Caracterización estructural del bosque

7.2.1 Context

Political parties

According to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), 30 political parties are currently registered in Nigeria (INEC, n.d.). The two biggest parties, in terms of votes received during the 2015 presidential elections, are the All Progressives Congress (ACP) and the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). APC was formed in February 2013, when the four biggest opposition parties decided to jointly take on the PDP at the upcoming 2015 general elections. The PDP had until then delivered all three presidents and had ruled Nigeria since the return to civilian rule in 1999. The PDP was formed in 1998, driven by the objective to restore democracy in Nigeria after decades of military rule, by creating a national and broad- based political party in which all patriotic citizens could come together. The focus on national representation was a necessary condition for aspirant political parties, since regional representation had partially prompted the Nigerian Civil War in the 1960s (Encyclopædia Britannica, 2016). Another necessary condition for establishing a political party, stems from the aforementioned constitutional section 222, which states that a political party should not

have any religious connotation whatsoever. For this reason, there are no religious political parties that have a seat in the National Assembly or government.

Both parties are so-called ‘catch-all’ parties, seeking to attract the broader electorate rather than focusing on specific groups. Another similarity arises with regard to their stance on certain social issues, such as same-sex relationships, which they both disapprove of. Like the majority of Nigerian political parties, APC and PDP favour social conservatism based on moral and religious grounds. APC does so more firmly than PDP, partly because a sizable amount of its voters are Muslims living in the northern Hausa-Fulani parts of the country, who tend to be more conservative on social issues than other constituencies. Another nuanced difference occurs in the parties’ views on the autonomy of states. APC is dominated by politicians who support the devolution of powers to state governments, including those powers pertaining to religious affairs. PDP, on the other hand, is more moderate in this aspect, not necessarily against some degree of state autonomy and their religious freedom, but by no means willing to simply hand over essential powers from the federal government to state governments. Regarding other issues, there are more evident conflicting objectives and beliefs to be noticed. For example, they differ on economic issues such as government regulation of market policies. APC, the social-democratic party, favours an active role for the government while PDP, the neoliberal party, gives preference to less involvement (PDP, 1998; APC, 2013).

Recent elections

Since the country’s return to civilian rule in 1999, five general elections were held, during which Nigerians were asked to vote for one of the competing presidential candidates. The two most recent general elections were held in 2011 and 2015. These elections have yielded divergent results, regarding voter turnout and elected senators, but more importantly, regarding the victorious presidential candidate. In 2015, for the first time in history, the opposition candidate defeated the incumbent president during the general elections. Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria’s former military ruler from January 1984 until August 1985 after the December 1983 military coup and today’s APC leader, defeated Goodluck Jonathan by 2,5 million votes. Buhari received a majority of votes in 21 of 36 states. The other 15 states, mainly in the Southern part and some in the Middle Belt of Nigeria, went to Jonathan, as well as the Federal Capital Territory (BBC News, 2015).

This thesis demarcates government responses between the years 2009 and 2015. President Goodluck Jonathan has been the country’s president during most of this time. Monthly polls regarding his job approval rating show ups and downs, as do most of such polls, caused by too many issues to reflect on here. However, one exceptionally high job approval rating is worth mentioning, since it probably relates to Jonathan dealing with the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping in April 2014. September 2014 saw a 13% increase in Jonathan’s job approval rating (NOIPolls, 2014). Until then, he had remained relatively silent on the matter, which angered parts of the population. However difficult to verify with absolute certainty, this increase could be the result of a visit to the United States made in August 2014, during which he accepted help offered by the U.S. and other nations. In a Washington Times interview, he stated to be optimistic that the government would recover the girls safely and underlined his earlier message that he delivered to a group of 50 rescued girls, to whom he said “…he was dedicated to bringing home the rest of the girls safely” (Boyer, 2014). The acceptance of help from other nations and optimistic statements regarding the girls’ rescue, might have particularly affected women’s opinion regarding president Jonathan. However, as of today, the majority of the Chibok schoolgirls is still missing, their fates unknown. Thus, Jonathan’s response, apart from too late, has been non-effective as well.

Movements excluded from Nigerian politics

The constitutional section 222 prohibits associations that are explicitly referring to religion through their name, symbols, or logos, from forming and functioning as political parties. The section also requires associations, in order to be accepted as a political party, to be accessible for all Nigerian citizens, irrespective of their religion (Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999, p. 63). Consequently, because of this section, (militant) religious movements that are active in Nigeria are by definition excluded from Nigerian politics, since they are either referring to religion in (one or more of) the aforementioned manners or are not accessible for citizens with different or no religious backgrounds.

