There is a leadership struggle underway within Boko Haram, the violent, extremist movement that has claimed more than 20,000 lives since 2011 and destabilized the secular Nigerian state and its neighbors. The personal struggle between Abubakar Shekau and Abu Musab al-Barnawi reflects in part the rivalry between Boko Haram and a splinter group, “Ansaru,” and are part of a complex, intra-Muslim conflict across the Sahel, including competition between rival al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and the Islamic State.
Reflecting their extreme poverty and marginalization, many Northern Nigerian Muslims are deeply hostile toward the secular state. They see the current secular state as a continuation of British colonialism, with indigenous masters merely replacing the British and with values and behavior antithetical to Islam. This fundamental disaffection is a constant even when, as now, the official security services are having success against radical insurgents.
Opposition to the secular state is cyclical and assumes the form and vocabulary of radical Islamic movements. The Maitatsine was a popular revolt in the 1980s, followed by the “Nigerian Taliban” in the early 2000s, and now by Boko Haram. When seemingly crushed by the security services, such movements go underground, only to re-emerge. In 2009, Nigerian security services killed Boko Haram founder Mohammed Yusuf and 800 of his followers. The movement went underground, reorganized, and re-emerged, stronger and more violent in 2011 under Shekau’s leadership. That is likely to be the ongoing pattern, absent profound changes in Nigeria’s political economy. Even now, there are other non-violent movements that reject the state. Security service abuse could transform them into violent movements, as happened with Boko Haram.
Under Shekau, Boko Haram officially pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in March 2015. The Islamic State then confirmed Shekau as the “wali,” or governor, of the Islamic State’s West Africa Province (ISWAP). However, on August 3, 2016, the Islamic state named a new leader of ISWAP, Abu Musab al-Barnawi, a son of Boko Haram founder Mohammed Yusuf. In a long statement, al-Barnawi denounced Shekau for killing fellow Muslims and using children as suicide bombers.
Shekau, absent from the media for more than a year, issued a video denouncing al-Barnawi and expressing disappointment that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (the Islamic State caliph) recognized the “usurper.” But he did not revoke his sworn allegiance to the Islamic State. Indeed, he seemed to acknowledge that he is no longer “Wali” and reverted to his previous title as “imam” of the surviving followers of Jamaatu ahlis Sunna li’Dawati wal Jihad (the original name of Boko Haram). It is unknown which of the two leaders command the greater resources at present.
The current power struggle between Shekau and al-Barnawi is reminiscent of an earlier 2011 splintering of Boko Haram, when the Ansaru group broke with Shekau over his killing of innocent Muslims. Ansaru was said to be close to al Qaeda, while Shekau turned to the Islamic State. The Ansaru splinter then collapsed or went underground. Al-Barnawi’s current faction may be the re-emergence of Ansaru or a new group that resembles it. The issue for Boko Haram dissidents, however, remains the same: Shekau is killing innocent Muslims and in general is behaving is un-Islamic ways.
Despite the rivalries, the goals of both camps remain the same: the destruction of the secular Nigerian state, the end of Western influence, the creation of a ‘pure’ Islamic state, and ‘justice for the poor’ through rigid implementation of their common interpretation of Islamic law, or Sharia. In the past, rivalry could be murderous, but tactical and other cooperation continued. That is the likely pattern going forward.
Nevertheless, the Barnawi and Shekau factions do have strategic and tactical differences that are likely to persist. Barnawi’s “cosmopolitan” Ansaru (or its successors) may continue to build closer ties with AQIM and even with ISIS, should the two pan-Sahelian movements grow closer together under current hostile military pressure from various state coalitions operating in Libya and the Lake Chad basin. In the past, Ansaru operated widely, especially in Kano, Nigeria’s second largest city, and may do so again. On the other hand, Boko Haram was more focused on the establishment of a territorial Islamic state in the northeast and conducted few operations elsewhere.
The leadership struggle now underway within Boko Haram indicates that violent extremism is evolving and that it is far from defeated. The focus of the struggle against the secular state is moving away from the occupation of specific bits of territory concentrated in the isolated northeast toward a more general assault on non-Islamic institutions and practices. Even if the Nigerian security services are able to destroy Boko Haram in the short term and kill Shekau and al-Barnawi, an extremist Islamic movement would likely soon re-emerge. If the previous pattern persists that each “cycle” is more radical, violent, and outward looking than its predecessor, there is also a good chance that it could have even stronger links with jihadist movements outside Nigeria, especially AQIM and Islamic State.
It should be anticipated that attacks on government and Western facilities will continue but not necessarily centered in the northeast. Instead, the two factions are likely to carry out attacks further afield, in Kano, possibly Lagos, and almost certainly in Cameroon and Niger. There may well be greater cooperation with the various criminal networks that are active across the Sahel.
The paradox is that a splintered Boko Haram with rival leaders may pose less of a threat to the Nigerian state in the short term but a greater one to the broader region and to Western individuals and interests. Up to now, Shekau’s ties to the Islamic State do not appear to have been operationally significant, while al-Barnawi’s with AQIM appear to have been limited to specific operations. That could change in the future.
If a faction of Boko Haram should fall under greater operational control of Islamic State or AQIM, the prospect improves that it will carry out terrorism beyond Nigeria or even the Sahel. This could pose a direct threat to American interests, which are centered around Lagos and in Nigeria’s oil patch, far from the northeast. Kidnapping has been an Ansaru specialty in the past, often in cooperation with jihadist or criminal groups based elsewhere in the Sahel. Kidnapping of Westerners, highly lucrative, may also spike with Ansaru’s re-emergence.
