BOKO HARAM'S WOMEN INSURGENTS

Women's participation in insurgent groups often adds an “aura of legitimacy” to the message and methods of the armed group (Viterna Reference Viterna2013). Having women involved gives an armed group more social networks to use to persuade and recruit new members. It is not surprising, then, that the role of women in Boko Haram has become more sharply focused since 2014, when the jihadist group intensified its recruitment of women, girls, and widows of fallen fighters (Al-Amin Reference Al-Amin2017). Although these women were neither assigned to leadership roles nor part of Boko Haram's highest decision-making body, the Shura council, they assumed everyday roles as spies, messengers, managers, informants, recruiters, smugglers, IED (improvised explosive device) experts, domestic workers, frontline fighters, symbols of revenge, reproductive agents, and suicide bombers (see Botha Reference Botha2021; ICG 2016; Nagarajan Reference Nagarajan2017). The opportunity to marry a wife at little to no cost drew droves of unmarried young men into Boko Haram, helped incentivize male insurgents to remain in the group, shamed young men into joining Boko Haram, and induced sympathy for Boko Haram's message. In northern Nigeria, where a man's marital and social statuses are closely intertwined, joining Boko Haram enabled marginal men to pay the often inflated bride price, marry, and acquire the desirable status of masu gida (household head).

Pressed for manpower, Boko Haram has also increasingly used women recruits as foot soldiers and suicide bombers. This move supports Reed Wood's (Reference Wood2019, 23) argument that conflict severity and resource commitment often compel insurgent groups to deploy women in combat, thereby disregarding both traditional gender norms and their own gender biases. In contrast with other violent jihadi movements such as the Somalia-based Islamist militant group al-Shabab, in which women play neither a large nor active combat role, interviews with 119 former Boko Haram members indicate that four in 10 women respondents said they served as soldiers (Guibert Reference Guibert2016). At least 56% of Boko Haram's total suicide attacks between April 2011 and June 2017 were committed by women and girls (Warner and Matfess Reference Warner and Matfess2017). By incentivizing and coercing female recruits, Boko Haram took advantage of the patriarchal constraints on women as well as poor socioeconomic conditions in northeast Nigeria (Mustapha and Meagher Reference Mustapha and Meagher2020).

Since 2009, Boko Haram has kidnapped at least 2,000 girls and women, many of whom have been used as suicide bombers to attack checkpoints, bus stations, mosques, churches, schools, markets, and other soft targets (Al-Amin Reference Al-Amin2017). Women, of course, are ideal stealth weapons for armed opposition groups such as Boko Haram because they are less likely to be suspected or even searched. Boko Haram has used this positive security bias to its advantage as its male fighters commonly disguise themselves in female dresses to escape security attention (Punch 2018).

THE WOMEN COUNTERING BOKO HARAM

With the alarming rise and reach of Boko Haram women causing death, destruction, and extreme uncertainty across northeast Nigeria, scores of women have also emerged in terror-stricken communities to thwart the activities of women insurgents and suicide terrorists. As members of the government-backed CJTF, these women help soldiers and CJTF men frisk women at checkpoints, gather information and identify suspects, guard camps for the internally displaced, and sometimes also fight Boko Haram. Their emergence recalls the examples of similar female counterinsurgency movements in conflict zones such as Iraq and Syria, including the all-female Kurdish Battalions, the Yazidi female militia (known as the “Force of the Sun Ladies”) trained by the Iraqi female Peshmerga, and the Assyrian female militias trained by the Kurds in Syria.

In Borno State alone, there are 122 registered CJTF women, with many more unregistered women who work informally with local vigilante groups as informants, offering information discreetly on Boko Haram insurgents, financiers, and their activities (ICG 2016, 11). Some CJTF women have received military training through the Borno Youth Empowerment Scheme (BOYES) and now fight alongside their male counterparts. Others guard camps for the internally displaced, frisk women at checkpoints, and conduct house-to-house searches for Boko Haram members hiding in their wards. Bakura, CJTF Sector 5 Commander in Maiduguri, told me,

The vast majority of CJTF members are still men and, like most residents of Borno State, Muslim. However, as noted earlier, the Islamic religious and cultural system forbids nonrelated men from entering women's homes. As a CJTF man in Maiduguri recounted, “Women play a vital role in this vigilante work because Islamic religion doesn't allow men to enter houses and we make use of the women to go into these houses for either surveillance or arrests.” This brings home the fundamental but precarious role that women play in providing consent and legitimacy for counterinsurgent vigilantism, which includes frisking and arresting suspected Boko Haram women in their homes and at security roadblocks. Through their tactical innovation, specific social positions, and socially marginal identities as women, and through the practical domesticity of their daily life, CJTF women are uniquely positioned to gain possession of intimate information about their local communities that can prevent Boko Haram attacks and help counterinsurgent forces overcome the problem of knowledge. “Their assistance is in giving vital information to us about Boko Haram's female insurgents and helping us gather local intelligence,” said Adamu, a leader of the CJTF in Abadam Town, Borno State, adding, “You know there is something that women can see just standing that we the men cannot see, even if we climb up the tree. Women also help us with inspection. You know as a man you cannot be checking a woman from back to front. So, women help us a great deal.”

