Africa in Transition

Ayobami Egunyomi is a Robina Franklin Williams intern for Africa Policy Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, DC. She received her BA in International Relations from Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis. She is a native of Nigeria. Since the beginning of 2018, at least eighty people from Benue State (in the middle belt of Nigeria) were killed, and thousands displaced as a result of attacks by Fulani herdsmen on their farmlands and homes. These attacks have caused an outcry among Nigerians, especially people living in the Southern region, many of whom consider the killings to be as dire as the Boko Haram insurgency. At the peak of the Boko Haram insurgency during the presidency of Goodluck Jonathan, now-President Buhari was a vocal critic, and rightly so, of Jonathan’s failure to handle quickly the insurgency until he faced international pressure. However, the inaction of President Buhari in a comparable situation, where the peace and security of a region is threatened, is similar to the behavior that he earlier criticized. The president’s apathetic response to the conflict in the middle belt encourages the perception of many southern Nigerians and even a few northerners that Muhammadu Buhari is the “President of the North,” rather than of Nigeria as a whole. Early into his presidency, he stated that the constituencies that accounted for 97 percent of his votes (all located in the north) cannot be treated the same as those who contributed only 5 percent (southeast and south-south). A news report from October 2017 revealed that 81 percent of Buhari’s political appointees are northerners. The Igbos in particular are angry that the administration arrested the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), which is a non-violent separatist movement, and deployed military troops to the region. The IPOB has not been linked to any deaths. The attacks by herdsmen, however, have killed over a thousand Nigerians but have not received anywhere near the same level of attention.  While it may be argued that the powers of the president are limited, in times past, President Buhari has proven capable of taking swift action and bringing down the full might of the government in the case of Boko Haram. It is therefore crucial that the government prioritizes the conflict in the middle belt as a threat to national security. Recently, the minister of Agriculture proposed the creation of cattle colonies in southern states. Nigerians in the south, however, have vehemently refused to consider seriously this proposal mainly because they do not trust northerners. The first step the presidency could take is to deploy law enforcement to affected areas to deter the herdsmen and to keep the peace. With the former minister for defense and military chief of staff, General Theophilus Danjuma, calling for Nigerians to defend themselves, this step is crucial to preventing anarchy. Also, the federal government could take concrete steps to encourage the herdsmen to remain in their region to avoid encroaching on farmlands in the South. A possibility would be the expansion of cattle grazing reserves to facilitate migratory cattle raising. Unless President Buhari takes some major form of action, he risks making the same mistake his predecessors made, being accused of tribalism, and bequeathing these problems to future generations as thousands continue to suffer.   

On April 1, Botswana inaugurated its fifth president, Mokgweetsi Masisi. The presidency is structurally very strong in Botswana and its past leaders have been giants. Filling the shoes of his predecessors will therefore be a daunting challenge for President Masisi. Botswana’s founding president, Seretse Khama, was extraordinarily influential in shaping the country’s trajectory. His insistence on inclusion, faith in democracy, and the use of national resources for national goods rather than personal gain are all still prominent features of Botswana’s political culture today. Seretse Khama's successor, Quett Masire, oversaw a period of tremendous development and steered Botswana into its place alongside Norway as a counterexample to the “resource curse.” Then came Festus Mogae, a brilliant and compassionate leader whose decisive action helped his country overcome the HIV/AIDS epidemic years before the problem was meaningfully addressed elsewhere. Though extremely powerful, each of these leaders oversaw the development of strong governing institutions, including an independent judiciary, aimed at serving the country long after they left office. Together, they took Botswana from the bottom of nearly every development index at independence in 1966 to the upper middle-income status it enjoys today, peacefully and with integrity.  Botswana’s fourth and most recent president, Ian Khama, may be best remembered for his insistence that the persistent poverty experienced by many Batswana be acknowledged, an important contribution in a country celebrated for its development progress but characterized by significant income inequality. He was also a true champion of the country’s spectacular ecological resources and he fostered some of the most effective anti-poaching policies and practices in the world. Some feared that there was an authoritarian strain in Ian Khama’s leadership style. But the pride with which he observed the county’s strict two-term limit and transferred power to Masisi speaks volumes about the depth and endurance of Botswana’s political values.  Like its neighbor South Africa, Botswana has a multiparty system that is dominated by one political party, the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP). Traditionally, the president of Botswana ends his term a year before national elections, ceding power to a vice president who has been chosen with the express intent that he or she lead the party and country going forward. While Botswana’s fractious opposition parties have made some progress in uniting recently, the BDP will likely still win the 2019 election, beginning Masisi’s first five-year term.   I had the pleasure of working with then-Minister Masisi during President Ian Khama’s administration, and found him thoughtful, decisive, fierce in defending Botswana’s equities, and enthusiastic about getting things done. His inaugural address gave some hints to his priorities going forward, including improving the return Botswana receives on its admirable investment in its human capital. I am eager to see how he moves out on his agenda. Botswana should be of interest to anyone who studies the world and cares about what is possible. It is an imperfect place, like any other, but there is no small-population, landlocked country in the world that has ever accomplished so much in such a short time.   

