Catholic Priest’s Research Recommends Change of Tact in Fighting Nigeria’s Insurgency

The Priest spoke to ACI Africa on Thursday, September 7, after presenting a paper entitled, “Contending with media safety and privacy in tackling global terrorism in Africa.” In his presentation, he argued that Boko Haram, specifically, emerged bridging media safety through spreading violent ideologies using technology. 

A number of other African scholars made a case for ending terrorism at the September 4-6 conference that was held at the Glasgow Caledonian University in Scotland.

In the interview with ACI Africa, Fr. Dyikuk said that the Boko Haram had tactically removed their leader from the limelight, and were instead using his “lieutenants”.

“Before 2012, the insurgents were speaking through their leaders. Afterwards, they started speaking through their lieutenants and spokesmen. This way, the leader remains invisible. They also started accessing journalists to pass across their information,” he said.

The member of Clergy of Nigeria’s Diocese of Bauchi said that while the insurgents continue to maximize strategic communications, the Nigerian government is bent on using what he referred to as “the kinetic approach, meaning the use of bullets.”

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“There is a need for a more afro-dimensional kind of communication where it is a combination of carrot and stick approach. This means that the government can use minimum force with more dialogue and the traditional methods of stakeholder engagement. Gradually, the government is beginning to pick up in the area of strategic communication. But a lot still needs to be done,” the Fellow for Religious Freedom Institute, Washington DC, said.

He urged the Nigerian government to tap into a combination of civil society groups, traditional leaders and religious leaders in addressing insurgency in the country.

Also important, Fr. Dyikuk said, is the need to find out the motivating factors for the establishment of an Islamic State in Africa’s most populous nation. 

The former Communications Director of the Catholic Diocese of Bauchi identified pull and push factors behind insurgency in Nigeria, noting that pull factors are psychologically and religiously motivated reasons. 

“The insurgents paint a government that has disappointed civilians in the provision of basic amenities. They lie to the populations that blowing themselves up will lead them straight to wives who are waiting for them in their version of heaven,” he said.

“The push factors are basically economic,” the Nigerian researcher said, and explained, “Let's say the government fails to provide infrastructure and you end up with out-of-school children. This is actually a menace in northern Nigeria. There are so many children eating stale food from the dust bins. These are potential recruits into the insurgency.”

The widely published Priest urged the government in Nigeria to be closer to the people, to listen to their needs in order to counter insurgency.

“Our leaders must see themselves as servants who would listen to the people, who would be interested in why sometimes insurgents find it easy to win the trust of the locals,” Fr. Dyikuk told ACI Africa during the September 7 interview.

Agnes Aineah is a Kenyan journalist with a background in digital and newspaper reporting. She holds a Master of Arts in Digital Journalism from the Aga Khan University, Graduate School of Media and Communications and a Bachelor's Degree in Linguistics, Media and Communications from Kenya's Moi University. Agnes currently serves as a journalist for ACI Africa.