Nigeria

This is a guest post by Mohamed Jallow, an Africa watcher, following politics and economic currents across the continent. He works at RTI International in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. The Gambia is in a political crisis. The country’s longtime strongman, President Yahya Jammeh lost his bid for re-election to a fifth term earlier this month. After initially conceding defeat, he is refusing to step down. Citing irregularities on the part of the Electoral Commission, Jammeh has rejected the results, and is calling for fresh elections. Reminiscent of the post-electoral crisis in the Ivory Coast a few years ago, the Gambia is risking a jealously guarded reputation for peace and tranquility in a region fraught with political turmoil. Unless cooler heads prevail, and Jammeh respects the will of the Gambian people, the country is in for a wild ride. The Key Players The Incumbent: President Yahya Jammeh has ruled this small country for twenty-two years. He came to power through a bloodless military coup in 1994, ousting the country’s post-independence president, Sir Dawda Jawara. Styling himself and his group as “soldiers with a difference,” Jammeh quickly returned the country to nominal civilian rule with himself at the helm. Known for the eccentric, President Jammeh claims to have a cure for HIV/AIDS and once vowed to kill homosexuals. To the Gambian population, the stifling of opposition and dissent, arbitrary detentions and disappearances, and the all-around limited space for political activism has driven many people into exile. The Opposition Coalition: The opposition, long in the wilderness due to the harsh tactics of the Jammeh regime finally joined forces under a coalition that gave Jammeh a run for his money. With the core of its leadership jailed after protests earlier in the year, the consensus candidate was Adama Barrow; a little-known businessman that no one had heard of. As it turned out, that was a genius move. He went on to win the elections, though by a slim margin, surprising everyone, including Jammeh himself. The Army: The Gambian Army has so far remained loyal to Yahya Jammeh, and has shown no signs of abandoning him. As the strongest institution in the country, the loyalty of the army has been a key factor in Jammeh’s twenty-two year rule. The way this political crisis ends will determine the future of the Gambian Army, especially its leadership, and it will be a litmus test as to where their loyalties lie—to their country, or to an individual. ECOWAS: When the political crisis started in the Gambia, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) quickly sprang into action to avert an all-out crisis. A delegation headed by its current chair, Liberia’s President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, along with Presidents Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria, John Mahatma of Ghana, and Earnest Bai Koroma of Sierra Leone flew to the Gambia to encourage Jammeh to accept the results of the elections. Their efforts have so far failed, and ECOWAS is now considering additional steps to force Jammeh out of power. Senegal: Senegal is Gambia’s only neighbor, wielding significant influence on the politics and economy of the country. Jammeh and Senegal have never gotten along, and a number of blockades and boycotts since he came to power have stifled economic activities between the two countries. With Senegal and most of the world now backing the coalition, Jammeh’s options are getting very limited. Whatever decision ECOWAS takes, Senegal is sure to play a significant role. The Key Date January 18, 2017 will be the key date in the Gambia. That is the date Jammeh’s mandate officially ends. The opposition is planning to inaugurate President-elect Adama Barrow as the new president of the Gambia, and West African leaders have vowed to attend his inauguration. Will Jammeh allow Barrow to be sworn in as the new president of the Gambia? Will he allow other West African leaders landing rights to attend Barrow’s inauguration? Will Senegal and West Africa intervene to forcefully remove Jammeh? These are critical questions that will determine the future of the Gambia come January 18, 2017. The Way Forward Since independence in 1965, The Gambia has been a quiet and peaceful oasis in a tumultuous region—a fact that many of the nation’s two million people have guarded jealously. With this political impasse, the country risks sliding into an all-out conflict. The defeated president must hand over power to the elected president as he initially promised to do come inauguration day in January. Anything short of that will be devastating for the Gambia.

