BOKO HARAM: FAME, NOTORIETY, OR ANONYMITY?

Gbemisola Adesanya, M.A. Candidate, Brooklyn College, CUNY

On a fine summer afternoon, as I sat in my office cubicle and read an article sent to me by Professor Mojúbàolú Olufúnké Okome, I unconsciously began to think about a new blog post. This article talks about the reasons why the notoriety of terrorists should be subject to obscurity and the arguments rest on three reasons, which would be subsequently discussed in this post. Bringing this into the Nigerian context of Boko Haram, one can safely aver that the terrorist group has received a ginormous amount of media attention. One of my “Google Alerts” subscriptions is Boko Haram and I receive tons of news on the subject daily.

One of the compelling reasons why Boko Haram should not be a debutante on media red carpets is that by publicizing the names and works of these terrorists, we are giving them international recognition (fulfilling one of their greatest desires) and making them a global force to be reckoned with. National and international news reports such as this embellish their atrocities, almost reverently.

Another major reason, one many people would agree with is that all of this undue publicity is making terrorism a cliché. Daily news by various media channels of the horrific activities of Boko Haram no longer leaves a bitter taste in our mouths. People see news headlines such as “Boko Haram attacks village in Borno” or “Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau threatens to take over more cities” and idly glance at it with a disinterest borne of repeatedly reading similar headlines.

Worse still, people take it upon themselves to try to understand or not understand why terrorists do what they do. I once carried out a three-level analysis (Individual, State, and Systemic levels) of Osama bin Laden and I realized that my individual analysis of him had begun to cast him in sympathetic light. No one wants to know the personal life experiences and forces that shaped the present life of the Boko Haram head. Telling us about his life might begin humanize him and cast him in sympathetic light

Broadcasting Boko Haram’s actions is also very dangerous because it creates room for a copycat effect. Heavily advertising the sect leaves an imprint on young, vulnerable minds, especially in the Northeast of Nigeria. Think about it this way: all your life, you have used Close Up toothpaste and it serves you quite well. All of a sudden, everywhere you turn, there is an advert of Oral-B. You switch on the TV, it’s there. You open the newspaper, a full-page advert. Listening to the radio on the way to work, you are reminded that there’s a new toothpaste that will make you smile brighter. Driving back home from work, there’s a new billboard; a beautiful family with great white smiles all holding Oral-B. The next time you are in the market getting household necessities, you just might find yourself ignoring Close Up to “try” Oral-B. All of the news informing us of Boko Haram massacres portray the power and strength, the fierce brutality and daring of the group. Continually releasing videos of the leader’s message in the hopes of revealing how obnoxious his threats and demands are also displays his charisma, particularly to impressionable minds.

In December, speaking on Channels TV, the Nigerian Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed said, “We want to appeal to the media to stop giving oxygen to the Boko Haram insurgency. When we glamorize the attacks, it gives the terrorists more life and in a time of insurgency like this, the media also has a role to play.” While many people received his statements with skepticism and had dissenting opinions, (partly because of his insistence that Nigeria has technically won the war against Boko Haram), there is a lot of truth to his statement.

Having said all this, I would also like to acknowledge that there are reasons why the insurgents and insurgency receive a lot of media attention in the first place. The media attention is not absolutely gratuitous. News information about their activities is disseminated in hopes of stopping them, to raise awareness, and to reassure the victims as well as their families that their plight has not been forgotten.

The big question is:  To publicize or not to publicize? I have discussed some of the dangers of publicizing the group, but exactly what good would it do if we do not speak of them? Would this strategy appear sensible to millions of Nigerians clamoring for justice, to the families of our fallen heroes, to those families that have been displaced and destroyed by the insurgency? At this point, not reportage on Boko Haram would not be very helpful.

In this fight against insurgency, we need to keep the information to the basics. The media is a principal actor in counterterrorist struggles and it should act accordingly. Sensational headlines and stories should be curtailed. Information about the leader of the insurgency and their violent, brutal, and cruel actions should not be presented like juicy stories about a celebrity scandal. It is high time we stopped plastering the excesses of Boko Haram all over the media. We need a broad agreement within the media to limit the descriptions of terrorist criminals and crimes to no more than the bare essentials.