FG Mulls Deal With Boko Haram “Friendlies” to Crush Bitter Rivals ISWAP, Restore Peace to Northern Nigeria—Report

…Strategy may draw from Niger Delta playbook, back possible ‘friendlies’ to isolate, sink intransigent terror factions

By Our Reporter
The Federal Government may be quietly exploring a new security strategy that could combine intensified military pressure with selective engagement of factions of Boko Haram as part of a broader effort to weaken the more formidable Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) and accelerate the restoration of peace across northern Nigeria.

A report by the Geneva, Switzerland-based The New Humanitarian suggests that an unpublicised ceasefire has been holding between the government and elements of Boko Haram for about three months, raising the possibility that Abuja is testing a more flexible approach to ending a 17-year insurgency that has devastated communities across the North and spilled into neighbouring countries.

If developed into a wider strategy, the approach could bear some resemblance to Nigeria’s Niger Delta peace model, where the government combined security operations with engagement of armed actors willing to abandon hostilities, thereby isolating more recalcitrant elements.

According to The New Humanitarian, the current truce is connected to negotiations that led to the release in June of 360 civilians abducted from Ngoshe village in Borno State, near the Cameroon border. The villagers had been seized in March during a Boko Haram attack on a nearby military base.

Three sources with contacts among Boko Haram members, including senior figures, separately told the humanitarian publication that the ceasefire had been operating since June and could be extended by another 40 days.

Significantly, residents of communities around Ngoshe, which had repeatedly suffered Boko Haram attacks, were reported to have experienced a cessation of attacks since the arrangement came into effect.

The Federal Government, Defence Headquarters, and the Nigerian Army did not respond to requests for confirmation before The New Humanitarian published its report, meaning Abuja has neither publicly confirmed the existence of the ceasefire nor disclosed the strategic calculations behind any contacts with the insurgents.

But the report points to what could amount to an emerging two-track doctrine under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu: dramatically expand the military’s capacity to destroy terrorist formations that remain committed to violence while simultaneously exploiting divisions within the insurgency to isolate its most dangerous elements.

Tinubu had in July announced plans for 28,000 additional military recruits and four new army divisions, saying the expansion would provide the “teeth” needed to defeat terrorism and banditry.

Conflict researcher Malik Samuel reportedly told The New Humanitarian that the government may explore a strategic détente with Boko Haram, possibly reflecting a recognition that military force alone may not completely resolve a complex insurgency that has survived successive administrations.

The publication reported that discreet contacts with insurgent factions are not new. Previous administrations had pursued intermittent dialogue through security and intelligence channels, although several ceasefires eventually collapsed.

A diplomat familiar with the process said the leading faction of Boko Haram appears to believe some form of settlement was possible, but did not discount the possibility that it could be simultaneously plotting to strengthen its position on the battlefield.

The latest development is particularly significant because the reported ceasefire does not cover ISWAP, Boko Haram’s more structured and internationally connected rival.

Indeed, fighting between Boko Haram and ISWAP has continued, opening a potentially important strategic opportunity for Nigerian security planners.

ISWAP emerged from the Boko Haram split of 2016 and has evolved into a more centralised, bureaucratic, and technologically sophisticated terrorist organisation, with strongholds around Lake Chad and parts of rural Borno State.

Unlike the more locally focused Boko Haram factions, ISWAP remains tied to the wider Islamic State network, a relationship that could make any independent political settlement with the group considerably more difficult.

It is this distinction that appears to underpin perhaps the most consequential possibility raised by The New Humanitarian: turning Boko Haram’s bitter rivalry with ISWAP into an advantage for the Nigerian state.

The report said a scenario viewed favourably within sections of the security establishment would involve reaching an accommodation with Boko Haram elements willing to cease attacks on civilians and the Nigerian state, while exploiting their longstanding hostility towards ISWAP to further degrade the latter.

