Boko Haram: Kidnapping as theatre

ABSTRACTIn this paper I explore one specific type of violence that has not been the focus of significant research within Political Science: the kidnapping of girls and young women as an act of retaliation or revenge against the government. I argue that, through the dramatic kidnappings of significant numbers of young women and girls, Boko Haram is extracting revenge against the government for its policy of detaining female family members of Boko Haram members, including its leaders. Boko Haram is also using this to signal strength to both the government and the Nigerian population. In this paper, I compare the violence of Boko Haram in a time of strength (January 2014–March 2015) to the violence inflicted in a time of weakness (January–December 2016) to demonstrate that the group could only engage in retaliation against the government in a substantial way during the time of strength. Once the military begins to register victories over Boko Haram and diminishes the territory the group holds (and thus diminishes the strength of the group), the forms of violence used by the group changes and the number of kidnappings decrease.KEYWORDS: Kidnappingpolitical violenceBoko HaramNigeriaterrorismAfrica Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 Observer Newspaper, ‘Nigeria Rejected British Offer’.2 Amnesty International, ‘“Our Job Is to Shoot, Slaughter and Kill”’, 59.3 Al Jazeera, ‘Two More Abducted Chibok Girls Freed’.4 Reuters, ‘Exclusive: Nigeria’s Chibok Girls’.5 Gilbert, ‘The Logic of Kidnapping in Civil War’.6 Eck, ‘Coercion in Rebel Recruitment’.7 Matfess, Women and the War on Boko Haram.8 See, Thurston, Boko Haram, 220, and Zenn and Pearson, ‘Women, Gender, and the Evolving Tactics’.9 Onuoha, ‘The Audacity of the Boko Haram’.10 Thurston, Boko Haram, 83.11 According to Peters and Berman, ‘the Sharia is the set of divine commands, transmitted by God through the foundational sources of Quran and Sunna, and fiqh is the human endeavor to identify and elucidate these divine injunctions’. In Nigeria, this debate over the implementation of Sharia law centred on the use of Islamic jurisprudence but the understanding of Sharia can be expanded to encompass ‘Islamic normativity in the fields of ritual, morality, and law.’ Peters and Bearman, ‘Introduction: The Nature of the Sharia’.12 MacEachern, Searching for Boko Haram, 11.13 Goitom, ‘Nigeria: Boko Haram’.14 Mantzikos, ‘Boko Haram Attacks in Nigeria’.15 Ibid.16 Waddington, ‘Evaluating the Impact of the Nigerian Military’.17 Owen and Usman, ‘Briefing: Why Goodluck Jonathan’.18 Thurston, Boko Haram, 238.19 Falode, ‘The Nature of Nigeria’s Boko Haram War’.20 Mahmood, ‘Boko Haram in 2016’.21 BBC News, ‘Nigeria Boko Haram’.22 Thurston, Boko Haram, 240.23 Ibid., 245–50.24 Ibid., 273.25 BBC News, ‘Boko Haram in Nigeria’.26 Vanguard, ‘Hundreds of Nigerian Troops’.27 Punch, ‘40 Boko Haram Fights Killed’.28 Cronin, ‘Don’t Forget About Boko Haram’.29 Hinshaw and Parkinson, ‘Boko Haram Leader Dies’.30 Kindzeka, ‘Lake Chad Basin Joint Task Force’.31 Human Rights Watch, ‘World Report 2022’.32 See, Mazurana et al., ‘Girls in Fighting Forces and Groups’, and Henshaw, ‘Why Women Rebel’.33 Mazurana, ‘Women, Girls, and Non-State Armed Opposition’, 146.34 Mazurana et al., ‘Girls in Fighting Forces’.35 Thomas and Bond, ‘Women’s Participation in Violent Political Organizations’.36 Henshaw, ‘Why Women Rebel’.37 Wood and Thomas, ‘Women on the Frontline’.38 Henshaw, Why Women Rebel.39 Wood, Female Fighters.40 Braithwaite and Ruiz, ‘Female Combatants, Forced Recruitment’.41 Cohen, ‘Explaining Rape During Civil War’.42 Mazurana et al., ‘Girls in Fighting Forces’.43 Beber and Blattman, ‘The Logic of Child Soldiering and Coercion’.44 Eck, ‘Coercion in Rebel Recruitment’.45 Gates, ‘Membership Matters’.46 Sawyer and Andrews, ‘Rebel Recruitment and Retention’.47 Gilbert, ‘The Logic of Kidnapping’, 1226.48 See, Forest, ‘Global Trends in Kidnapping’; Forest, ‘Kidnapping by Terrorist Groups’; Loertscher and Milton, ‘Prisoners and Politics’; and Gilbert, ‘The Logic of Kidnapping’.49 Nevin, ‘Retaliating Against Terrorists’.50 Wood, ‘Rebel Capacity and Strategic Violence’ and Holterman, ‘Relative Capacity and the Spread of Rebellion’.51 ‘Global Terrorism Index, 2015’.52 START, Global Terrorism Database 1970–2020.53 LaFree et al., ‘Building a Global Terrorism Database’.54 United States Department of State, ‘Country Reports on Terrorism’.55 Mantzikos, ‘Boko Haram Attacks in Nigeria’, 63.56 Thurston, Boko Haram, 197.57 Lemke and Crabtree, ‘Territorial Contenders in World Politics’.58 Nwamkpa, ‘Boko Haram State (2013–2015)’, 285.59 Thurston, Boko Haram, 217.60 Ibid., 225.61 Ibid., 228.62 Matfess, Women and the War on Boko Haram, 121.63 Ibid.64 Tilly, Coercion, Capital, and European States.65 Hendrix, ‘Measuring State Capacity’.66 Thurston, Boko Haram, 212–13.67 Matfess, Women and the War on Boko Haram, 92.68 Cohen, ‘Explaining Rape During Civil War’.69 Human Rights Watch, ‘Those Terrible Weeks in Their Camps’.70 Matfess, Women and the War on Boko Haram, 92.71 Ibid., 105.72 Ibid., 110.73 Zenn and Pearson, ‘Women, Gender, and the Evolving Tactics’.74 Pearson and Zenn, ‘How Nigerian Police also Detained Women’.75 Shekau, ‘Message About the Chibok Girls’, 315.76 ‘Interview with a Mujāhid Abu Sumayya’, 328.77 BBC News, ‘Nigeria Boko Haram’.78 Thurston, Boko Haram, 240.79 Tochukwa, Onyishu, and Okolie, ‘A Decade of Boko Haram Activities’.80 https://www.hrw.org/report/2014/10/27/those-terrible-weeks-their-camp/boko-haram-violence-against-women-and-girls#_ftnref25.81 https://www.crisisgroup.org/africa/west-africa/nigeria/after-shekau-confronting-jihadists-nigerias-north-east.82 Ibid.83 Stoddard, ‘Revolutionary Warfare? Assessing the Character’.84 https://ctc.westpoint.edu/islamic-state-africa-estimating-fighter-numbers-cells-across-continent/, accessed on March 12, 2023.Additional informationNotes on contributorsEmma Leonard BoyleEmma Leonard Boyle is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the Pennsylvania State University. Her research interests include the geography of violence in civil war, peace and conflict in Africa, the resource curse, and terrorism and counter-terrorism. She is the co-editor of Globalizing Somalia: Multilateral, International, and Transnational Repercussions of Conflict (Bloomsbury Academic Press, 2013) and has previously published in Terrorism and Political Violence and Security Studies, among others.