The Frontline Club was at full capacity on Wednesday 4 February, as a panel of experts discussed the implications of Boko Haram’s presence in West Africa in the lead up to the Nigerian presidential elections on 14 February.

L -R Peter Okwoche, Funmi Iyanda, Mike Smith, Bala Mohammed Liman and Alex Perry.

The panel included: Bala Mohammed Liman, a doctoral candidate at SOAS specialising in the intersection of conflict and identity in Nigeria; Funmi Iyanda, a Nigerian producer, journalist and talk show host; Mike Smith, a foreign correspondent with AFP and former West African bureau chief; and Alex Perry, a contributing editor at Newsweek‘s international edition and author of The Hunt for Boko Haram. The discussion was chaired by Nigerian journalist at the BBC Peter Okwoche  who, by way of an introduction, commented that the panel knew “Nigeria even better than me, which says a lot!”

The discussion began with Smith and Perry explaining why Boko Haram had reached such prominence under the current Presidential term, and the ways in which the Government was at fault for their failure to act.

Smith said: “This is absolutely a national issue now, maybe a regional issue. We don’t want to exaggerate though, Jonathan called it the ‘Al Qaeda of West Africa’, but it is absolutely not that.”

Perry said: “[Boko Haram] has reached the regional level [of importance] because Nigeria has allowed it to. We have to focus on the core issues: a total lack of governance and corruption that people are fed up with. It doesn’t legitimise Boko Haram, but you create a situation where some unrest becomes much more likely in these circumstances.”

Okwoche asked: “Should the buck stop with Goodluck Jonathan?”

Perry answered: “Nothing good that has happened in Nigeria has anything to do with him… look at the disinterest and indifference. It took 20 days for the Government to even notice the Chibok girls were missing. I mean, my God, 20 days to notice a whole school had gone… It was an unbelievable confirmation of the indifference and shows how out of touch the political elite are.”

He continued: “The government in Nigeria, it’s a very dark place, it does something very corrosive to notions of civic trust and culture of public good. If you think everyone in Nigeria is out for himself or herself, it makes you pretty frightened and cornered.

“You can’t trust people to tell the truth, truth evaporates and there is a darker motive behind everything… A solution to this is beginning to disappear, and that is really scary.”

A member of the audience commented on the group themselves: “We speak very little about the Boko Haram organisation itself. Maybe it is the Western media or my ignorance, but it seems like we know relatively little about the hierarchy of the group, the ability of the organisation.”

Smith responded: “My best definition of what we have now, is that Boko Haram…is just a good name to call all the things going on in the insurgency. Some of it may be different cells, or it may be one dominant cell – it gets quite complicated.”

“We have no idea how many members they may have because they recruit at will, and recruit both people who just need money or who are attracted to the ideology.”

Perry said: “This is local town rebels gone slightly, well totally, sociopathic. You can almost say what they are against, but saying what they are for is almost impossible because they are incredibly bad at articulating it.”

He continued: “I am not underestimating their brutality at all…. it has become a death cult. There is an awful lot of ceremony around the beheadings, there are readings from books, and everyone is arranged in a circle. How do you counter an idea when there’s not really an idea there to counter?”

A member of the audience asked how poverty affects Boko Haram’s level of recruitment, and asked the panel to comment on the impact of high unemployment and disillusionment amongst young people in this regard.

Okwoche interjected with a shocking statistic: “Within the age group of 19-25 in Nigeria, the unemployment rate is 40%. That completely blew my mind.”

Perry said: “In the North, I imagine that figure would be double. The marginalisation and exclusion and huge youth bulge could be a great resource, but if it is not tapped, if that energy isn’t re-directed, it’s a time bomb. Social exclusion is the bedrock with which Boko Haram is founded. There is no doubt about it, the area has some of the worst poverty statistics for anywhere in the world…it really is one of the worst places to live on earth. But there is no alternative, there are no jobs, and Boko Haram will pay you.”

The final questions focused on the future of Nigeria, and whether the current situation had a chance of improving in the near future. Iyanda answered with little optimism.

She said: “I keep thinking about this and I don’t like any of the answers. Either we get lucky, we get a good change of Government, or we get a change of heart or strategy from the same Government. Otherwise it would have to be that something really desperate happens. The Nigerian government and its sense of well-being would have to be threatened. I don’t know how that would happen… but I don’t want to find out.”

Watch and listen back below:

The Frontline Club’s First Wednesdays kicked off a discussion on the news story that has dominated all others over the past month: Boko Haram and the hunt for Nigeria’s missing schoolgirls. Channel 4 News’ foreign affairs correspondent Jonathan Miller, chairing the evening’s discussion, began by asking who are Boko Haram? What are their ultimate objectives? How have they evolved to take centre stage in the global media spotlight?

L-R Jonathan Miller, Fatima Akilu, Kayode Ogundamisi, Andrew Walker and Bala Liman

Analysing the group’s evolution from a local spiritually led Islamist organisation driven by the charismatic leadership of Mohammed Yusuf in the early 2000s, to the now-militant cult whose brand of ultra-orthodox sharia law and extreme tactics have made them international ‘bogeymen’, Andrew Walker, a writer and journalist working in Nigeria since 2006, charted the groups repositioning contra-government authority to become “more and more anti-state”.

