Elizabeth Donnelly is the Africa Assistant Head and a Research Fellow of the Africa Programme at Chatham House, with a focus on West Africa’s politics. She writes on Nigeria’s politics and has accompanied UK parliamentary delegations on visits to the country. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely hers.
In one month Nigerians will vote in what may be the country’s most competitive and contentious elections yet. But this important process will take place in the shadow of a worsening threat — Boko Haram, the Islamist insurgent group otherwise known as Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati wal-Jihad, which killed as many as 2,000 people in the northeastern town of Baga on January 3.
The attacks of the past few weeks — Boko Haram’s biggest ever in terms of casualties on Baga, and on markets using children to detonate devices — have drawn international focus back to the crisis.
But such appalling events are not new — they are an intensification, a next step in a crisis which has steadily worsened since Boko Haram’s 2010 reemergence. And they raise a number of questions about the trajectory of the insurgency and the response to it.
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Should the West be worried?
The West — and others — should be worried because of the human cost of the Boko Haram crisis and the legacy this violence will leave. With a few exceptions, Boko Haram has not attacked western targets; its focus is Nigeria. But Nigeria is Africa’s largest economy, democracy and producer of crude oil — it is important to the stability and economy of the region.
African leaders and Nigeria’s international partners should also be worried if a more effective response is not forthcoming from Nigeria, and if Boko Haram seeks to start pushing south and west in the country. In the immediate term, it is crucial that the Nigerian military protects state capitals in the northeast and that Nigeria holds credible elections in a month’s time.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.
