperation, she sent him to stay with an uncle, who said it took months of persuasion before he could break the group’s hold on his nephew. He declined to give his name, fearing reprisal.
At a meeting with a reporter, before the 20-year-old could begin his story of the group, his mother bustled in, angry and frightened, and brought the visit to an abrupt end.
The theory about Boko Haram being a CIA creation is popular here in a town where the United States is deeply disliked.
The House subcommittee and security analysts have urged greater American support for Nigeria’s government forces, which critics say have overplayed the threat in the hope of U.S. funding. But given the toxic atmosphere in Boko Haram’s hometown, increased U.S. support for Nigeria’s hated security forces risks backfiring, potentially fueling support for the group, or turning its attention to American targets.
Militants could strike at the United States through Nigeria because of its strategic importance as a major supplier of oil to the U.S. It also has direct flights to America, raising the specter of attacks like the one by a Nigerian who wore underwear with concealed explosives and tried to detonate them on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day 2009. That plot, by an Islamic militant not linked to Boko Haram, failed.
Most everyone in Maiduguri has a story of random reprisal killings by Nigerian security forces, who tend to open fire on civilians after Boko Haram attacks and who have been strongly criticized by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International for killings of civilians and prisoners.
That has fueled talk that the government created Boko Haram to dominate the north politically and deprive it of resources.
As wild as the theories sound, they underscore the sense of northern alienation, borne out in statistics. The south gets a greater share of oil revenue as part of a 2009 deal to appease southern rebels in the oil-rich Niger Delta, but the formula imposes increasing inequity on the north. In the north, 72 percent live in poverty, compared with 27 percent in the south and 35 percent in the Niger Delta.
A 35-year-old textile trader, giving his name only as Mohammad, once belonged to Boko Haram. A pious man who made constant references to God, he still admires the sect and often associates with its members.
“I know that their teachings are right, and I still have that belief. What they’re saying is the right thing,” he said quietly, looking straight ahead, not making eye contact.
He said the government triggered the Boko Haram rebellion “due to their insincerity and carelessness toward the masses.”
“They oppress people, and it’s due to their oppression that we are in this situation.” So he doesn’t mourn when he hears of police and military casualties.
“When they attack security forces, I’m happy about that, because the security forces killed my brother, my friend, my friend’s wife and some of my wife’s sisters.”
There’s little consensus across Nigeria on how to tackle Boko Haram. The south favors tough military action, but the north calls for a negotiated peace deal.
President Jonathan’s approach has been confusing, at first holding secret talks, which collapsed, then vowing to wipe out the group.
“The government thinks they will defeat them in the near future,” Mohammad said. “It’s a total mistake.”
