Recent killings show Nigeria dangers
North Korean doctors hacked to death by machete-wielding attackers. Women vaccinating children against polio gunned down in the street. A top Islamic scholar, whose predecessors once served as ultimate rulers in the region, nearly killed in an ambush.
These recent attacks in northern Nigeria show the changing tactics of extremists here and continuing dangers facing Africa’s most populous nation, despite a buildup of soldiers and police officers, door-to-door searches by security forces and mass arrests. As the killings continue, analysts believe the fighters, likely part of the amorphous sect known as Boko Haram, slip easily in and out of Nigeria to launch attacks — putting other West African nations at risk.
“It means Nigeria’s problem will become another country’s problem, such as Mali, Cameroon or Niger, or smaller countries like Guinea, Burkina Faso and Senegal,” wrote analyst Jacob Zenn in a January publication by the Combating Terrorism Center at the US Military Academy at West Point. “Like northern Nigeria, these countries have majority Muslim populations, artificial borders, ethnic conflicts, insufficient educational and career opportunities for youths and fragile democratic institutions.” On Sunday, officials found the corpses of three North Korean doctors in Potiskum, a town in Nigeria’s Yobe state, about 500 km northeast of the nation’s central capital, Abuja.
Those killings came quickly after gunmen shot dead at least nine female polio vaccinators Friday in Kano, the most populous city of Nigeria’s predominantly Muslim north.
Despite a promise by Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan that the government would protect health workers after Friday’s shooting, attackers killed the North Koreans and apparently slipped away undetected Saturday night. That led to questions among residents of Potiskum who wondered how safe they are, despite a dusk-till-dawn curfew in the town and soldiers on manning checkpoints there.
“It is really unfortunate this is occurring in an area with a full military and police operation,” resident Abdullahi Usman said.
Yobe state spokesman Abdullahi Bego offered condolences for the dead, who were part of a technical exchange program between the state and North Korea. “The Yobe state government will offer every possible support to the security agencies to track and prosecute the perpetrators of this criminal and condemnable act,” Bego said in a statement. “The state government will also continue to partner the security agencies to ensure the safety of people’s life and property.”
While no group has claimed responsibility for the attacks on the health workers, suspicion immediately fell on Boko Haram, whose name means “Western education is sacrilege” in the Hausa language of northern Nigeria. The group has waged an increasingly bloody guerrilla campaign of shootings and bombings for the last year and a half. In 2012 alone, the group was blamed for killing at least 792 people, according to an AP count.
Boko Haram, which once routinely claimed its attacks, has gone largely silent, starting speculation that the sect has split into smaller groups operating independently. That makes it increasingly difficult to know who is launching assaults in the north, like the January attack on the Emir of Kano Ado Bayero. At least three people died in the shooting and Bayero, who suffered injuries in the attack, has since left Nigeria for London with family members.
The shooting shocked Muslims in the country, as the emir once ruled the caliphate governing the region and is still looked upon as a spiritual leader. It also signaled no one was beyond the extremists’ violence that is sweeping across the north, as attackers have begun picking softer targets for their assaults, not just military and police.
Despite the crackdown by Nigerian security forces, it appears attackers are routinely crossing Nigeria’s borders to surrounding nations to train and regroup, analysts say. Some suspected Boko Haram fighters were seen even in Mali when radical fighters held its north, sparking the current French military deployment to the West African nation. That indicates Boko Haram has access to international training, weapons and finance, making the group an even greater and sustained threat to the region.
