In the early morning hours on Lake Chad, a fisherwoman named Fatima embarks on her voyage not solely for sustenance, but with the burden of a ‘tax’. Before she can toss her fishing net into the dwindling waters, part of her modest income must be surrendered to armed individuals professing affiliation with Boko Haram. Failure to comply might cost her her daily catch, her fishing boat, or even her life.
Boko Haram started as a militant group in northeast Nigeria around the year 2002, later splintering into two primary factions. The original faction, known as JAS (Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati wal-Jihad), and its sibling ISWAP (Islamic State West Africa Province) – the regional affiliate of the Islamic State; both factions span across Nigeria, Niger, Chad, and Cameroon.
Economic exploitation akin to Fatima’s experience pervades everyday life in the Lake Chad Basin. This extensive, drought-affected region traverses the borderlands around Lake Chad, touching the edges of northeastern Nigeria, southeastern Niger, western Chad, and northern Cameroon. The region sustains more than 30 million people, whose primary economic activities include fishing, farming, and livestock rearing.
Recent studies, based on qualitative analysis of various security reports and scholarly materials, illustrate how Boko Haram has evolved into a sort of pseudo government. This ‘government’ levies taxes on a range of economic activities, including but not limited to trade, farming, and fishing, and provides a grim semblance of order in its territory in return for revenue income.
To develop comprehensive security plans that counteract this terror network, understanding these nuances is imperative. Recommendations include supporting ecological rehabilitation of the Lake Chad Basin area, fortifying cross-border intelligence to thwart illicit trading in fish, cattle, humans, and arms, advocating transparency from international parties regarding their goals in the region, rebuilding local economies, and facilitating relief measures for the displaced communities.
Since the 1960s, Lake Chad’s open-water region has seen a dramatic decline from approximately 25,000 square kilometers to a mere few hundred square kilometers by the 1980s. This reduction is not only an environmental crisis. The receding water and the disappearing fertile land have led to the decline of key economic activities such as fishing, farming, and herding. The region is shared by nearly 30 million inhabitants across 10 states or subregions.
The environmental collapse of Lake Chad Basin has transformed it into a fertile grounds for Boko Haram recruitment. The United Nations Development Programme ties these environmental calamities to an increase in extremism, displacement, and hunger. Across the shared basin, Boko Haram controls an oppressive, exploitative shadow economy.
Boko Haram’s presence can be seen in every step of the local economy, from the waters of the lake to the market stalls. Non-compliance with their self-imposed taxes results in violent retaliation. In regions like Cameroon, Chad, and Niger, cattle rustling organized by Boko Haram factions has essentially wiped out pastoralist communities.
The stolen livestock are then trafficked across borders, financially sustaining the insurgency. Boko Haram also imposes taxes on livestock traders at makeshift checkpoints, transforming cattle theft and market levies into consistent revenue streams. Moreover, the act of kidnapping has morphed from a dogmatic performance into a coldly efficient business model, with ransom funds being used for arms procurement, logistics, and recruitment.
The desperate ecological and economic conditions in the region are fanning the flames of regional instability. As resources dwindle, communities crack and compete, turning the borders of the four Lake Chad Basin countries into corridors for insurgents, arms, and illegal trade. Boko Haram’s influence has extended from Nigeria into Cameroon, Chad, and Niger since 2014, where local military forces are stretched thin, and coordination is inadequate.
Arms trafficking routes crisscross through the Sahel, while misconduct from security forces erodes public trust, further facilitating recruitment. The document under review details the myriad challenges faced by national armies, often lacking proper equipment and coordination, in securing this vast territory.
The Multinational Joint Task Force, a regional military coalition, has seen some success, but these victories are stained by the same coordination and equipment challenges. This security vacuum enables the flourishing of Boko Haram’s parallel governance and illegal economies, effectively making the crisis a cross-border issue that no single country can solve.
Rectifying the issues plaguing the Lake Chad Basin cannot be achieved primarily through military action. Addressing ecological degradation, mending shattered livelihoods, and cutting off the economic pipelines that empower the insurgency is of utmost importance. The Lake Chad Basin Commission, the intergovernmental organization overseeing the lake’s resources, must focus on climate resilience, large-scale water management, drought-resistant crops, wetland restoration, and sustainable fishing. Measures to disrupt illegal trade and focus on the monetary transactions and not only the militants, insist on openness from foreign parties about their regional agendas, and rebuild local economies and trust, are of equal importance. The diminishing lake, the deserted villages, and the armed tax collectors aren’t collateral damage. They tell the real story.
The post The Taxing Terror: Boko Haram’s Use of Extortion in the Lake Chad Basin appeared first on Real News Now.
About Author
