A group known as Lakurawa is terrorising Nigerian residents along the country’s border with Niger. Lessons from the history of Boko Haram suggest that this new wave of insecurity spreading across the Sahel was preventable, writes Uche Igwe.
Lakurawa is a group of violent extremists in northern Nigeria. They are suspected to be affiliates of the Islamic State Sahel Province (ISSP), who initially entered communities in Sokoto State. The origin of the group in Nigeria points to migration from Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso, which dates to sometime in 2010. They were said to be herders operating along the border between Nigeria and Niger before they transformed into a criminal gang in 2016. Since 2018, they have come seasonally at the invitation of local traditional and Islamic leaders seeking help against bandits.
At first, Lakurawa was welcome in the region because they effectively protected residents against bandits. Although they were known to be armed, the Nigerian Police described them as harmless because they deployed their arms against bandits and cattle rustlers rather than citizens or the state. However, their relationship with the police deteriorated when they started to use their weapons to intimidate local residents. They set up bases in these communities, from where they moved around to preach against Western civilization and democracy. They began to push radical Islamic ideology and attempted to enforce heterodox practices and a strict code of governance geared towards establishing a caliphate.
Snakes that come pretending to be lizards
The modus operandi of Lakurawa and many jihadist groups operating in Nigeria is simple and similar. Their initial mission is to achieve legitimacy. They do so by pretending to be promoters of peace and defenders of the community against rampaging bandits. They align with traditional and religious institutions in the area, preaching and promoting Islamic tenets. Apart from providing security, they also undertake public-spirited activities and occasional philanthropy. Slowly, they become embedded in the community and start imposing levies on ordinary people while forcing the rich to pay zakat – a form of charity or religious tax in Islam. Little by little, they start intimidating residents to conform and dethroning religious leaders who do not comply with their style of worship. At times, they tap into community grievances and discontent. Young men in these communities of want are recruited to join their sect through offers of monetary incentives.
The Lakurawa group’s presence in Nigerian territory has been known for a long time. However, due to poor intelligence and lack of coordination, different security agencies have shared opposing views about the same group. The police did not see them as a threat whereas the military depicted them as a new terrorist group, suggesting an intelligence failure. Their location in the inaccessible forests bordering the Niger Republic, from where they launch attacks on civilians, showcases the issue of ungoverned spaces persists in Nigeria. The embeddedness of the group in the communities means that there can be no successful military action against them without hitting unwanted civilian casualties. A recent airstrike targeting Lukurawa mistakenly hit civilian targets. All of these factors combine to give the group space to embed themselves in the region, once they’ve done so it becomes much harder to remove them.
The porous nature of Nigeria’s borders remains a security threat. Lakurawa jihadists use it to their advantage. The forests and ungoverned spaces near the border offer safe sanctuaries for the storage and transportation of small arms and light weapons that are tools for their criminality. Nigerian security agencies are often accused of poor enforcement of border control procedures. But with the strained diplomatic relations between Nigeria and Niger after the coup, it is doubtful if there will be the necessary coordination or intelligent sharing needed to secure the mutually beneficial security efforts.
With lessons from Boko Haram, this was preventable
The origin, tactics, and evolution of Lakurawa bear many similarities to the monstrous Boko Haram insurgency. Their metamorphosis into a terror group was predictable. However, it does not appear that appropriate lessons were learnt about the history of terror groups in Northern Nigeria. That the security agencies were unable to nip this problem in the bud speaks to the continued existence of the same factors that have long sustained terrorism in Nigeria.
Abdicating the powers of the state fully or partially to non-state actors can be temporarily beneficial but historically counterproductive when they turn violent and hostile to security agents. Violent exchanges between them are now regular resulting in casualties on both sides. The fact that the agents of the state allowed this group to provide security services to the communities was an avoidable error. This offered Lakurawa opportunities to understand the contours of the communities, consolidate legitimacy and balloon their membership. It is unlikely that the insecurity in Nigeria will end soon. Instead, groups are fragmenting and multiplying under different names but with similar objectives. With the expected spillover across the Sahelian region, the end of instability may not be in sight.
Photo credit: Free Malaysia Today
This is an insightful piece. Some conflicts are never understood. My first time to hear of Lakurawa!
Best piece on this group I’ve seen to date!