During the course of my fieldwork in Borno State, I spent several hours at security checkpoints and roadblocks staffed by the CJTF, particularly along the Maiduguri-Damaturu-Kano Road. I encountered several women vigilantes, some of them wielding daggers and frisking passengers of the ubiquitous commercial tricycle-taxis (known as keke NAPEP) and drivers of private vehicles. I also encountered women friskers at the crowded Monday Market—the largest market in Borno State and the site of multiple female suicide bombings in 2014.

One CJTF woman secured her dagger under her left arm so that she could use both hands to search under the women passengers’ himar (veil) or niqab (a Saudi-style dress) as they disembarked from the tricycle-taxi. The woman's name is Habiba, and she joined the CJTF after her children were arrested in August 2013 by Nigerian joint task forces who conducted house-to-house night raids in Maiduguri neighborhoods, accusing them of working for Boko Haram. “Up to now, I have never seen my children,” says Habiba. Sadly, stories such as this one run like a leitmotif throughout Borno State, emboldening more and more women to use their intimate knowledge to identify and arrest the real members of Boko Haram hiding among them and to act as state informants (Umar and Adamu Reference Umar and Adamu2014). “Women are working as informers for us,” said Ganiyu, a leader of the CJTF in Maiduguri. “They're in the communities. When they see anything suspicious, they will call us quickly and tell us. And there are also those who are active with uniforms working with us.” Not infrequently, indiscriminate violence was used strategically by Nigerian joint task forces to compel compliance and induce loyalty among so-called suspect communities aiding Boko Haram. As Stathis Kalyvas (Reference Kalyvas2004) tells us, violence tends to be used by state armies against civilian populations in order to shape their behavior. Victimized women like Habiba stuck with the state not because they supported its scorched-earth tactics, but because it offered their best chance of survival. Other women rationalized security force abuses as a reaction to Boko Haram, which they saw as the original source of their predicament.

Many CJTF women have seen their husbands and/or children killed by Boko Haram. Their loss leaves them vulnerable, both in terms of grief and financial security. Having lost their household's breadwinner, they find themselves alone, often with children, whom they now struggle to care for (NSRP 2016, 40). For these women, joining the CJTF emerges as an opportunity to avenge the loss of their loved ones and, in doing so, reclaim their dignity and safeguard their community. Take the case of Zara, who joined the CJTF after Boko Haram killed her husband and children during an attack on her town, Benishek. In her words, “Revenge was my sole aim when I joined the fight and I have succeeded in seeing to the destruction of many of the insurgents. I will not rest until I see the death of them all. I will not relent in my effort” (Daily Trust 2015).

Another CJTF woman from Maiduguri, Zainab, described how her family house in the Garnam area was razed to the ground by Boko Haram in 2013 after her brother refused the group's invitation to join and instead fled to Lagos in southwest Nigeria. According to Zainab, Boko Haram killed her mother before dragging her to a compound at Umurari, about 4 miles outside Maiduguri, where she was repeatedly brutalized as a sex slave for five months. “I don't know the whereabouts of my other relatives, or what happened to my mother's corpse,” said Zainab, who added that “soldiers stormed the area one day and freed us” (Abubakar Reference Abubakar2016). This experience inspired Zainab to take up a gora (stick) and join the CJTF to prevent other women in her community from suffering sexual violence. She later encountered one of the insurgents who had violated her at Umurari, only this time the context was different. As she recounted,

In Maiduguri, I interviewed Fatima, a 27-year-old woman studying at Ramat Polytechnic. Fatima who is one of the 1,800 CJTF members selected and trained under the state-endorsed BOYES. As part of her BOYES paramilitary training, Fatima was sent to the Kofi Annan Peace Keeping Training Center in Accra, Ghana, to take the Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration Foundation Course. Fatima told me, “I joined in November 2013 and I work with CJTF men to protect my neighborhood. We work in the community as security operatives to frisk people in the mosques, markets, and other busy places. You know there are many women in Boko Haram, and so we also join to counteract them. They have disturbed us and we had to leave our houses for close to two years so we joined the fight.” Asked about the role that women play in the CJTF, Fatima replied, “We have lots of things to do. Like in the market, we search women just like men search men. We check every gate of Monday Market. We have handheld security scanners that we use to screen women who enter the market for improvised explosive devices. Our duties also depend on the nature of given operations, like we cook food for the men when we go to the bush to fight but we don't fire guns [like men].” The sense of patriotism, especially the responsibility to protect fellow women in extremis, is central to why another woman in Borno State said that she joined the CJTF:

Halima, a CJTF woman in Maiduguri, told me that she joined the group to help in searching other women. “A woman can search any other woman anywhere and nobody will raise eyebrows,” said Halima. “Securing Maiduguri is now a collective responsibility, irrespective of age, gender or status. The safer the town, the better for all of us.” Fatima's and Halima's responsibilities within the CJTF reinforce the gendered practices of counterinsurgency, particularly the appropriate gender-based division of labor in militia groups, which reflects the cultural norms of society (see Khalili Reference Khalili2011; Viterna Reference Viterna2013, 132; Wood Reference Wood2019, 14). The role of women friskers is a culturally sensitive one. The culture in northeast Nigeria objects to a man passing his hands over a woman in the name of searching for hidden weapons. In Borno State, many husbands forbid any man (including Nigerian joint task forces) from frisking their wives and daughters. Initially, when soldiers carried out the frisking of women in transit spaces in Maiduguri, married women openly protested against it (Idris Reference Idris2013). So, without women frisking other women, Boko Haram was able to take advantage of the loophole to escape notice and conduct its jihadist attacks with relative ease.