Below is a visualization and description of some of the most significant incidents of political violence in Nigeria from December 24, 2016 to December 30, 2016. This update also represents violence related to Boko Haram in Cameroon, Chad, and Niger. These incidents will be included in the Nigeria Security Tracker. var divElement = document.getElementById(’viz1483459627032’); var vizElement = divElement.getElementsByTagName(’object’)[0]; vizElement.style.width=’100%’;vizElement.style.height=(divElement.offsetWidth*0.75)+’px’; var scriptElement = document.createElement(’script’); scriptElement.src = ’https://public.tableau.com/javascripts/api/viz_v1.js’; vizElement.parentNode.insertBefore(scriptElement, vizElement); December 24: Suspected cultists killed eight in Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni, Rivers. December 25: A suicide bomber killed himself and two others in Mora, Cameroon. Boko Haram is suspected. December 25: Suspected Fulani herdsmen killed eleven in Jema’a, Kaduna. December 25: Unknown gunmen killed five in Aniocha North, Delta. December 26: One suicide bomber detonated and killed herself but no others; and a second suicide bomber was subsequently lynched by a mob in Maiduguri, Borno. Boko Haram is suspected. December 28: Gunmen attacked an All Progressives Congress chieftain, killing one in Ibi, Taraba. December 30: Nigerian troops killed fifteen Boko Haram militants in Kala/Balge, Borno.

On Christmas Eve, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari announced that the Nigerian army had driven the remnants of Boko Haram out of its last stronghold, the Sambisa Forest. A Nigerian army spokesman said that it had recovered Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau’s personal copy of the Koran and his flag from “Camp Zero,” apparently the Boko Haram headquarters. An army spokesman said that the chief of Army Staff would present the holy book to President Buhari. The army also said that it had arrested 1,240 suspected Boko Haram terrorists. However, on Christmas Day, Shekau made a new video–his first since September–in which he claimed that Boko Haram is “safe.” The video, twenty-five minutes long and in Hausa and Arabic, is typically defiant: “We are safe. We have not been flushed out of anywhere. And tactics and strategies cannot reveal our location except if Allah wills by his decree.” He also said, “The war is not over yet. There is still more… Our aim is to establish an Islamic caliphate and we have our own caliphate, we are not part of Nigeria.” He accused President Buhari of lying. What is the truth? The captured Koran and flag, if they truly belonged to Shekau, would indicate that the army had indeed occupied “Camp Zero.” On the other hand, the Nigeria Security Tracker shows continuing Boko Haram activity throughout December. The Shekau video appears to be authentic. Shekau’s rival within Boko Haram, Abu Musab al-Barnawi is silent, and Shekau made no reference to him. Neither the video nor the army have made reference to the whereabouts of the remaining Chibok school girls. Of the 1,240 “terrorists” the army claims to have arrested, a spokesman said 413 were adults (apparently male), 323 “female adults,” 251 were “male children,” and 253 were “female children.” The army spokesman said, “We are interrogating them to know whether they are Boko haram members, because there is no way somebody that is not their member would live inside Sambisa forest.” Perhaps. But the description of those arrested raises the possibility that at least some were civilians caught up in the war. A hypothesis is that both President Buhari and Abubakar Shekau are telling the truth: Boko Haram has indeed been pushed out of the Sambisa forest, but it has re-established its headquarters elsewhere in the Lake Chad Basin. Shekau is likely correct when he says the war is not yet over.

