NIGERIA
bookmark

Boko Haram fear grips campuses, displaces students

The recent attack by Boko Haram insurgents on a higher education institution in Kano, northern Nigeria’s biggest metropolis, prompted President Goodluck Jonathan to order security agencies to protect university campuses.

Ongoing confrontation between the Islamist sect and the military has compelled some students in the north to relocate to other universities in the country and elsewhere in West Africa.

The current airstrikes by coalition forces against Boko Haram’s allies in Iraq and Syria may, as in the past, prompt local fundamentalists to carry out retaliatory violence on students and lecturers. Thus, security measures have been increased.

Lecturers who cannot relocate with their families have opted to accept their fate and remain where they are. It is a complex situation.

Deadly attack

On 18 September, two gunmen forced their way onto the campus of the Federal College of Education, which is affiliated to Ado Bayero University in Kano, and opened fire on students and staff.

The outcome was 13 people killed and 34 wounded.

A police spokesperson said the gunmen were suspected militants of Boko Haram. The sect has developed an obsession for attacking education institutions. Members are of the view that formal schools at all levels are vehicles of demonic Western education and values.

According to intelligence sources, both local and foreign events compelled Nigerian President Jonathan to summon an emergency meeting of education stakeholders. Education Minister Ibrahim Shekarau and National Security Advisor Sambo Dasuki were present.

The president ordered them to work with security agencies to put in place proactive measures to prevent violent reoccurrences on campuses.

The first event was the ongoing military assault in northeastern Nigeria against Boko Haram, an Islamic sect that has instituted an Islamic Caliphate in areas under its control. The second was the international action by coalition forces against the Islamic State in parts of Iraq and Syria.

Campus fears

Maryam Ibrahim, a lawyer and human rights activist in Abuja, said: “There are genuine fears within university communities here in northern Nigeria that local Islamic fundamentalist groups influenced by pro-Islamic messages on the internet may commence terror campaigns against some campuses.

“In the recent past they exploited political events in the Middle East to attack and kill some students and lecturers at Ado Bayero University.”

Ibrahim does not hide her admiration for Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani teenager who has courageously stood up to her country’s fundamentalists, the Taliban, who are opposed to girls’ secular education.

She wants university authorities and security forces to be proactive to avoid repetition of terror attacks. Islamic terror groups have never hidden their prejudice against universities.

“Fundamentalists see them as institutions spreading so-called Western values, antithetical to Islam. They condemn, as anti-Islam, the ongoing airstrikes against Muslim fundamentalists in Iraq and Syria. Of course, they perceive Boko Haram’s Caliphate as the commencement of a roadmap to establishing a genuine Islamic state in northern Nigeria.

“There are fears within campuses in northern Nigeria that they may become targets. I am a practising Moslem. I deplore this culture of intolerance. Islam is a religion of peace and equity,” Ibrahim affirmed.

Military protection

Universities in northeast Nigeria are currently under close military surveillance and protection. The region has been turned into a battlefront between Boko Haram insurgents and Nigeria’s military establishment.

Dr Musa Abdullahi of the sociology department at the University of Maiduguri in Borno state, confirmed that the military had reinforced its arsenal in the strategic town of Konduga, about 30 kilometres from the university.

Konduga is a theatre in the ongoing war between Boko Haram and the military. “We are often traumatised by heavy artillery gunshots between Boko Haram and Nigerian soldiers. Both students and teachers are living in fear.

“We hear rumours of impending attacks by Boko Haram on the campus,” said Abdullahi, and added: “One of the consequences of these gunshots, which we are not used to, is that students broadly perform poorly in examinations because of trauma.”

There have been similar security challenges at neighbouring Yobe State University, Damaturu.

Ibrahim Karage, a business administration lecturer, revealed that Boko Haram insurgents had been driven out of the city by soldiers.

“There is uneasy calm in Damaturu. These insurgents who engage in guerrilla warfare may resume their hostilities in the city. They have mingled with the peaceful local population.

“Thus, students come for lectures from home and many of them don’t stay on the campus to avoid been caught, at any time, in the crossfire between the insurgents and soldiers. I am confident that the Nigerian military will soon overcome these insurgents,” he declared.

Living in fear

John Lamido, a political science lecturer at Gombe State University in the northeast, confirmed that the university authorities had beefed up security. “This is a proactive measure to forestall attacks by unidentified armed men."

In June last year, said Lamido, the university’s senate chamber was blown up with explosives. Fortunately, lives were not lost – but some parts of the chamber were destroyed.

The student population has nosedived. “Not many candidates are seeking admission in many of the universities in this part of the country. I know of students who have made up their minds to seek admission to universities in southern Nigeria and Ghana.”

Only the fear of Ebola, Lamido added, had persuaded students in some northern universities against seeking places in universities in Liberia and Sierra Leone.

The administration of the American University, Yola, in northeast Nigeria is collaborating with security agents to improve security around the campus. Unlike some other campuses in the region, it has not been attacked by insurgents.

But students and staff fear that insurgents may brazenly launch attacks on the campus. According to security sources, messages issued on the internet by Al-Qaida and Islamic fundamentalists have been encouraging Muslims to attack American interests.

“We have stepped up security around this university to prevent any terror attack because of the name, American University, Yola. We don’t want to take chances,” said a high ranking security officer who did not want to be named.

Sulaimon Kagi, a human rights activist in Abuja, is optimistic that the Minister of Education Ibrahim Shekarau would be able to protect lives and properties on campuses. As former governor of Kano state and a former security officer, “he should know the modalities for securing campuses, especially in northern Nigeria”, he said.

The series of battles waged by the international community and countries against terror have assumed a global dimension. Said a professor of peace and conflict who did not want to be named because of the sensitive nature of the subject:

“Universities in some African countries, including Nigeria, may come increasingly under attack by some Islamic fundamentalists because they perceive them – with passion and hate – as outposts and symbols of so-called ‘Christian values of the West’.

“We may witness, perhaps, long drawn battles between these negatives forces and those who are opposed to them. Unfortunately, the jihadists are well connected and well armed, with strong financial muscle.”