The role of women as local knowledge brokers has been acknowledged by a number of studies on vigilantism in southern Nigeria. In a study of women's participation in the ethnic vigilante group O'oduwa People's Congress in southwest Nigeria, Insa Nolte (Reference Nolte2008, 96) writes,

Further afield, in conflict zones such as Iraq and Afghanistan, cultural sensitivities and the absence of female soldiers to frisk women allowed terrorist networks such as al-Qaeda to use women to gain access to its intended targets. Women have also provided better opportunities for concealing IEDs. In 2005, Muriel Degauque, a young Belgian woman, evaded security measures and blew herself up in an al-Qaeda-inspired attack on a U.S.-military convoy south of Baghdad (Rennie Reference Rennie2005). This was possible because some checkpoints in combat zones lack women security operatives, which—again, due to religious and cultural Muslim systems regarding gender relations—made it sensitive to effectively frisk women passing through, rendering them potent “weapons of terror” (McKay Reference McKay2005). The U.S.-backed Iraqi forces reacted to the growing threat of women suicide bombers by beginning to screen both men and women passing through checkpoints. This reaction, however, played into the hands of al-Qaeda leaders who charged Iraqi men to reject the aggressive humiliation of their wives, sisters, and mothers being subjected to stop and search by uniformed men. In this way, the terrorist network was able to position itself as a protector of the traditional gender order and masculine identities that are under threat.

Starting in early 2009, after encountering the restrictions on male soldiers investigating Muslim women in Iraq, the U.S. military recognized the importance of integrating women into its counterinsurgency operations. Female members of the U.S. Army and Marines, known as Female Engagement Teams (FETs), were introduced in Iraq and Afghanistan in a mission carefully worded as “non-lethal targeting of the human terrain” to “enable systematic collection of information from the female population in a culturally respectful manner to facilitate building confidence with the [local] population” (Khalili Reference Khalili2013, 198). The introduction of FETs was informed by the U.S. counterinsurgency policy that winning the hearts and minds of Afghan women is key to ensuring the success of its war on terror (McBride and Wibben Reference McBride and Wibben2012). FETs proved successful, allowing Iraqi women to be searched for concealed weapons and contraband items at military checkpoints and during a wide variety of missions (Anderson Reference Anderson2017). In Afghanistan, the U.S. military also began to deploy small groups of women as detachments to male infantry units conducting counterinsurgency operations on the ground. Serving as advisers and liaisons, these all-women teams were able to collect vital information on insurgent networks from families and communicate with Afghan women without enflaming cultural sensitivities surrounding gender (Bumiller Reference Bumiller2010).

Recognizing a more salient role for female security officers as practitioners and targets in the climate of terror in northeast Nigeria, especially of physical and sexual abuse in internally displaced people (IDP) camps, the Nigerian Army has made modest efforts to increase its recruitment of women. Upon the graduation of 133 cadets, including 18 women from the Nigerian Defense Academy in Kaduna in 2016, former chief of army staff Tukur Buratai stated,

Buratai's statement illustrates the ways in which counterinsurgency assigns men and women to different categories of various utility for the sake of combat and pacification (Khalili Reference Khalili2011, 1479).

Despite the growing recruitment of women by Boko Haram, the Nigerian joint task forces prosecuting the war against Boko Haram (Operation Lafiya Dole) are still 98% male (Hassan Reference Hassan2017), and gender is not critically reflected in most of the postconflict plans for northeast Nigeria. This marginalization, exclusion, or adverse incorporation of women in the doctrine and practice of counterinsurgency reflects deeply embedded norms of masculinity—norms concerning the roles and duties of women and men in society (Goldstein Reference Goldstein2001; Wood Reference Wood2019, 3). As Synne Dyvik (Reference Dyvik2013, 416) argues, “women are not considered the referent object of counterinsurgency doctrine, nor are female soldiers necessarily regarded as primarily soldiers. Rather, their role as soldier is subordinate to their real value as women.” If women officers want to be treated with the same respect as their male counterparts, they often have to suspend or exit their normative identities as mothers, girlfriends, and wives (Marks Reference Marks, Woodward and Duncanson2017, 447).