This is a guest post by Michael Clyne. Michael is an assistant director at Drum Cussac, a global risk management consultancy. When President Obama took office nearly eight years ago, his first national security test came within one-hundred days, not from al-Qaeda or the self-proclaimed Islamic State, but pirates. It was the rescue of Captain Richard Phillips, the merchant mariner kidnapped aboard U.S. container-ship Maersk Alabama off the Somali coast, which triggered the president’s first known standing order for lethal force. At the time, the Gulf of Aden, which separates the Middle East from East Africa, was the world’s piracy hotspot, spawned from the lawless destitution of lower Somalia. Flash forward a decade, and East Africa’s pirate problem has been largely tamed through a combination of multinational security and development measures. However, rather than receding, the threat has shifted westward to the Gulf of Guinea, where unsecured territorial waters fuse domestic militancy and international piracy. Today, West Africa’s maritime space is precarious, and worsening conditions there could precipitate a similar crisis as a new president takes office. The un-policed Gulf of Guinea waters off West Africa, namely Nigeria, have long overtaken the Gulf of Aden in recorded piracy attacks, endangering American lives and commerce, yet lack the headline-grabbing infamy of Somalia. That could change as Nigerian security offensives increasingly drive criminal networks offshore, causing more brazen attacks that target crew members rather than their cargo or devalued oil. Pirate kidnappings during the first nine months of 2016 more than doubled annual rates for 2015 and 2014, according to IHS Maritime & Trade, driven largely by Gulf of Guinea piracy. 2016 Gulf of Guinea attacks reported by International Maritime Bureau. Unlike the Gulf of Aden where crew members became captives aboard their own vessels, most Gulf of Guinea hostages are transferred onshore, to the Niger Delta, a lawless maze of mangrove swamps where governments have little reach. Within the past three weeks, Nigerian pirates have attacked two product tankers, a supply vessel, hijacked a gunboat, and kidnapped three international crew members; last month, they also attacked a Maersk container-ship, the same line and type as the Phillips hijacking. This trend not only puts crew members in significant danger, but also subjects the shipping industry to high costs, including the dilemma of ransom negotiation. Yet, West Africa’s web of territorial waters and regulations continue to hamper efforts to curtail piracy, precluding continuous military escorts or reliable trading routes as with the Gulf of Aden. In the constricted space that remains, multinational coordination represents the best opportunity to improve maritime security in and around Nigeria. Since his first meeting with President Obama in 2015, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has requested U.S. cooperation in combatting piracy off West Africa, where this month he called for a regional response. It’s in U.S. interest to agree with Mr. Buhari and engage Gulf of Guinea nations in a multinational preventative strategy, rather than a series of bilateral ones or solely interdiction exercises. And since the causes of offshore insecurity are rooted onshore, preventative approaches should address corruption and the other structural West Africa problems which enable piracy. Until then, the specter of piracy might pivot or transform, but not disappear, and return to haunt another administration.

Presidential spokesman Garba Shehu has confirmed that negotiations are ongoing to secure the release of the remaining Chibok schoolgirls held captive by Boko Haram. On the government side, the Department of State Service (DSS) leads the negotiations. Garba Shehu did not identify the Boko Haram interlocutors. He expressed optimism about the negotiations, but cautioned that they were still underway: “To my friends spreading the news of a further release of the Chibok girls, we not there yet.” Recently, army spokesman have said that the Nigerian military has rescued nearly 1900 other Boko Haram kidnap victims over the past week, but Reuters has been unable to verify the claim. The DSS, often called the State Security Service (SSS), is the leading domestic intelligence agency in Nigeria. It is part of the executive. At present Lawal Musa Darwa, a security professional with extensive DSS experience, heads it. At one time, he was responsible for the security of the Villa, the Abuja residence of the chief of state. A northern Muslim, President Buhari made him director of DSS in 2015. It is not clear the extent to which he is personally involved in the negotiations. The commendable caution of Garba Shehu makes his optimism about the ultimate success of the negotiations credible. The time may be approaching when most of the Chibok girls will be free. There have been a number of high-profile attempts to help re-integrate the girls into Nigerian society, but there are still many challenges.

