Nigeria’s Mass Atrocities: Harnessing Civilian Early Warning Data to Improve Civil-Military Response to Atrocities
Nigeria, the most populous country in sub-Saharan Africa, has experienced worsening mass atrocities in the past five years (Amnesty International, 2021; Human Rights Watch, 2023). Despite a change in leadership from President Buhari to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, incidents of mass atrocities have continued to plague the West African country (BBC, 2023; The Economist, 2023). Mass atrocities, defined as systematic violence against large civilian populations (Straus, 2012), manifest in Nigeria in the form of large-scale violence against school children and violent attacks against farming communities (Amnesty International, 2021; Human Rights Watch, 2023; ReliefWeb, 2023; SBM Intelligence, 2024).
Violence against school children and attacks against farming communities in Nigeria’s northern region has remained a prominent fixture in Nigeria’s ever-troubling sociopolitical landscape for more than a decade (Amnesty International, 2021; Human Rights Watch, 2023). According to reports from several international development agencies and expert security consultants, it continues to worsen, leaving local communities devastated, schools unprotected, and escalating famine in a country already facing one of its worst economic woes (UNDP, 2022; ACLED, 2023; SBM Intelligence, 2024).
Successive Nigerian governments have tried to tackle this issue by significantly increasing their military spending, which stands at the highest for a sub-Saharan African country, including deploying military divisions to the affected areas (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, 2022; Zenn, 2019). For over a decade, the Nigerian military has experienced victories, both short-lived and long-term, and has suffered significant losses, lowering soldier morale and, sometimes, handing the upper hand to terror groups (Olaniyan & Asuelime, 2014; Thurston, 2016). In some instances, the military has taken a scorched-earth approach to fighting the terror groups, resulting in heavy civilian casualties (The New Humanitarian, 2023; Amnesty International, 2015; Human Rights Watch, 2015). Despite these efforts, in many parts of northern Nigeria, terror groups like the Islamic State West Africa and Boko Haram have remained resistant to military counter-offensives (Zenn, 2019; Thurston, 2016).
One of the issues is that the Nigerian military has lost the trust of the civilians it is tasked to protect (Onuoha, 2014; Agbiboa, 2013). In some instances, there is a disdain towards any form of partnership between the military and civilians (Onuoha, 2014; Agbiboa, 2013). This mindset needs to shift for the military to leverage more civilian efforts in its fight against the terror groups perpetuating mass casualties and atrocities in its northern region (Agbiboa, 2013; Hultman et al., 2019).
For many civilian and civil society groups, the increased insecurity in the country has provided an opportunity to engage in projects focusing on collecting early warning data (Olusegun, 2020; Ogundipe et al., 2022). These efforts range from collating insecurity-related news from reputable news sources to collecting security data from cultivated and trained sources living in conflict-affected communities (Olusegun, 2020; Ogundipe et al., 2022). In some instances, data about insecurity incidents is sent by a smartphone to a remote server managed by the organization (Olusegun, 2020; Ogundipe et al., 2022). In other instances, the operation is more complex, with organizations like Global Rights, PIND Foundation, and ACLED hosting a repository of data sources that go back more than five years and others hosting websites with real-time data (Global Rights, n.d.; PIND Foundation, n.d.; ACLED, n.d.). Unfortunately, this is where the gap arises. Much of this information cannot be used to respond promptly to prevent attacks or stop them in their nascent stages (Ogundipe et al., 2022; Olusegun, 2020). Survivors of attacks have reported that non-existent or late responses from the military have resulted in the loss of confidence in the ability of the military to protect them (Amnesty International, 2021; Human Rights Watch, 2023).
The Nigerian military has an opportunity to abandon its reticence and sometimes disdain toward security-related data collected from civilian and civil society groups and harness these resources to protect vulnerable populations (Onuoha, 2014; Agbiboa, 2013). A starting point is for the Office of Strategic Preparedness and Resilience (OSPRE) at the National Early Warning Centre, managed by the National Security Office, to seek ready partnerships with some of these organizations (Olusegun, 2020; Ogundipe et al., 2022). This would require a radical shift from the current mindset of collecting intelligence data to track those it considers dissident citizens to using intelligence and early warning data to forge partnerships between citizens and the military (Onuoha, 2014; Agbiboa, 2013).
The quality of these data sources should not be taken for granted; they must be subjected to rigorous validity methods (Olusegun, 2020; Ogundipe et al., 2022). However, these measures should be conducted in partnership with these organizations without the need to designate them as competitors to OSPRE’s national-level intelligence data, as is the practice with the military (Olusegun, 2020; Ogundipe et al., 2022). Several organizations have unimpeachable data sources and have improved their data collection and validation processes (Global Rights, n.d.; PIND Foundation, n.d.; ACLED, n.d.). Furthermore, they have strengthened the infrastructure to collect sub-national level data that can surely enrich OSPRE’s efforts and improve proactive security for Nigerians (Olusegun, 2020; Ogundipe et al., 2022).
