Shekau Vs Barnawi: The Battle for Boko Haram’s Soul
Recently, some suspected Boko Haram assailants stormed Tumur, a sleepy community along the Nigerian border with Niger Republic and slit the throats of 10 people, who the locals called “associate Boko Haram members.’’
It was gathered that the insurgents had crossed to the Nigerien community from villages around Malam Fatori in Abadam Local Government Area of Borno State. The 10 were victims of an emerging ideological split and brutal supremacy battle between the hardhearted leader of the Boko Haram, Abubakar Shekau, and the new point-man of the Islamic State in West Africa-backed faction of the group, Abu Musab Al-Barnawi.
In the first week of August, this year, the ISIS put to an end, the seven years of ruthless reign of Shekau, and in his place, anointed Al-Barnawi, the son of the late Mohammed Yusuf, the founder of the Nigeria-based Boko Haram, which recognised and paid allegiance to ISIS’s proclaimed caliphate under Abubakar Al-Baghdadi, in March, 2015.
The confirmation that Shekau had been dethroned came from the dreaded sect leader himself, in an audio message he released on August 4, which was the first in so many months, where he described the breakaway leader as heretic. Soon after the new development, sporadic fighting broke out between the two factions, one headed by Shekau and the other by Al-Barnawi.
The rivalry, analysts claim, would break the spine of the Boko Haram group, which was ranked the most deadly terrorist organisation on earth by the Global Terrorism Index in 2015. The sect, according to the report, was responsible for 6,644 deaths in 2014, compared to ISIS’s 6,073.
The Nigerian military has dismissed the reported division within the ranks of the insurgents as a “drama” being staged by the group to remain afloat and vowed to crush terrorist threats under whatever guise.
“When the terrorists besieged Tumur, they told the locals, who were mostly Nigerians taking refuge there not to panic, but warned that so and so persons must be produced to face the wrath of their betrayal,” Ahmed Khalid, a resident of Abadam, who is now taking refuge in Maiduguri, said of the first reported intra-group rivalry killing.
However, there are two different versions to the narrative as to why only 10 people were brought out and killed in Tumur, even when the Boko Haram invaders had all the opportunity to butcher everybody in the village in the dead of night.
“From my findings, the 10 were supplying foodstuff to the insurgents who lived in cluster of camps along the Nigerian border with Niger. But they suddenly stopped the supplies, leaving the terrorists in hunger and deprivation in the midst of constant offensive by the Nigerian security forces. This was why they were trailed and killed,” Khalid said.
But a resident, Aisami Modu, said they were killed because they shifted their loyalty from the camp of Shekau to that of his archrival, Al-Barnawi.
“The problem started shortly after the Boko Haram split, and those 10 people, who were traders and known to almost everyone in surrounding communities, were loyal to Boko Haram, which is why we call them: ‘associate members.’ They used to supply food, fuel, medicine and cloths to the terrorists, even though they didn’t fight for them,” he said.
“But the Shekau camp got angry when they shifted their loyalty to the other camp; that was why they were killed.”
For the past four weeks, locals in Borno State said fierce encounter had taken place between fighters loyal to Shekau and those loyal to Al-Barnawi, struggling to displace one another. Five fighters loyal to Shekau were killed during a battle between the two factions in a community at the outskirts of Monguno last week, a local vigilante, Kolo Kuroskawwa, disclosed.
Other sources said that at least 18 Boko Haram fighters from the bushes around Monguno surrendered to the army, together with their families, as a result of the infighting.
“There is serious disarray now, and most of the Boko Haram fighters are apparently confused. Those loyal to Shekau are being trailed by the other faction and vice versa. It is now killing, killing and killing,” Kuroskawwa said.
“And you know that there are some Boko Haram fighters that were forcefully conscripted, they are the ones that are now repenting and taking advantage of the dispute to surrender themselves to the Nigerian Army,” he said.
Similarly, residents told the AFP Wednesday that several fighters from Shekau’s camp had been killed last Thursday in two separate gun battles with IS-backed Barnawi gunmen in the Monguno area of Borno State, near Lake Chad.
Mele Kaka, who lives in the area, told AFP: “The Barnawi faction launched an offensive against the Shekau faction who were camped in the villages of Yele and Arafa. “In Yele, the assailants killed three people from the Shekau camp, injured one and took one with them, while several were killed in Arafa,” he said by telephone from the state capital, Maiduguri. The attack prompted residents of Arafa to flee, he added.
