Boko Haram is a militant Islamist movement based primarily in northeastern Nigeria and was classified as a terrorist organization by the US establishment of an Islamic state in Nigeria and opposition to what it views as the Westernization of Nigerian society that has concentrated the wealth of the country among a small military/political elite, mainly in the Christian south of the country. Currently, the country has a religious demographic of around 46%, mainly Sunni Muslims, mainly in the north of the country, and approximately 53% Christian.
Until 2011, the group was mainly involved in small-scale crime campaigns, including kidnappings, bank robberies, extortion, and low-level insurgency, but this all changed with its first IED attack on UN headquarters in Abuja, in which 11 UN staff and 12 others were killed. Since that incident, the group has raised its profile by killing and kidnapping foreigners, politicians, religious leaders, security forces and civilians, and most recently by kidnapping more than 200 schoolchildren from the city of Chibok, an event that pushed Boko Haram directly. in the spotlight of the international media.
In late 2013 they changed their hit-and-run tactics and focused on occupying swaths of territory in north-eastern Nigeria, areas from which the Nigerian military has been unable to dislodge them. Furthermore, the group has also been reported to operate and engage in skirmishes along the borders of Chad and Niger, as well as carry out operations in northern Cameroon.
Membership is estimated to be roughly 1,000-3,000 and growing, but calculating membership is a hard science, as the organization does not appear to have a coherent or united command structure, a factor that makes it difficult for Western intelligence services to determine or determine. collect intelligence data. What is known is that Boko Haram has weak links with AQIM (al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb) operating in Algeria and Mali and also with al-Shaabab in Somalia and, more worryingly, it has been reported that the group is reaffirming their connection. with ISIS in the Middle East by forming an information and materiel support alliance, there have also been reports of communication between the leaders of both organizations.
Where Boko Haram gets its funding is a matter of speculation. Initially it was due to bank robberies, kidnapping ransoms and extortion payments from state governors, but there may be signs that additional external funding may now be pouring in through its connections to AQIM and ISIS.
As for weaponry, your arsenal has expanded not only in quantity but also in sophistication. The chaotic turmoil in Libya led to the looting of armories and the seizure of large amounts of military equipment by the rebels. It was from this source that AQIM benefited immensely in terms of acquiring a large number of modern weapons, some of which have found their way into the Boko Haram arsenal. The Nigerian military has been unable to stop this flow of weapons, mainly because the long and porous borders are impossible to monitor and patrol with the manpower and resources at its disposal. Thus, the increasing smuggling of arms from Libya and Mali has continued apace and with virtually no hindrance.
Petroleum
So can Boko Haram really pose a credible threat to Nigeria’s oil industry? Since the rise of ISIS in the Middle East, Boko Haram has grown not only in numbers and equipment, but also in confidence. Last week, abandoning their usual cover-and-seek tactics, they engaged and defeated the Nigerian army at Mubi, a city of about 129,000 in Adamawa state, forcing the army to retreat hastily and in disarray.
Although they have not advanced further south of their territories so far, Boko Haram has recently launched threats against oil refineries and pipelines specifically in the Niger Delta, threats that should not be ignored. Of course, the Delta has had its own share of historical tensions from the early 1990s to the present. Minority ethnic groups in the Delta who felt exploited by “big oil” took up arms, formed militias and gangs, and resorted to kidnapping of foreigners (usually, but not exclusively, oil workers), local ethnic infighting, and turning themselves in. to oil theft. oil from the pipelines conservatively estimated at more than 100,000 bpd.
However, it is a well-known fact that resources, especially in the Niger Delta, are running out. According to a recent article in the UK’s Daily Telegraph, they cited a 2011 report by 2 Nigerian academics who found that “there is an imminent decline in Nigeria’s oil reserves as it may have peaked or is about to occur” that report was over 3 years ago.
The same article also quotes a senior Shell official in March this year as saying that crude oil production decline rates run as high as 15-20% and that replacing this natural rate of production decline requires more funds. of those currently available. This has prompted the Head of Nigeria’s Department of Petroleum Resources to call for more exploration investment to offset rapid rates of decline as production plateaued in the Niger Delta and is already declining.
To try to offset this decline, the Nigerian government has to date pumped more than $175 million into exploration and development in the Lake Chad Basin, where prospecting had shown promising results and commercial oil and gas exploration was expected to to start in late 2013. early 2014. However, Boko Haram’s threats of attacks on facilities and personnel and the Nigerian military’s inability to protect the plan have resulted in the project stalling.
To try to combat the threat of Boko Haram, a state of emergency has been in place in the country for some time and will remain in force until the general elections in February 2015. The inability of the government and the military to stop the expansion and the Boko Haram’s influence and the effect this may have on future oil revenues may well be a decisive factor in determining the outcome of the election.
In addition to this, the government’s inability to safely prospect for new oil and gas fields outside the Niger Delta region in other parts of the country due to the threat of Boko Haram is worrying. If the military is unable to combat this group, then the mere perceived threat of possible attack and disruption by Boko Haram appears to be enough to bring about a paralysis of thought and action, a situation that is not unique to Nigeria as, like many other countries. , tries to deal effectively with the growing spread of radical Islam.