Clues and Intelligence from Videos of Boko Haram Abducted Girls

Introduction

2 videos have gone online purportedly uploaded by Boko Haram showing the victims, the abducted girls, in one and the Boko Haram’s spokesperson flanked by his armed faced-covered lieutenants and their killing machines.  A number of clues and or intelligence can be picked up from the videos.

Video 1 of Abducted Girls

• The video view window is cropped and closed up to prevent potential viewer from making too much of the physical environment. The video was made in the morning hours before high sun.
• Nevertheless the physical environment is dry and upper Savannah in typology.  There are a few shrubs dotted around the sandy neighbourhood. No houses are shown.
• It is difficult to physically count all the shown girls. A sophisticated programme/software will be helpful.
• The girls sat outdoors on straw ground which they must have been forced to lay out before being paraded for the video session. A poor attempt to take away their dignity! Not seat or benches! Pressure is on Boko Haram!
• The outdoor space where they are paraded suggests that either their accommodation is nearby or they were forcibly transported from another point. Another transportation palaver! The latter is unlikely since their abductors are monitoring the situation as it developments.
• The girls shown (not 200+ in all) were dressed in full coverage of grey or black long clothes which one can guess are not the clothes they were abducted in.  It must have taken a number of tailors/seamstresses some time to sow in advance. Quite a logistic nightmare if done in emergency. Nothing will be missing for police to reach out to known tailors/seamstresses in the areas within 100km square of Chibok. Also cloth sellers as well.
• The girls show resilience & confidence in their controlled countenances despite enormous shock and stress from missing family, neighbours and friends.
• The chorus of ‘conversion’ songs and 'responses' from the girls were extracted under coercion, force and duress under the pain of death. Free will and freedom of choice doesn't apply in their case. Still the girls are cooperating for their individual and collective preservation.
• No adult female was shown in the video or the common uniform masked their presence. Another logistic problem!
• There is no evidence that Boko Haram has enough experience and success in group abduction of females. Apparently abduction is not in their DNA. Successful abductions of groups of individuals in peace time are limited. It is a logistic nightmare with serious implications & consequences.
• Successful and safe rescue of all the young women is the highest priority.

Video of Boko Haram ‘Conference’

• Boko Haram's credential as a violent organisation is established. It is anti-human hence its crimes are against humanity.
• Boko Haram is not an isolated & independent entity as it has supporters/patrons at the lowest geographies of Borno State, within Borno State political/economic system and within Nigeria. It has supporters/patrons beyond Nigeria in various important capitals.
• Boko Haram’s spokesperson is not the violent organisation.
• The spokesperson used at least 3 languages to address his different audiences.  Arabic is used to connect with Arabic speaking audience who in Nigeria are mostly Muslim elite versed in the classical and colloquial versions. Others include foreign sympathisers/supporters/handlers in different capitals. English is used to capture attention of Nigeria power brokers in Abuja and beyond. Hausa is used to secure focus attention of less wider metageography referred to as Northern Nigeria where Hausa is the lingua franca. The purpose is to seek fraudulent legitimacy from the population, ‘hearts & minds’, in this complex metageography. It is sad that there is no complete transcript of Boko Haram ‘conference’ in any section of Nigerian media! Maybe BBC Hausa Service could document it and surely the invited ‘international community’ will.
• Boko Haram expressed and espoused contradiction in feigning ignorance of learning and using its tools to disseminate its sick messages. The spokesperson is sophisticated enough to read from written text, reconnecting his thought and digression from it and referencing points from it.
• Boko Haram is monitoring its own performance, outcomes, reactions and impacts directly and indirect through supporters, handlers and sympathisers.
• The spokesperson and his cabal were facing north as his hand gesture towards Mali suggests in his litany of locations blighted by his colleagues.
• The 2 individuals immediate to the spokesperson’s left apparent look like females.  This is important to confirm in order to place their operation in the right context beyond the given male-dominated rhetoric of blood thirsty violent group.
• This latest abduction of over 200 young women may be a harbinger to Boko Haram's demise and or a major shift in the understood concept/reality of Nigeria.
• The truth about Boko Haram may not be truly known beyond anecdotes, conjectures and leaks because like other violent groups that emerged in the last decade post 9/11; their spokespersons/purported leaders are usually eliminated without benefit of prosecution. In each case the quick hurrah of their elimination masked the underlying things left untouched, unknown and unsaid. Their supporters/patrons/handlers are never identified and considering the miserable state of Nigeria, it will be a natural outcome unless conventional wisdom is proved wrong.