Boko Haram's Use of Water as a Weapon of War in the Lake Chad Region

Hi guys! 

I hope you are well and safe during these difficult times. I will examine today water in the jihadist campaign of Boko Haram in the Lake Chad region. 

This post does not contain any illustrative photos on purpose, as I wish to avoid the perpetration of stereotypical narratives of the conflicts with Boko Haram, as raised by Wainaina (2019). I haven’t found any appropriate pictures in the articles and academics papers that I have read, and I didn’t want to borrow a meaningless photograph that would solely fulfil the aesthetics of my post. 

The violent activities of Boko Haram in the Lake Chad Basin embody the key role that water plays in the current social, economic and political instability of the region. Boko Haram’s insurgency has begun in Nigeria in 2009 due to the ongoing poverty and corruption (The Guardian, 2020). The country already displayed signs of water scarcity which were due to its infrastructural and economic mismanagement rather than a factual physical shortage (Piesse, 2017). It has largely contributed to diffusion Boko Haram’s campaign, benefiting from the complex unstable context of the Lake Chad region to spread its activities across the riparian states of the basin (Hamadou Daouda, 2020). The great violence of the jihadist movement, responsible for 36,000 killings and 2 million forced displacements, has highly exacerbated the humanitarian crisis in the region (The Guardian, 2020). 

As Agbiboa fairly points out, the regionalisation of Boko Haram around the Lake Chad Basin is only logical given the porosity of the riparian states’ borders and the lake's shrinking consequent regional insecurity (2017). Indeed, the basin's permeability has strongly benefitted to Boko Haram brutal expansion for arms trafficking, smuggling and physical control of the basin (Agbiboa, 2017/Hamadou Daouda, 2020). Moreover, the increased tensions due to freshwater mismanagement and migration flows among Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria has facilitated the jihadist control over the basin’s resources (Agbiboa, 2017). 

Most importantly, the widespread economic scarcity has enabled Boko Haram fighters to exploit the Lake Chad Basin’s control to their advantage. Indeed, Boko Haram has been using the basin’s natural resources as a weapon of war (Kusumawardan, 2017). Seizing people’s access to water, fish and land in the region has deeply heightened local competition over resources and, in the face of states’ failure and incapacity to resolve the issues at stake, has driven young adults and children to join the jihadist campaign (Piesse, 2017/Hamadou Daouda, 2020). Feelings of despair and frustration in the region has proved to be of great importance to Boko Haram's regional control, which uses strategies of water poisoning to further the suffering of the local population (Piesse, 2017/ Kusumawardan, 2017). 

In 2014, the region-wide intensification of Boko Haram’s attacks and the resultant important displacement of the populations, led to the development of a military collaboration among the Lake Chad Basin riparian states along with Benin (Agbiboa, 2017). Spread in five regional units, the Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF) stood out from other regional security efforts as it adapted its strategy to the complex interconnected development issues of the Lake Chad Basin (Agbiboa, 2017). 

Yet, the joint military operations have portrayed a number of limits. One of the most concerning issue is the lack of trust and unity in such cooperation. Each party, although operating in a joint task force, has acted unilaterally and for its own national interest, as illustrated by the application of contradictive methods of soft political negotiations at the same time as abusive violent attacks (Agbiboa, 2017). The basin’s tense governance clearly undermines the effectiveness of the MNJTF, as the failed efforts of ‘war on terror’ against Boko Haram have consolidated its ideological influence. Finally, the legitimacy of the riparian states’ political authority has been further deteriorated by widespread problems of corruption, money laundering and complete absence of accountability in the region's politics (Agbiboa, 2017). 

The regional insecurity due to Boko Haram violent activities in the Lake Chad Basin appears as a difficult issue to solve as it is linked with failed political governance, abusive military operations, unsuccessful regional cooperation. The use of water as a weapon of war is a particularly efficient tool for the jihadist group to recruit fighters and ensure its control in the region. The case of terrorism in the basin highlights how the interconnectedness of the deep complex socio-economic problems of Lake Chad systematically triggers inter- and intra-regional political conflicts, and consequently, hinders any success in humanitarian assistance, regional collaboration, environmental protection, and wider development initiatives. It raises the question of how to end such a vicious circle and at what cost. 

Thank you for reading!