A significant portion of the women who have joined the CJTF identified themselves as wives, girlfriends, or sisters of CJTF men. Their critical intervention has resulted in the arrests of hundreds of Boko Haram female insurgents bearing arms and IEDs. To evade security checks, some of these female suicide bombers concealed IEDs under their himar (veil) and on their back as if they were carrying babies. Many were arrested in busy public places such as markets and bus terminals. Other women who were apprehended in their homes by CJTF women were found to be in possession of small arms and light weapons hidden in plastic buckets and sacks of grains. Some of these women claimed they were aware neither that their husbands kept such arms in their homes nor that their husbands were members of Boko Haram. In some cases, detained women insurgents confessed that they worked as spies and ran errands for Boko Haram, who rewarded them handsomely with payments ranging from $12.91 to $29. Others said they were forced to do the bidding of Boko Haram because the group had threatened to kill their families if they refused (Odunsi Reference Odunsi2013). This lends support to a report by the International Crisis Group that found that Boko Haram used a combination of coercion and incentives to recruit women and men, especially in urban and rural communities (ICG 2016, 6).

At a security roadblock in Maiduguri, a CJTF woman recounted, “These women [in Boko Haram] carry guns, bombs and ammunition for their husbands or for money, as they often confess to us. We have arrested some of them here and in some places, like Customs Market, Monday Market, and Gomari areas, in possession of poisons, IEDs and guns.” A CJTF woman from Baga in Maiduguri was convinced that poverty, illiteracy, and material inducements are factors that cause women turn to Boko Haram:

Bakura, a CJTF commander whom I spoke to in Maiduguri, was convinced that the vast majority of female suicide bombers in Borno State were brainwashed by Boko Haram:

In a trial of more than 1,669 Boko Haram suspects at the Wawa Cantonment in Niger Republic in February 2018 (after a three-year wait for a trial following the suspects’ arrest), it was found that women and girl insurgents in detention were lured into Boko Haram by their husbands, friends, relatives, and neighbors, reinforcing studies showing that most Boko Haram members are recruited by people they already know (Botha and Abdile Reference Botha and Abdile2019). Maimuna, a 30-year-old mother of seven, confessed to visiting Sambisa Forest (a major Boko Haram hideout) in July 2014 when her late husband's friend, a member of Boko Haram, deceived her into accompanying him to her husband's family home. Twenty-three-year-old Hafsat, whose husband initiated her into Boko Haram, was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment for the purpose of rehabilitation and to prevent her from rejoining her elder brother, who is still actively fighting for Boko Haram (Azu Reference Azu2018).

Some women willingly joined Boko Haram in part because they were offered better lives by the group than under the Nigerian state and treated better by their Boko Haram husbands (Oduah Reference Oduah2016). Boko Haram, for example, had a dedicated fund for widows of their male fighters killed in battle. One study found that in areas controlled by Boko Haram, “marriage could bring a measure of security and well-being for women and their extended family” (ICG 2016, 9). Similar to their male counterparts, marriage is central to the social status, recognition, and respectability of women in northeast Nigeria. In fact, marriage has been termed the “highest degree” that Muslim women can achieve. Across Nigeria, unmarried women are often stigmatized and lack the agency and leverage with men that married women possess (NSRP 2016; Tegomoh Reference Tegomoh2002).

Following Daniel Jordan Smith (Reference Smith2010, 2–3), we must challenge the notion that young Nigerian women are somehow forced to marry against their will, and instead come to terms with the reality that “the overwhelming majority of young women seek marriage and parenthood as the ultimate expression and fulfillment of their ambitions for themselves as persons.” In Borno State, especially Maiduguri, anecdotal evidence shows women escaping from IDP camps to return to their Boko Haram husbands in the bush (perhaps because of the local stigma associated with women who have children born to Boko Haram fathers) and women marrying Boko Haram men for financial gain—for example, because bride prices were often paid directly to them, not their family (Nagarajan Reference Nagarajan2017; Oduah Reference Oduah2016). In one case in the Marte area of Borno State, Boko Haram men married 80 girls by offering generous dowries of 15,000 Naira (about $70) each—a significant sum in rural communities where people survive on less than $1 dollar a day (ICG 2016 9). Human Rights Watch (2013) describes how Boko Haram regularly raided villages and “after storming into the homes and throwing sums of money at their parents, with a declaration that it was the dowry for their teenage daughter, they would take the girls away.”

In some cases, women divorced their husbands and married Boko Haram men. “I fell in love with him and he was treating me well. So when he asked me, I married him,” said one woman in Borno State who was studying to be an accountant when Boko Haram attacked her town of Bama (Ansbro Reference Ansbro2017). Another woman explained that “my husband is a Boko Haram commander. He had three wives. He divorced all of them when he married me, because he loves me very much and I'm like his baby” (Oduah Reference Oduah2016). Some women also joined Boko Haram out of a desire to learn more deeply about Islam and memorize the Quran, which they found empowering (ICG 2016, 9). In light of this complex agency of women in Boko Haram, any umbrella attempts to dismiss women in insurgency as passive victims lacking freedom and autonomy is suspect.

Frisking other women and gathering information on enemy movements is dangerous work for CJTF women, because most suicide bombings in the region are carried out by women and girls. The usual pattern is for these women attackers to detonate their IEDs at the point when they are stopped and frisked by state security forces and/or vigilantes. Besides, since women are among the first people to enter the house of a Boko Haram suspect during house-to-house searches, they are often more susceptible to violent attacks. In one instance in Gamboru-Ngala in Borno State, Boko Haram traced one of the CJTF women to her house. She was lucky not to be at home at the time, but her teenage son was captured. He is still in the custody of Boko Haram.

