Abstract
This chapter employs cybertechnology approaches to address issues related to the continuing Boko Haram insurgency in North-East Nigeria supported by cybertechnology, especially the group's deployment of girls and boys to perpetrate suicide attacks. The mass abduction of nearly 300 schoolgirls in 2014 at Chibok Community in the North-Eastern Nigerian state of Borno is widely believed as the group's first ever gendered terrorism activity, which could only be successful if cybertechnology was used to coordinate the activity. That incident raised the group's global notoriety. The aftermaths of that sad incident rather emboldened the terrorists and made them appreciate the global social and political values of girls as potent tools for suicide terrorism. Recommendations for theoretical approach and policy guidelines toward ending terrorism were discussed at the end.
TopBackground
A study carried out in the United States (US) has shown that Boko haram’s gendered and youth-centric terrorism ballooned after the group understood what CNN (2017) reports, “the potency that gender and youth offer in raising its global profile,” after the 14 April 2014 kidnapping of the 276 Chibok schoolgirls, an incident that prompted the ‘Bring Back Our Girls’ campaign globally. Boko haram has not only realized that leaning against the screen of gender and youth-centrism by using children (mostly girls) as suicide bombers can raise its global profile but also obviously resolved to make this innovative-tactic a tradition and lead other terror groups around the world in the use of children and women as suicide bombers, a phenomenon that, according to Warner and Matfess (2017 August), has shattered demographic stereotypes as to what a suicide bomber looks like.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Bokoharamism: The planned, deliberate, and tactical exploitation by a terrorist group of the social value and vulnerability of minors, specifically creating an unprecedented degree of fear in society and drawing global attention. This strategy was pioneered by Nigeria’s Islamist group, the Boko haram.
Cyberization: The use of the Internet, or cyberspace on a sustainable basis by a terrorist group, militias, or other similar groups engaged in conflicts to promote and propagate their causes.
Bomb: An improvised explosive device (IED) used as a tool for terrorism.
Human Bomb: The use by terrorist groups of (human) captives as bombs (or explosives) on a sustainable basis. Terrorist groups such as Boko haram, ISIL and Al Qaeda have been notorious, particularly Boko haram for the deployment of their captives (mostly young girls and boys) as suicide bomb attackers strapped with IED jackets.
Feminization: The deployment of female (often girls and young women) captives on a sustainable basis by terrorist groups and networks as ‘human bombs’ in suicide missions.
Minorization: The deployment of vulnerable persons (girls, boys, and women) captives by terrorist groups and networks as suicide bombers on a sustainable basis.
Terrorism: The threatened or actual use of illegal force and violence by a group or network of non-state actors (whose main targets are not their actual targets) to gain political, economic, religious, or social goals by fear, coercion, or intimidation.
Boko Haram: A group of Islamist insurgents in the northeast of Nigeria who rose against the Government since 2009 and metamorphosed into a terrorist organization over the years. The group’s activity has spilled over into the neighboring countries of Cameroon, Chad and Niger and has been responsible for the death of nearly 30,000 people and displacement of nearly 1.5 million others in Nigeria alone.
Abduction/Kidnapping: The act of capturing, seizing or forceful carrying off vulnerable individuals by armed non-state actors for political, economic, religious, or social goals.
Suicide: The act of killing oneself with others using IEDs voluntarily or by coercion for political, economic, religious, or social goals.