In effect, Abuja could seek to separate potentially reconcilable or locally driven fighters from ideologically hardened transnational jihadist elements, shrinking the battlefield and allowing the Armed Forces to concentrate greater firepower and intelligence resources against groups unwilling to abandon terrorism.

Such an approach would not be entirely without Nigerian precedent.

The 2009 Niger Delta amnesty programme helped substantially reduce a violent insurgency threatening the country’s oil industry by opening a pathway for militants willing to lay down their arms, while security agencies maintained pressure against criminal and armed groups that remained outside the process.

The strategic principle — peel away “friendlies” or reconcilable combatants, reduce the pool of armed adversaries, and concentrate state power against intransigent foes — could potentially offer the government another instrument alongside conventional military operations in the North-East.

There are, however, significant risks.

Sources quoted by The New Humanitarian warned that Boko Haram could exploit a temporary ceasefire to regroup or reposition equipment in the Mandara Mountains. Previous attempts at truces have also broken down amid distrust, internal divisions, and competing interests.

The organisation itself is fragmented. Ibrahim Bakura Doro is regarded as its overall commander, while three principal factions operate across different territories under commanders Alhai Kale, Abubakar Sadiku Saidu, and Ali Ngulde.

Any durable understanding would therefore depend substantially on whether Bakura could enforce compliance among commanders operating far from his Lake Chad base.

But Boko Haram’s hostility towards ISWAP could also provide Abuja with leverage.

Bakura remained loyal to Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau after the 2016 split. In 2021, ISWAP fighters overran Shekau’s Sambisa Forest stronghold, after which Shekau killed himself by detonating explosives.

Samuel said the rivalry subsequently became deeply personal for Bakura, with former fighters claiming that his forces often prioritised attacks against ISWAP.

Boko Haram fighters are also regarded as particularly capable in the difficult waterways and islands of the Lake Chad Basin, terrain where ISWAP has built resilient sanctuaries and where conventional military operations are especially challenging.

For the Tinubu administration, therefore, any emerging arrangement could potentially serve several objectives simultaneously: protect vulnerable communities, secure the release of captives, reduce attacks against civilians and troops, exploit fractures within the jihadist movement, and allow the military to concentrate resources against ISWAP and other irreconcilable terrorist formations.

The development comes as the administration expands the Armed Forces and pursues a broader mix of kinetic and non-kinetic measures against terrorism, kidnapping, and banditry.

It also comes against a wider debate over responsibility for an insecurity crisis that predates the Tinubu administration by well over a decade.

Former Kaduna Central senator Shehu Sani yesterday argued that terrorism and banditry originated and expanded across northern Nigeria over successive administrations, saying it was unrealistic to expect Tinubu to instantly extinguish a crisis that previous governments had failed to defeat.

Sani recalled that Boko Haram began in the North before spreading beyond Nigeria’s borders into Chad, Cameroon, and Niger, while bandit groups similarly expanded their operations across the country, leaving thousands dead, communities displaced, and large numbers of widows, orphans, and internally displaced persons.

He argued that northern political opinion had blamed former President Goodluck Jonathan for insecurity, treated the Muhammadu Buhari administration more indulgently despite the persistence of the crisis, and was now demanding immediate results from Tinubu.

“We blamed GEJ, skipped and pampered Buhari, and now blame Tinubu for the infernos ours in office couldn’t automatically quench,” Sani said, arguing that the region must confront both the origins of the crisis and the shortcomings of previous approaches.

Against that background, the reported ceasefire could signal an attempt by the Tinubu administration to move beyond a purely military template and pursue a more differentiated strategy — expanding military strength on one flank while exploring whether divisions among insurgent organisations can be exploited on another.

Whether that experiment develops into a durable peace framework remains uncertain. But if the reported cessation of attacks around Ngoshe can be sustained and replicated elsewhere without compromising national security, it could provide Abuja with another potentially valuable weapon in its effort to end one of Africa’s longest-running insurgencies.