“People Committed to the Propagation of the Prophet’s Teachings and Jihad” meets none of the requirements for forming a political party as formulated in the constitution. Obviously, its name explicitly refers to religion and even propagates it, while excluding those who are not ‘people committed to’ their cause. Furthermore, their logo and its symbols contain religious messages as well. The book in the logo’s middle represents the Quran, guarded by two AK-47 assault rifles. On top of the Quran waves a black flag that portrays the shahada in white text, an Islamic creed declaring one’s belief in just one God (Allah) and in

Mohammed as his prophet. However, even if these restrictions on religious movements had not existed in the country’s constitution, Boko Haram would never participate in Nigeria’s system of politics as it is organized today. The slightest form of cooperation with institutional elements that belong to or are confined within a system that is secular, democratic, and Western-influenced, in other words un-Islamic, already is reason enough to be killed. This is evidenced, for instance, by the September 2011 assassination of Yusuf’s brother-in-law Babakura Fuggu, which will be discussed in the next paragraph. Consequently, Boko Haram actively participating in politics, which would mean adhering to certain rules and principles and essentially supporting the secular democracy, is unlikely to ever going to happen.

Beside the exclusion of religious movements from participation in Nigerian politics, arguably a much larger sector of the society is excluded as well. In order to be qualified for election as a member of the National Assembly, a Nigerian citizen should have attained the age of 35 for the Senate and 30 for the House of Representatives (Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999, p. 26). This section therefore per definition excludes a large part of Nigerian society, since such a large extent of its population is younger than 30 or 35. Solely on the basis of their age, potentially talented people are excluded from politics beforehand.

So far, religious movements and youth movements or groups are excluded due to constitutional sections that prohibit them from engaging in Nigerian politics. The last group discussed here, contrary to those previously discussed, is not so much a movement nor excluded by constitutional sections. Women in Nigeria suffer from other problems when it comes to representation and participation in the country’s political system. Patriarchal gender norms, the negative perception of women in politics, a lack of campaign funds for women, and the masculine nature of political power, are some yet not all factors that are hindering any significant political involvement of women. Women are severely underrepresented in both the National Assembly and the government (Nagarajan, 2015).

7.2.2 Government responses

Sharia law implementation

An issue that receives considerable attention throughout this thesis, is the reintroduction or extension of Sharia criminal law in twelve northern states from 1999 onwards. The issue of Sharia law is also, and more in detail, analysed in the chapter devoted to government responses in the legal context (chapter 6.3), but because the issue has been highly politicized since its emergence, it is deemed appropriate to discuss it here as well, as a part of Nigerian

governments’ responses in the political context. The response of President Obasanjo (in office May 1999 – May 2007) nicely portrays subsequent (state) governments’ overall initial approach to tricky and inconvenient affairs: denial of the problem, to, in some but not all cases, eventually coming up with a half-and-half solution. In the case of Sharia law, this sometimes led to a compromise, the formulation of which was left to the states. For instance, in Kaduna State, unlike other Northern states, Islamic punishments were not incorporated in the newly extended legal system. The compromise was introduced in November 2001, almost two years after Zamfara State had enacted the first Sharia Penal Code in Northern Nigeria on 27 January 2000 (Peters, 2003, p. 13). The delay in Kaduna was due to recent violent clashes between Muslim and Christian communities, which were related to the extension of Sharia law throughout Northern Nigeria. The Kaduna State Governor aimed at preventing a repetition of such events by implementing a moderate version of Sharia law. The compromise entailed that Muslim local communities were granted more power through the establishment of Sharia courts that would deal with civil matters involving Muslims, thereby aiming at not to antagonize Christians (BBC News, 2001). Not only would this compromise eventually anger Muslims, due to their discontent with the manner of which Sharia was implemented, the fact that the government had allowed the reintroduction and extension in the first place angered Christians as well (Ehrhardt, 2016, pp. 83, 85).

Political incorporation

After his return from Saudi Arabia, by 2007, Yusuf had attracted a significant amount of followers around Maiduguri, partly due to seductive rhetoric, partly due to the provision of an informal social welfare structure. These are just two examples that contributed to his popularity, which enabled him to mobilize parts of the northern youth. This ability did not remain unnoticed by Yobe and Borno states’ governors, who offered Yusuf and Buju Foi, another prominent Boko Haram member, involvement in state government affairs in 2007. The extent of this involvement was relatively limited and came down to seats in the Borno committee of Islamic Affairs. It is, however, the only example in Boko Haram’s history that the sect had acquired an official role in state government, the authority of which it had always rejected. Shortly thereafter, the involvement ended with the resignation of Yusuf and Foi, mainly because of the state government’s failure to effectively implement Sharia law in accordance with Yusuf’s wishes (Comolli, 2015, p. 52).

