International Organizations' role in Islamist insurgency in Nigeria.

Abigail Peña AlejosLobachevsky State University of Nizhniy Novgorod (UNN)

Federal Republic of Nigeria

Capital: AbujaLargest city: LagosOfficial languages:

English Major languages: Hausa,

Igbo, YorubaEthnic groups: 21%

Yoruba,21% Hausa, 18% Igbo, 11% Fulani, 9% Urhobo-Isoko, 7% Efik-Ibibio, 4% Kanuri, 3% Edo, 2% Tiv, 2% Ijaw, 2% Nupe, 1% Bura, 8% others.

Government: Federal presidential republic 

Area:  Total923,768 km2 

Boko Haram at a glance

Boko Haram = "Western education is forbidden" in the Hausa/Arabic language.

Founded in 2002, launched military operations in 2009 to create Islamic state.

Thousands killed, mostly in north-eastern Nigeria - also attacked police and UN headquarters in capital, Abuja.

Abducted hundreds, including at least 200 [276] schoolgirls ( April 2013)

Control several north-eastern towns.

Designated a terrorist group by US in 2013.

Declared a caliphate in areas it controlled in 2014.

Most territory now recaptured by army.

Boko Haram by numbers (2014)

International organizations and their responses to BH

National

•Nigerian State

Regional

•Economic Community of West African States - ECOWAS

•African Union - AU

INTERNATIONAL

•International Criminal Court (ICC)

•United Nations (UN) Security Council Statements

•North Atlantic Treat Alliance (NATO)

Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS)

A limited reaction to the ongoing crisis.

3 March 2014, ECOWAS denounced the 25 February attack on the Yobe state school.

The Commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace and Security of ECOWAS confirmed a partnership with the UN and the Nigerian government in a new Weapon Collection Programme for northern Nigeria.

African Union (AU)

Regional security efforts aimed at combating terrorism.

Support for the government of Nigeria’s fight against Boko Haram.

 Cooperation with EU, NATO, Nigerian and other African Armies.(2014-2015)

North Atlantic Treaty Organization

«[…] I think it is important to work with them [North African countries] to try to enable them to create stability, to fight terror, to increase their own defense capacity. So that’s part of our dialogue with countries in Africa, is how can we assist, help them to create stability in their own countries and in their own region. And I would welcome actually to develop more co-operation also with the African Union and that is something I am going to look into, how we can not only work with individual countries in Africa but also work more closely with the African Union. And north Africa is close to NATO borders and also I would like to underline that NATO Allies are participating in the fight against terrorism, extremism in Africa. French troops, French forces are there, some other NATO Allies are also contributing to the efforts to fight extremism, violence in Africa.»

Jens Stoltenberg, NATO Secretary General, Annual Report 2014, NATO HQ (30 Jan. 2015), Brussels

HIGHLIGHTS

NATO’s Counter-Terrorism Policy on three main areas: awareness, capabilities and engagement.

Development of new capabilities and technologies to tackle the terrorist threat and to manage the consequences of a terrorist attack.

Cooperation with partners and international organizations to leverage the full potential of each stakeholder engaged in the global counter-terrorism effort.

Every participating country agreed that this form of solidarity was at the heart of the Treaty, effectively making Article 5 on collective defence a key component of the Alliance.

European Union (EU)

Several programmes and financing instruments to support Nigerian government .

Cotonou Agreement.

National Indicative Programme.

Instrument for Stability (IfS).Includes EU counter-terrorism since May 2014.

Bilateral and regional strategic documents: Nigeria-EU Joint Way Forward.

AIMS End to the culture of entrenched impunity and human

rights abuses.

Ensuring the protection of civilian populations, and improve the capacities of law enforcement.

Improvement of the gathering, processing and effective use of intelligence within Nigeria and beyond its borders.

Engagement in addressing the governance deficit and system-wide corruption at all levels.

Encouragement and facilitation of dialogue across all Nigerian states.

International Criminal Court (ICC)

Nigeria, a State Party to the Rome Statute. Its obligation to ensure that crimes that “shock the conscience of humanity(5 August 2013)

2014: Crimes against humanity have been committed by Boko Haram and the Nigerian Army fall under the Court’s scrutiny.

 2015: ICC Prosecutor Bensouda denounced a disturbing escalation in the levels of violence.

Conclusion: ICC is conducting an examination of the situation in the country. 

United Nations (UN)

20 January 2010 Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon expressed serious concern on about the renewed violence and crimes in Nigeria.

14 March 2014, Ms. Navi Pillay reported that human rights violations committed by BH and security forces, half a million people disclosed to have been displaced within Nigeria.

23 May 2014 Boko Haram has been put on UN terror sanctions list

Security Council Statements 19 January 2015, Security Council condemned the recent

escalation in attacks by Boko Haram. The Multinational Joint Task Force is welcomed to combat Boko Haram.

Anti-Boko Haram force set to begin joint raids, U.N. rep says

Nigerian and Chadian forces early this year forced the militant group, which has sworn allegiance to Islamic State, to cede large swathes of territory in northern Nigeria, undermining its six-year campaign to carve out a caliphate.

Emma Farge, Reuters: (Oct 29, 2015)

Conclusion

The conflict in Nigeria is an example of a state’s inability to protect civilians from organized killings conducted by a non-state insurgency group.

Boko Haram attacks are not the only issue facing the country.

Organizations agreed that BH and Nigerian army have committed crimes against humanity.  Some opinions stressed that, actually, many organizations secretly endure BH.

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 AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL REPORT 2014/15. THE STATE OF THE WORLD’S HUMAN RIGHTS