The positive contributions of CJTF women to the war against Boko Haram, and the personal risk they assume on a daily basis, seem to be altering the traditional ways in which men perceive women in northeast Nigeria. CJTF leaders, for instance, regularly praised the strength, ingenuity, and courage shown by women vigilantes, even as they simultaneously referred to them as “our women”—indicating the sense of women-as-male-property and women as “pawns in a man's game” that is still ingrained in northern Nigerian culture and society. “We have our women that played prominent roles even when the killings were so rampant,” said Bukar, chair of the CJTF in Hausari Ward. “These women were spared by Boko Haram. Unknown to them, they were spying for us.” Ganiyu, chair of the CJTF in Maiduguri, described the invaluable contributions of women to counterinsurgency in Borno State: “They are very important to our operations in Borno. They are mostly used for intelligence gathering. They give information which we report to security agencies and this has been decisive in arresting many insurgents. Without adequate information, we could not have achieved the level of success we recorded in the fight against terrorism.” This point was reinforced by Samaila, a provost at the CJTF headquarters in Maiduguri: “We have women in the CJTF that when you see them they look like women but are stronger than men. There are women that follow us to fight Boko Haram and there are others that carry out surveillance to equip us with secure enough evidence to arrest members of Boko Haram wherever they are. These women sacrifice themselves and enter various places and get us information that some men cannot take the risks of doing so.”

Despite initial praise for the CJTF as “new national heroes” (Agbiboa Reference Agbiboa2018), especially its decisive role in forcing Boko Haram out of Maiduguri in late 2013, the state-backed vigilante group has been implicated in a number of human rights abuses (both independently and in complicity with state forces) that have eroded its local support base. This reflects the ambiguity that marks the relationship of vigilante groups with governments and publics (Pratten Reference Pratten2008, 6). The CJTF has been credibly accused of subjecting Boko Haram suspects and captives to torture during interrogations in an attempt to extract information or positive confessions from them. A 19-year-old man recounted how he and his brother were tortured at Bama Prison after fleeing his village as a child:

In Biu, residents described how CJTF members killed suspects and burned their houses during their night patrols and street surveillance. These egregious actions were justified on the grounds of community protection. “We run from Boko Haram then our CJTF is again punishing us, where do we go?” said a man from Gwoza (Center for Civilians in Conflict 2018, 17).

STORIES OF WOMEN WHO JOINED THE WAR AGAINST BOKO HARAM

In this section, I document the experiences and sacrifices of CJTF women through the personal narratives of Hauwa, Kaka, Altine, Zainab (Punch 2016), and Hannatu (BBC News 2017). All five women suffered personal losses (e.g., the loss of a close family member or friend) to Boko Haram, which was a primary factor in their decision to join the CJTF in defense of their local communities. These women were also encouraged to join the CJTF by their relatives, friends, and close neighbors. As studies elsewhere (such as Sierra Leone) have shown, trust-based social networks feature prominently in women's decision to participate in nonstate armed groups (Marks Reference Marks2019). However, unlike the case of forcibly conscripted women in the Sierra Leone Civil Defense Forces and the Revolutionary United Front, CJTF women said that they joined willingly, “with my two eyes open.” Women pointed to their love of community and country, especially their concern for the plight of fellow women, as a core reason for joining the CJTF.

Hauwa, a 35-year-old divorcee with two children, joined the CJTF at the height of the violent insurgency from 2014 through 2015. Her 15-year-old son, Mohammed, is also a CJTF member in Maiduguri. Hauwa described her main duties in the CJTF as collecting intelligence and reporting back to security agencies. She joined after the loss of her elder brother, Zannah, and his friend, who were both killed by Boko Haram. According to Hauwa, “[Zannah] was one of the title holders at the Shehu's palace. He was a Bureau de Change operator. They killed his friend in a bank. My brother was killed at home after attending his friend's funeral. We cannot say why he was killed.” Hauwa said that she has personal knowledge of some of Boko Haram's jihadi women because she helped raise a few of them. “What surprises me is that some of the insurgents are people that I knew as babies. I even strapped some of them to my back. It is really sad that those babies are now bearing arms against their country.” As a BOYES member, Hauwa receives a monthly stipend of $38.72 from the Borno State government for her vigilante work. “Though the money is paltry,” said Hauwa, “I see my contributions as a sacrifice for the return of peace to Borno State. I do not see any danger. I have sworn to tread this path.”