In addition to the, with varying degrees, implementation of Sharia law in Northern Nigeria and the attempt to incorporate Boko Haram leaders in state government, other government responses in a political context can be observed as well. One of these are, as mentioned by Miller referring to the category of conciliation, negotiations and talks. On 15 September 2011, former President Obasanjo went to Maiduguri to meet with members of Boko Haram and of the Yusuf family. Although he emphasized this effort was purely his personal imitative, President Jonathan had endorsed and supported it. Obasanjo first and foremost urged the family to “forgive and forget the past”, while simultaneously hoping to mark this meeting as a “first step in being seen to be making a move with a view to resolving this crisis…” (Ajani, 2011). However, the meeting yielded nothing but negative results. Firstly, the level of trust between the two parties further decreased. Boko Haram presented several demands to Obasanjo, including an end to the arrests and killings of their members; payments of compensation to families of killed members; prosecution of security officers involved in the Yusuf killing; and the release of all detained members. Obasanjo delivered the demands to Jonathan, alongside the grievances expressed by those he had spoken to. However, despite having promised to look into the meeting’s results, Jonathan has not appeared to have taken any action, again proving Boko Haram’s view of the government as being insincere (IRIN, 2012). The inaction regarding several demands, for instance that all detained members would have to be set free, is hardly a surprise, since for the government this is simply an unacceptable condition. Regarding the demand to prosecute the security officers involved in Yusuf’s extrajudicial killing, a Vanguard editor reported shortly after Obasanjo’s visit: “Already, some policemen are being tried for the extra-judicial killing of Yusuf” (Ajani, 2011). However, this report’s claim, endorsed by Jonathan, is hard to verify. Secondly, negotiating with or talking to representatives of the government is considered wrongful and worth killing, even if it pertains to Boko Haram or Yusuf family members themselves. This happened to Yusuf’s brother-in-law, Babakura Fuggu. He had already spoken to Obasanjo on several previous occasions, including the meeting discussed here. The day after the September 2011 meeting, he was killed by an unknown gunman, who was suspected to be a Boko Haram member (Marama, 2011). Despite this failure, the Nigerian government again opened talks with Boko Haram in 2012. Through third parties, according to former Media and Publicity adviser Abati, the government aimed at “…understanding what exactly the grievances of these persons are, what exactly can be done to resolve the crises, in the overall best interest of ensuring peace and stability in Nigeria…”. To end the crisis, the government stated that it would listen to anyone’s grievances, including members and leaders of Boko Haram of whom

they do not know who they are (Ori, 2012). In 2014, talks between Boko Haram and the government were still ongoing, according to Abati. He optimistically expected that this time, concrete and positive results would be achieved. Now, both Cameroon and Chad were involved as well, being two significant partners since Boko Haram tends to travel across the countries’ borders (BBC News, 2014). Later that year and in the first half of 2015 during the electoral campaign, presidential candidate Buhari promised Nigerians that, contrary to Jonathan, he would not engage in negotiations or talks with Boko Haram. However, by the time he was elected, he explained that he intended to negotiate, if the sect was willing to. Otherwise, he would crush the insurgents anyway, by “the machinery put in place” (Ejiofor, 2015).

Amnesty

Besides the multiple instances of (attempted) talks, the issue of granting amnesty to Boko Haram has also been considered. On 31 December 2011, President Jonathan declared the first of two states of emergency during his presidency. After it had ended in July 2012, the possibility of starting a dialogue with the Boko Haram militants was once again discussed among key government and security figures. Instead of the coercive use of force, the government might succeed in ending the violence through negotiations, perhaps even amnesty. Such tactics have remained extremely sensitive ever since they had been suggested for the first time (Comolli, 2015, pp. 115-117). A likely reason for the consideration of amnesty for Boko Haram militants, is the successful 2009 Presidential Amnesty Program that was applied to the Niger Delta crisis, which has been discussed in chapter 5.3. Therefore, on 17 April 2013, Jonathan set up the Amnesty Committee. It consisted of 26 people from varying backgrounds, ranging from (state) senators to human rights activists and from Quranic teachers (mallams) to military figures. Their task was to identify and engage key leaders of Boko Haram, with the eventual objective of developing a viable framework for amnesty and disarmament (Agbiboa, 2013a, p. 11). However, just a few days after the Committee was established, Boko Haram’s leader Shekau unequivocally rejected the very idea of amnesty. According to him, Boko Haram had done nothing wrong that would require an amnesty. Instead, it was Boko Haram that should grant amnesty to the Nigerian government, for all their crimes committed throughout the years towards the Muslim community in general and the sect itself in particular (Chiles, 2013). The failure of the amnesty plan can be attributed to several causes. Firstly, the lack of trust between the involved parties reduced its potential success. Boko Haram members often recalled the

insincerity of the government regarding previous commitments, the government likewise was wary of the sect easily breaking its promises, as far as they occurred. Secondly, the fact that Boko Haram is highly factionalized and doesn’t appear to be represented by just one leader, makes negotiations, let alone talks about amnesty, a difficult endeavour (Agbiboa, 2013c, p. 66). One leader may feel attracted to the idea of amnesty, while the other, like Shekau, most certainly does not feel that way. Thirdly, as disclosed by an Amnesty Committee candidate (who turned down the appointment) and human rights activist Shehu Sani, President Jonathan had frustrated negotiation efforts with Boko Haram before and Sani expected him to do so again. Especially regarding the committee’s limited timeframe, imposed by Jonathan, to achieve their objective, Sani stated: “When you give a committee two weeks, it is not going to work (…) I know the committee will achieve nothing” (Nnochiri, 2013). Shortly after Shekau’s rejection, Boko Haram launched attacks on multiple villages, thereby killing dozens of police and security forces. The government responded with the declaration of the second state of emergency on 15 May 2013, little less than a month after the Amnesty Committee was established.