Thread by @VincentFoucher

If you have an interest in the political economy and governance of jihad, and its interaction with pastoralisms (or cattle-rearing), a good piece by Florian Köhler about #ISWAP #BokoHaram and cattle-rearers in the Diffa region of Niger… a thread… tinyurl.com/99mzasc6

If you are impatient with the growing mass of gnosis and dribble that gets published about #BokoHaram, commentaries of exegesis of interviews with diplomats, security experts and NGO workers, read that piece – it includes actual fieldwork. Yes. Interviews with pastoralists.

(I know. Amazing. I too was moved).

If you are tired about simplistic (and dangerous) ethnic analyses that frame whole communities ("the Fulani", "the Buduma") or livelihoods (pastoralism) as connected to jihad, read this – you’ll get a good description of the survival pragmatism that guides the pastoralists.

The piece confirms that #ISWAP remains true to its policy of sparing Muslim civilians – the fact that it goes hard against humanitarian workers or Christians has not altered that principle. “locals feel protected from Boko Haram by the ISWAP militia rather than by state security”

Having interviewed myself Nigerian Buduma who have seen their whole lives destroyed by jihadi, relatives killed & herds destroyed, I am as impatient as the author with the “generalizing denunciations” that pigeonhole whole categories of populations into the pro-jihadi box.

On the Nigerian side of things, I was also told of the special problem that the Buduma have had: impossible for them to move away from the Lake, with their special race of cows, the Kuri, that depend on the Lake environment.

So they tried to stay on the Lake and were brutally victimised and plundered by jihadis. Many of the Buduma who eventually joined jihad must have been trying to survive as individuals and families.

Because their cattle is less dependent on the Lake, the Fulani were able to move away when the states demanded it and when Shekau’s JAS was plundering herds. And so some were able to get back in when #ISWAP established itself and curbed the violence.

One Fulani herder sums it up: “You have the choice: either you stay in the interior of Niger and lose a good part of your herd for lack of sustainable pastures, or you accept to pay them [i.e. ISWAP] and in return get access to abundant pasturs”

I was also told of ISWAP's two-pronged fiscal system. A yearly zakat of 1/30 of the herd. And an occasional additional 1,000 Naira per head tax (which seems to be an adhoc sort of emergency tax - no receipt handed out for that one).