THE large number of dead and wounded in Friday’s massacre of the faithful in a mosque in the northern Nigerian city of Kano once again highlights the danger which ‘religious’ militancy poses not only to the sub-Saharan country but to the entire Islamic world. No one had so far claimed responsibility for the butchery during Friday prayers, but the fingerprints are those of Boko Haram, which presumably wanted to show its power to Kano’s emir, who had recently asked the people to take up arms against the militants. Believing in the physical elimination of anyone with whom it differs, Boko Haram has killed 2,000 civilians in 95 attacks in the first six months of this year. Women and students are its special target. Last April, it abducted almost 300 schoolgirls and claimed they had been converted to Islam and married off. So far, Boko Haram has abducted 500 women since the insurgency began in 2009. Earlier last week, two suicide bombers, one of them a woman, targeted a crowded market in the north, killing and wounding dozens, and a student suicide bomber spread death and destruction at a boarding school, killing 50 young men.

We in Pakistan know from experience that there are no short cuts to combating and eliminating a highly motivated insurgency. The emergency declared by President Goodluck Jonathan in many northern states is now more than a year old, but the militants’ power has remained unscathed. Politics is also in the way, and most parties in the northeast, which is a militant stronghold, do not agree with the government’s counter-insurgency strategy. The army lacks modern equipment, and this, many people allege, is part of many African governments’ policy to keep the armies weak to deter coups. Nigeria has no choice but to develop a national strategy to destroy Boko Haram’s network. As in Pakistan, the Nigerian government has neglected education, forcing people to send their children to the militants’ schools. This enables the militants to brainwash young minds and turn them into mass murderers.

Published in Dawn, December 1st, 2014