Kaka is another female CJTF member supporting the military counterinsurgency in Maiduguri. A 30-year-old divorcee with a son, Kaka is a pioneering member of the CJTF in Maiduguri. Though no member of her family was killed by Boko Haram, Kaka said that she was “really touched” by the loss of two of her neighbors, Garba and Amadu, which increased her desire to “contribute hugely to the betterment of society.” Kaka recalled how she, along with her friends, became involved in gathering intelligence for Nigerian troops in Maiduguri. “When Boko Haram members were killing residents, we were all afraid to reveal their identities to the soldiers. But later, I and some of my friends summoned up courage and started exposing them. At the time, security forces were threatening to kill us if we did not expose the insurgents. When we discovered that exposing them was yielding results, we courageously joined the formation.” One of the positive results recounted by Kaka was exposing a Boko Haram commander. “He hid in the residence of his mother in our neighborhood. He was arrested and taken away by the military. This made me continue working to ensure peace for the overall interest of all. My mother encouraged me a lot.” In another incident, Kaka singlehandedly coordinated the arrest of a Boko Haram member on the “most wanted list” of the military. “It all started when soldiers gave me the number plate of a keke NAPEP [tricycle-taxi] belonging to a suspected insurgent. When I saw the tricycle, I pretended as if I was on the way to a place and quickly alerted the soldiers that we were coming toward them. The soldiers arrested him on the way.” Like Hauwa, Kaka is a BOYES member on a $38.72 monthly stipend, but she wants the state to do more to empower CJTF youth through strategic skills acquisition initiatives.

Altine is a 28-year-old widow with a son and four daughters. Like Kaka, Altine joined the CJTF during its formative days in Maiduguri in early 2013 after enduring several personal losses. Altine's sister, Hajju Mohammed, and her husband, Ahmed, a police officer, were killed by Boko Haram in Maiduguri's Gamboru Customs area. Ahmed was killed while on a routine patrol. Altine also lost a friend and three of her neighbors to Boko Haram. “All these irked me and eventually made me resolve to work against the insurgents by exposing them,” she said. “I did not face any resistance from my relations when I decided to join,” added Altine, whose two brothers, Mustapha and Abba, are also members of the CJTF. Unlike Hauwa and Kaka, Altine is not a BOYES member, and therefore she does not receive any stipend from the state government. This notwithstanding, Altine said that she has offered to sacrifice her life for the sake of peace and security. Through her intimate knowledge of the physical and social terrain in which Boko Haram lives and operates, Altine has helped thwart the plans of many Boko Haram insurgents trying to sneak into the market town of Gamboru to wreak havoc in the community. “I was able to recognize them,” said Altine, “because they used to be my neighbors.”

Lastly, there are Zainab and Hannatu. Zainab is a 35-year-old married woman with two daughters and three sons. She joined the CJTF after her brother, Ibrahim, was killed by insurgents in Maiduguri's Dala area. “The loss made me vow to expose them so that peace can be restored,” said Zainab, whose husband encouraged her to join the group. Zainab started providing information about the hideouts and activities of Boko Haram insurgents even before the CJTF was born. Hannatu, a 34-year-old woman from the northeast town of Chibok, joined an anti–Boko Haram militia in 2014 after her husband, a vigilante unit commander, was killed by Boko Haram. Following his death, Hannatu took his place in the vigilante group, working alongside male vigilantes in Chibok. “We go after Boko Haram, catch them with our bare hands and kill them,” said Hannatu, who also learned how to use guns during bush operations. She recalled an experience in which she and her fellow vigilantes went to Konzulari village, caught Boko Haram insurgents, and killed them. Hannatu's membership in the CJTF has been nothing short of transformative: “I was very scared when I first joined. But I've made a lot of progress. I am not scared of anything now.”

The experiences and motivations of Hauwa, Kaka, Altine, Zainab, and Hannatu reflect not only the often neglected perspective and agency of women in joining the war against Boko Haram but also reinforce how conditions of personal suffering and loss, coupled with attachment to the community and collective yearning for order, drive women's participation in counterinsurgency. In short, in the face of government failure, insecurity, and victimization, women are more likely to choose voice and loyalty (i.e., stand and fight) over exit and defection (i.e., cut and run).

THE WOMEN HUNTING BOKO HARAM IN ADAMAWA STATE

Beyond Borno State, the epicenter of the insurgency, women have also been actively involved in counterinsurgency operations in Adamawa State under the Hunters Association (kungiya marhaba) and the VGN. Both of these local groups have been cooperating with the Nigerian military and police to repel Boko Haram in Adamawa State (from Gombi to Madagali and from Mararraban Pella through Maiha to Mubi and from Gombi to Garkida) since late 2013, when the CJTF forced Boko Haram out of Maiduguri into more peripheral parts of northeast Nigeria. As Boko Haram relocated to rural areas such as Gombi, more women from captured villages were forcibly conscripted into the Islamist sect to do aikin Allah (the work of Allah), reinforcing empirical studies demonstrating that women Boko Haram members are far more likely to be recruited by force than their male counterparts (Botha and Abdile Reference Botha and Abdile2019). In so doing, Boko Haram reclaimed a precolonial practice of raiding and enslavement in the Lake Chad region, whereby women are captured and integrated into the victorious group (ICG 2016, 6).