Miller put to Fatima Akilu, director of behavioural analysis in Nigeria’s office of the National Security Adviser, that this repositioning was initially utilised by state authorities, “that there are political connections with Boko Haram, and at some point the group became a very useful militia which was used to political ends by politicians”.

Effectively representing the government, Akilu confirmed that “the group did work with state governors at the time and helped them to mobilise the youth who were used for election purposes”.

Kayode Ogundamisi, writer and commentator on Nigeria affairs, claimed Boko Harem’s shift towards militancy was a result of the “extra-judicial execution of its spiritual leader Mohammed Yusuf”, leading to the radicalisation of the more extreme elements within the group. Ogundamisi criticised the police for their treatment of Yusuf and several other leaders, claiming that it is they (and, by extension, the state) who are ultimately responsible for the change in tactics that Boko Harem have since adopted.

“This led to what we have today. You cannot accept any state who fights terror with a method of terrorism. The way the government treated Yusuf provided a tool for the terrorist to recruit more sympathisers.”

Bala Liman, doctoral candidate at SOAS examining the nexus between conflict and identity in Nigeria, developed this point further.

“Half of the problem, and why Boko Haram is still existing, is because the military is carrying on these extra-judicial killings, people are getting arrested randomly . . . and, most importantly, the government are capturing [Boko Haram’s] women.”

Liman continued on the subject of the missing schoolgirls, stating that the abduction tactics employed by Boko Haram are as much a personal response to the actions of the government as a terror strategy.

Boko Haram seen as a "northern problem" – this has undermined a united Nigerian response @frontlineclub

— Sandrine Tiller (@sandrinetiller) June 4, 2014

Akilu sought to differentiate the actions of Boko Haram by contextualising the most recent incident, and why it achieved such international attention.

“What was different about these girls [compared to the brutal massacring of girl in the past] was that they took them alive.”

Discussing the potential solutions to the current situation, Walker was quick to point out the difficulties in attempting negotiations between Boko Haram and the government due to the complex internal structure of the group.

“It’s never really sure who you are talking to – whether that’s the full totality of the group. Because of the way it’s arranged, split into factions, means it’s very difficult to organise how to get to these people. I think one of the biggest problems of this whole group is that they are a kind of unknowable empty space in this remote place and all of these fault lines flow through this empty space. We don’t know how Boko Haram organise themselves, we don’t know how they tell themselves whether they are spiritual or not and it’s difficult for people who are outside, be it the presidency or here looking in, to understand what is going on and how to get in there and do anything.”

Likening Boko Haram to a franchise, Ogundamisi responded that while it is irresponsible and dangerous to negotiate with a group whose goal is to Islamise Nigeria, “the first priority is for the state to enforce itself as a state”.

All the panel agreed that what lay at the heart of the issue was the corruption within Nigeria and the inherent mistrust that ordinary Nigerians have for state institutions – from education to the army.

While the panel also recognised a need to prevent the “next generation” of young people becoming radicalised, there was disagreement as to the solutions effected on the ground, be they long term or in dealing specifically with the present abduction crisis.

Quoting Yasser Arafat that “the person you negotiate with is your enemy”, Ogundamisi cited the influence of the hardline core group within Boko Haram, combined with a federal system where power is so centralised in one man, which makes any negotiation virtually impossible and ultimately undesirable.

Watch and listen here:

The recent abduction by militant Islamist group Boko Haram of more than 200 Nigerian schoolgirls sparked global outrage, leading to the #BringBackOurGirls campaign and military assistance from Britain, the US, France and China.

With attacks in northern Nigeria on the increase we will be bringing together a panel of experts to examine the emergence of Boko Haram and what is being done to combat them. We will be examining the origins of the group, its affiliations and influence in the region.

Nigerian authorities have been heavily criticised for their slow response to the crisis. We will be asking whether they are losing the battle against Boko Haram and what can be done to support efforts to combat them.

Chaired by Jonathan Miller, foreign affairs correspondent at Channel 4 News.

The panel:

Fatima Akilu, is director of behavioural analysis in the National Security Advisors office responsible for drafting Nigeria’s a soft approach to counter terrorism, focusing on de-radicalisation, counter radicalisation and strategic communication. Previously she was head of communications for the Millennium Development Goals in Nigeria.

Andrew Walker is a writer and journalist who has been working on Nigeria since 2006. He is currently writing a book about northern Nigeria to be published next year.

Bala Liman is a doctoral candidate at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) where his research is examining the nexus between conflict and identity in Nigeria, with particular emphasis on the emerging culture of conflict in Northern Nigeria. His research also focuses on understanding the Boko Haram insurgency and its effect on the region.

Kayode Ogundamisi is a commentator on Nigerian affairs, he writes independent op-ed articles for major Nigerian media outlets as well as publishing on his blog The Canary. He travels between his base in the UK and his country of birth Nigeria, where he runs a programme on self-empowerment.