Boko Haram Is Winning

Last weekend Boko Haram took the city of Baga in northwestern Nigeria. Baga was not only the last city in the region controlled by the Nigerian government, but it was also the headquarters of the Multi-National Joint Task Force, an organization formed by the countries in the Lake Chad region in order to combat insurgency and organized crime. The decisive defeat of the Multi-National Joint Task Force is a wake-up call for the countries in West Africa about the enormity of the threat of Boko Haram, and could even be considered so for countries elsewhere who are involved in the battle against Islamist terror organizations.

Some eyewitness reports from the battle at Baga note that many Nigerian soldiers simply dropped their weapons and ran away from the Boko Haram gunmen. Worse, this does not appear to be a rare event. Nigerian soldiers have complained about being under equipped and under supplied by the better armed and more numerous Boko Haram fighters, and that corrupt senior officers often steal their pay. Of note is a report from a Nigerian Army officer that only Nigerian troops were present at the base at Baga when the attack occurred; Chad, Cameroon, and Niger had withdrawn all their troops from the base a few days prior to the attack.

Like all African countries, corruption in Nigeria is a problem at all levels of government. Just recently, Nigerian Army troops have been chasing down newspaper delivery vans due to media criticism of corruption and incompetence in the country’s armed forces. Reports show that generals have been diverting money to their own accounts. Much like with the Taliban in Afghanistan, it is not hard to assume that much of Boko Haram’s support may come from Nigerians upset with the current corrupt government in Abuja. Worse still, there is evidence that Boko Haram has infiltrated the Nigerian intelligence services and military. Until the Nigerian Army dedicates itself fully to defending Nigeria from Boko Haram instead of enriching its officers’ bank accounts at the cost of the safety of the entire nation, Boko Haram will continue to be an existential threat to security in West Africa.

Regardless of the degree of corruption in Nigeria, however, the US can ill afford to let Boko Haram seize additional territory. Boko Haram already holds as much as six times as much land as ISIS does, and threatens to expand further in West Africa in their aim to create an Islamic state in the region. While developing a domestic security capability for Nigeria is obviously the preferred option, if it proves untenable other alternatives may need to be considered. For example, foreign intervention, either on the model of the Ethiopian military’s intervention (with U.S. assistance) against Islamic militants based in Somalia or the African Union force currently deployed there may yet serve as a blue print for the U.S.  response to an Islamic insurgent organization in Africa. Should the situation require direct action, the French experience in Mali could serve as an example for a NATO force to battle Boko Haram in Nigeria.