My fieldwork in Adamawa State took place in Yola and Gombi in September 2017. While there was an appreciable lull in insurgent attacks during this time, there was nonetheless an uneasy calm and suspicion that pervaded the air. Yola is the capital of Adamawa State and the headquarters of the VGN, a community-based security provider that officially joined the state war against Boko Haram in November 2014, following a formal invitation from the Adamawa State government (see the appendix in the supplementary material online). Currently, there are an estimated 500 VGN members working across every local government area in Adamawa, according to Aliyu, VGN state commander. The VGN is divided into two main groups, composed of uniformed vigilantes and local hunters. One group enjoys the patronage of the state government, while the other is supported by the Lamido of Adamawa, the traditional ruler and chair of the State Emirate Council. Although the VGN participates in active combat and bush operations against Boko Haram, its central role is to ensure peace and stability in recaptured towns and villages. On the role that women play in the VGN's campaign, Aliyu recounted,

At Gombi, about 100 kilometers from Yola, I organized focus group discussions with leaders of the Hunters Association Adamawa State and the VGN at the office of the Presidential Committee on the North East Initiative. In total, five men and one women attended the FGD. The six participants had all been actively involved in the fight against Boko Haram. I asked the group about the role and impact of women in their vigilante work. The men ordinarily dominated the discussion and saw it as their prerogative to speak on behalf of Aisha (whose story I tell later), the only woman present at the focus group discussions and a respected “queen hunter” from the town of Gombi who has fought many battles against Boko Haram in Sambisa Forest. The silence of Aisha reflects the culture of patriarchy in northern Nigeria that relegates women to subordinates.

Ibrahim, a 52-year-old hunter, began the discussion by claiming, “The men are in a better position to explain the role of women in the fight against the insurgents. The women that worked with us have done their best and are still doing their best in the fight against Boko Haram. We are advising our government and traditional leaders to encourage more women to participate in the war against these insurgents.” According to Namtari, a 62-year-old hunter who led 1,500 hunters at different times to fight Boko Haram in Gombi and Madagali,

Perceptions of women as “better than men” or “men among women” reinforce the androcentric culture of counterinsurgency, especially the way women's roles as counterinsurgents are told on the basis of their gender. As one scholar observes, “Women who are strong fighters or notorious for their ruthlessness can gain a special cachet for how they transcend gender norms. Their ability to use violence to protect themselves [and others] and build affinity with male fighters can help them carve out a more gender-equal sphere than that occupied by other women in the group” (Marks Reference Marks, Woodward and Duncanson2017, 447). Weighing in to the discussion, Wokenso, a 59-year-old hunter, described women as hidden resources that vigilantes and hunters use to defeat Boko Haram. He noted,

This recurrent view of women as men's secret weapon reinforces the unequal gendered coding of counterinsurgency that not only attaches value to women in relation to their male counterparts but also eroticizes women's subordinate status (see Becker Reference Becker1999; MacKinnon Reference MacKinnon1979). Men remain the center of gravity, the ultimate reference point for women in conflict. Throughout the focus group discussions, Aisha remained silent, with an occasional nod of approval. This is due in part to the cultural setting that puts a premium on male voice and female compliance, in addition to the premium on age that ensures that older men are treated with respect. After the discussion, a private meeting was arranged with Aisha to learn about her experience in the battlefront.

AISHA: THE STORY OF A QUEEN HUNTER

Women's role in the war against Boko Haram extends beyond complementing the work of their male counterparts through their information-gathering capacities. In other words, women assume frontier roles in counterinsurgency, not just as winners of hearts and minds (the so-called soft approach), but also as warriors (“militarized masculinity”). This is true of Aisha (see Figure 1), a 38-year-old woman who occupies the role of “chief female hunter” (sarauniyar maharba) in the town of Gombi, Adamawa State. Gombi lies in an area that suffers periodic attacks by Boko Haram hiding in the nearby Sambisa Forest, an extremely thick and thorny forest covering 60,000 square kilometers across northeast Nigeria. Gombi came into the spotlight in July 2014, when Boko Haram fighters kidnapped Nitsch Eberhard Robert, a German teacher who was conducting vocational training in the town. Nitsch was later freed in January 2015 following a special operation of Cameroon forces helped by “friendly nations” (Reuters 2015). In October 2014, Gombi was one of three towns in Adamawa captured by Boko Haram. It was recaptured in December 2014 by a joint operation of soldiers, hunters, and vigilantes (Yusuf Reference Yusuf2014). In January 2016, two suicide bombers detonated their bombs at the grain section of the international market in Gombi, killing ten people and injuring several others (Channels Television 2016).

Figure 1.

Photo by author.

It was here in Gombi that I first met Aisha, who leads a command of men aged 15 to 30 who communicate using sign language, animal sounds, and even birdsong. The interview with Aisha was conducted in her house and in her husband's presence. Dubbed “Queen Hunter” because of her bravery on the battlefield, Aisha has acquired a kind of celebrity status in Gombi as one of the very few women hunters (in a male-dominated hunting profession) tracking Boko Haram in Sambisa Forest and helping locate the Chibok schoolgirls abducted by Boko Haram. In this, Aisha is part of a particular category of “woman-of-power” in counterinsurgency who is “comfortable with, and in fact positively values, breaking through security spaces coded as masculine” (Khalili Reference Khalili2011, 1475). Aisha grew up near Sambisa Forest and used to hunt antelopes, baboons, and guinea fowl with her grandfather. “I did not join this hunting work but inherited it from my family,” said Aisha. “I grew up to find my family as hunters. I started as a young girl following my family on hunting expeditions up to the time I grew up and was fully equipped to be on my own. This went on until we were called to join hands and fight the menace of Boko Haram.” Like many hunters in Gombi, Aisha is a Muslim and believes in the close link between magic and warfare. In Gombi, it is common knowledge that hunters have the power to disappear at any time. During the course of our interview, Aisha described her ritual of dousing her fellow hunters with a magical portion that makes their bodies bulletproof in preparation for battle.