Nkasi Wodu is a Fellow of the Center for Peace, Democracy, and Development at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, and a Member of the Steering Committee, Atrocity Prevention Lab at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative.
References:
ACLED. (n.d.). ACLED – Conflict and Violence Data. https://acleddata.com/
ACLED. (2023). Nigeria: Conflict Dynamics in the North-East. https://acleddata.com/2023/01/30/nigeria-conflict-dynamics-in-the-north-east/
Agbiboa, D. E. (2013). The Nigerian burden: Religious identity, conflict and the current terrorism of Boko Haram. Conflict, Security & Development, 13(1), 1-29.
Amnesty International. (2015). “Our job is to shoot, disrupt and kill”: Boko Haram’s reign of terror in north-east Nigeria. https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/afr44/1360/2015/en/
Amnesty International. (2021). Nigeria: Widespread atrocities by Boko Haram and security forces fuel humanitarian crisis. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2021/03/nigeria-widespread-atrocities-by-boko-haram-and-security-forces-fuel-humanitarian-crisis/
BBC. (2023). Nigeria election: Bola Tinubu sworn in as new president. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-65415407
Global Rights. (n.d.). Global Rights. https://globalrights.org/
Human Rights Watch. (2015). “They Set the Classrooms on Fire”: Attacks on Education in Northeast Nigeria. https://www.hrw.org/report/2016/04/11/they-set-classrooms-fire/attacks-education-northeast-nigeria
Human Rights Watch. (2023). Nigeria: Killings, Abductions Surge in North. https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/01/31/nigeria-killings-abductions-surge-north
Hultman, L., Kathman, J., & Shannon, M. (2019). Peacekeeping in the midst of war. Oxford University Press.
Olaniyan, A., & Asuelime, L. (2014). Boko Haram insurgency and the widening of cleavages in Nigeria. African Security, 7(2), 91-109.
Olusegun, A. (2020). Harnessing Early Warning Data to Improve Security Responses in Nigeria. Chatham House.
Onuoha, F. C. (2014). Why do youth join Boko Haram?. United States Institute of Peace. https://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/SR348-Why_do_Youth_Join_Boko_Haram.pdf
Ogundipe, O., Aremu, F., & Sowunmi, F. (2022). Early Warning Systems for Conflict Prevention in Nigeria: Exploring Opportunities and Challenges. Global Policy, 13(4), 626-635.
PIND Foundation. (n.d.). PIND Foundation. https://pindfoundation.org/
ReliefWeb. (2023, September 7). Education in Africa: Violent attacks against schools rose by 20% in 2023. https://reliefweb.int/report/world/education-africa-violent-attacks-against-schools-rose-20-2023
SBM Intelligence. (2024, March). Levies of lives: The dilemma of farmers in Northern Nigeria. https://www.sbmintel.com/2024/03/levies-of-lives-the-dilemma-of-farmers-in-northern-nigeria/
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. (2022). SIPRI Military Expenditure Database. https://www.sipri.org/databases/milex
Straus, S. (2012). ‘Atrocity crimes’ and the problem of ‘genocide’ in Africa. Genocide Studies and Prevention, 7(1), 81-91.
The Economist. (2023). Nigeria’s new president, Bola Tinubu, begins his term. https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2023/05/29/nigerias-new-president-bola-tinubu-begins-his-term
The New Humanitarian. (2023, July 3). Exclusive: Civilians targeted in Nigeria’s war with Boko Haram. https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/investigations/2023/07/03/exclusive-civilians-targeted-nigerias-war-boko
Thurston, A. (2016). The disease is unbelief: Boko Haram’s religious and political worldview. Brookings Institution. https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/iwr_20160114_boko_haram.pdf
UNDP. (2022). Nigeria: Human Development Indicators. http://hdr.undp.org/en/countries/profiles/NGA
Zenn, J. (2019). Demystifying al-Qaida in Nigeria: Cases from Boko Haram’s founding, launch of jihad and suicide bombings. Perspectives on Terrorism, 13(1), 30-48. https://pt.icct.nl/sites/default/files/import/pdf/1520176-demystifying-al-qaida%E2%80%99s-impact-in-nigeria-cases-from-boko-haram%E2%80%99s-founding-launch-of-jihad-and-suicide-bombings-by-jacob-zenn.pdf