Jacob Zenn is an adjunct assistant professor at Georgetown University’s Security Studies Program and a fellow on African and Eurasian affairs at the Jamestown Foundation. On March 22, the Islamic State-affiliated faction of Boko Haram released 105 of the 111 the girls they kidnapped from a school in Dapchi, Yobe State one month earlier back to their homes in Dapchi. The only girls who were not released were five girls who died during the kidnapping operation and one Christian girl. She will likely remain hostage until she converts to Islam (all of the girls who were kidnapped and released were Muslim).  Boko Haram has split into at least three factions. The Islamic State-affiliated faction, also known as the Islamic State West Africa Province, or ISWAP, was reportedly behind the kidnapping. There were initial uncorroborated reports that its leaders received a ransom or prisoners in exchange for returning the 105 girls. However, emerging evidence suggests that the faction released the girls only in exchange for a temporary cease-fire so they could bring the 105 girls safely back to their village. Why would the militants have conducted such a major kidnapping only to release them for no “compensation” one month later? I argue that the answer to this question lies in a one-hour leaked audio sermon in the Hausa language from August 2, 2016 by Mamman Nur. Nur, a former AQIM-aligned Boko Haram member and now a leader of the Islamic State-affiliated faction, said in the audio that he received guidance from the Islamic State to only kidnap, or “enslave,” Christians. Muslim men and women, however, could not be “enslaved;” they could only be killed if they were apostates and did not repent.  The then leader of the Islamic State-affiliated faction, Abubakar Shekau, rejected this guidance and did not release the Muslim girls who were taken in the infamous Chibok kidnapping in 2014 (some were released only in October 2016 and May 2017 as part of a ransom deal with the government, which I detail in my article). Shekau’s rigid stance on “slavery” was one of the reasons why he fell out of favor with the Islamic State. On August 3, 2016, the Islamic State elevated Nur and his protégé, Abu Musab al-Barnawi, to replace Shekau as the leaders of its affiliate group. Therefore, one theory I have developed is that the kidnappers in Dapchi were former Shekau loyalists based in his former stronghold in Yobe State who defected from him and sided with Nur and Abu Musab al-Barnawi in the Islamic State-affiliated faction after August 2016. This Yobe State-based faction, which operates somewhat far from the stronghold of Nur and al-Barnawi around Lake Chad, did not know about or ignored the guidance that kidnapping Muslim girls was unacceptable. When the kidnappers brought the girls from Dapchi to Abu Musab al-Barnawi’s base near Lake Chad, al-Barnawi then demanded their release (except for the one Christian girl who could be “enslaved” according to his ideology). Since the kidnapping itself was unacceptable, al-Barnawi did not demand ransom or prisoners in return for their release.  This episode shows how ideology and even guidance from Islamic State can have a practical impact on the ground in the insurgency in Nigeria. It not only underscores the split into factions of Boko Haram led by Shekau and Abu Musab al-Barnawi, respectively, but that even al-Barnawi’s faction itself is not monolithic. Indeed, it is conceivable that in the future these kidnappers in Dapchi could form their own faction aside from al-Barnawi, who they may believe squandered a chance at a big ransom in the Dapchi kidnapping. This would bring to four the main factions of “Boko Haram.” The other three are the Islamic State-affiliate faction of Abu Musab al-Barnawi; Shekau’s “non-aligned” faction; and the operationally dormant and al-Qaeda-loyal Ansaru faction.  Unfortunately, long-term peace negotiations with any of these factions seem dim considering that Abu Musab al-Barnawi’s faction may be the most “moderate” of the factions and he is, after all, still fully loyal to the Islamic State.