Aisha said that she joined the hunt for Boko Haram out of the love she has for Nigeria and for the many women and children who bear the brunt of the violent insurgency: “I see my role as a nationalist trying to protect my country and its population.” Given the marginality of female voices in the Boko Haram literature, I was keen to learn more about Aisha's experience as a woman in a male-dominated hunting profession. “There is a big role for women in this job,” said Aisha. “There are no less than 100 women in Adamawa alone who are hunters and engaged in this hunting work. They may not be as popular as I am, but they are also hunters just like me and work as vigilantes. One striking difference is that I join males to war fronts and fight insurgents whereas most women do not go to war.” To my question about whether she was afraid to do this work, Aisha confidently rejoined, “Boko Haram insurgents are something to fear but this is not enough for people to back out and allow them to eat their cake and have it. If we all allow them to go ahead the way they started, they can destroy the whole country and make it uninhabitable. All Nigerians are supposed to be patriotic and fearless in fighting Boko Haram. We are created by the same God. We need not fear them if we are to bring peace to our dear nation.” Aisha's remarks run contrary to prevailing counterinsurgency discourse in which qualities of patriotism and courage are usually not applicable to women, who are variously seen as disloyal, emotional, fearful, manipulable, and nonconfrontational. In fact, the category of the civilian has historically been feminine (Dyvik Reference Dyvik2013, 414), which explains why women in wars are often seen as victims.

One of the primary weapons available to hunters such as Aisha during bush operations against Boko Haram are their local firearms, often spiritually fortified. According to Aisha, “Our weapons are mostly Dane guns [a type of long-barreled flintlock musket originally imported into West Africa by Dano-Norwegian traders] which we use in local hunting, but mine is even better as it is modified to take four rounds of ammunitions. There are people among us that go out with bows and arrows, while some take only cutlasses, and yet we gain the upper hand when we meet the insurgents.” Aisha reckoned that hunters have achieved “great success” in the war on Boko Haram in Adamawa because of their local knowledge and bravery. She recalled “the first attack Boko Haram launched on our town. They were woefully defeated and none of them survived and this is enough to say we are succeeding. From then on, we have been pushing them back till we reached Madagali.” A town in Adamawa State, adjacent to the Nigerian border with Cameroon, Madagali has been plagued by Boko Haram's suicide bombings since 2014 (BBC News 2015).

In Adamawa State, especially Gombi, the relationship between hunters/vigilantes and the Nigerian military has generally been one of complementarity rather than opposition or resistance. As Aisha recounted, “We really enjoyed working with the military till date because they are the ones that support us with guns and bullets. At times if we defeat the insurgents the military would allow us to use the weapons we seize from Boko Haram. These are items that are later returned to the military.” Contrary to the popular perception of Nigerian security forces with daggers drawn on local residents in other parts of northeastern Nigeria (e.g., Maiduguri), in Gombi, soldiers enjoy a significant degree of communal support. While a handful of hunters have received training from the Nigerian military, the vast majority rely on the hunting skills inherited from their parents. “Most of us received our training from our parents and professional hunters,” said Aisha. “The Army has also trained some people recently after the insurgents were driven away but I was not among them.” Like thousands of local hunters in Adamawa, Aisha was enlisted by the military to lead the fight against Boko Haram on an ad hoc basis. According to Aisha, “When the fight was ongoing, we were supported with food items. But now that the fight is over, we are only volunteering to work and not getting anything from anybody.”

The families of hunters killed in bush operations against Boko Haram often received minimal support from the state and from traditional leaders on a selective basis. As Aisha recounted, “Two months ago, one of our commanders who was responsible for nine local government areas lost his life along with two other vigilantes in a fight with Boko Haram insurgents in Sambisa Forest. The state governor gave N500,000 ($1,290) to his family, but the families of the other two injured persons received nothing. This year nobody got injured, but two years ago, all those that got injured were brought to the Federal Medical Centre for treatment and the government and His Highness, the Lamido of Adamawa, donated $1,290 for treating the injured.” These selective efforts notwithstanding, Aisha insisted that the state should do more to support hunters and vigilantes risking their lives daily to shield their communities. “I have already said that we need more arms, ammunitions and vehicles. There are youths among us that have no work. The state can empower those youth with set skills and train those without skills to do something good for themselves.” Aisha maintained that the need for support is now rather than after the insurgency:

When the Boko Haram insurgency comes to an end, Aisha looks forward to returning to her former occupation as housewife and tailor, which were disrupted by her involvement in the war.Footnote ²