Below is a visualization and description of some of the most significant incidents of political violence in Nigeria from December 17, 2016 to December 23, 2016. This update also represents violence related to Boko Haram in Cameroon, Chad, and Niger. These incidents will be included in the Nigeria Security Tracker. var divElement = document.getElementById(’viz1482848723421’); var vizElement = divElement.getElementsByTagName(’object’)[0]; vizElement.style.width=’100%’;vizElement.style.height=(divElement.offsetWidth*0.75)+’px’; var scriptElement = document.createElement(’script’); scriptElement.src = ’https://public.tableau.com/javascripts/api/viz_v1.js’; vizElement.parentNode.insertBefore(scriptElement, vizElement); December 18: Suspected Boko Haram militants killed one fisherman and attempted to kidnap sixteen others in Ngadiya, Borno (LGA unknown), but a counter-attack by Nigerian forces allowed them to only ultimately kidnap only one. December 18: A cult clash led to five deaths in Osogbo, Osun. December 18: Two suicide bombers killed themselves but no civilians in Maiduguri, Borno. Boko Haram is suspected. December 18: Sectarian violence led to twenty deaths in Gassol, Taraba. December 19: Continued sectarian violence led to seven deaths in Gassol, Taraba. December 22: Nigerian troops killed two would-be suicide bombers in Gwoza, Borno. Boko Haram is suspected. December 22: Nigerian troops killed two would-be suicide bombers in Mafa, Borno. Boko Haram is suspected. December 22: Armed robbers abducted a council chairman and killed a commissioner in Langtang South, Plateau. December 23: President Muhammadu Buhari claims to have taken the last Boko Haram stronghold in Sambisa, Borno. There were no casualty figures.

Below is a visualization and description of some of the most significant incidents of political violence in Nigeria from December 10, 2016 to December 16, 2016. This update also represents violence related to Boko Haram in Cameroon, Chad, and Niger. These incidents will be included in the Nigeria Security Tracker. var divElement = document.getElementById(’viz1482162831037’); var vizElement = divElement.getElementsByTagName(’object’)[0]; vizElement.style.width=’100%’;vizElement.style.height=(divElement.offsetWidth*0.75)+’px’; var scriptElement = document.createElement(’script’); scriptElement.src = ’https://public.tableau.com/javascripts/api/viz_v1.js’; vizElement.parentNode.insertBefore(scriptElement, vizElement); December 10: During the Rivers rerun election, electoral violence lead to two deaths in Gokana, Rivers. December 10: During the Rivers rerun election, an All Progressives Congress youth was killed in Emohua, Rivers. December 10: During the Rivers rerun election, electoral violence lead to two deaths in Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni, Rivers. December 10: A shootout between police and kidnappers led to the deaths of two kidnappers and one vigilante in Ganjuwa, Bauchi. December 11: Two suicide bombers killed themselves and seven others in Maiduguri, Borno. Boko Haram is suspected. December 12: Boko Haram killed a lieutenant colonel and one other in Guzamala, Borno. December 14: Suspected Fulani herdsmen killed fifteen in Chikun, Kaduna.

Maikanti Baru, the group managing director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company stated on December 14 that the company’s subsidiary Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC) lost 1.5 trillion naira (about $4.9 billion) from militant and criminal attacks on its oil production facilities to date in 2016. Baru went on to say that NPDC recorded fifty-nine separate security incidents that resulted in crude production being shut down or deferred. Based on recent recent years budgets, $4.9 billion is about 10 percent of the total annual budget of the Nigerian government. It is difficult to gauge the accuracy of Baru’s claim. Nevertheless, his statement is an indication of the magnitude of the losses of revenue from oil production suffered by the Nigerian state because of insurgent and criminal activity. These losses are especially acute during the current period of low oil prices.

Nigerians like to say that they are the happiest people in the world and the most religious. Public events commonly open and close with prayer. Causation of events, big or small is routinely ascribed to the divine. The population appears to be more-or-less evenly divided between Christians and Muslims. Among Christians, estimates are more than half of its adherents are Anglicans and Roman Catholics. But, there are a large number of other denominations independent of any of the more common faith traditions. They are particularly associated with televangelism and mega churches. TB Joshua, born in 1963, is one of the most successful of the independent preachers. His place of worship, The Synagogue, Church of All nations, attracts thousands of worshippers each Sunday. His Emmanuel TV station, based in Lagos, may be Nigeria’s largest in terms of viewers. Forbes claims he is the “third richest” pastor in Nigeria, which he denies. (Estimates of his personal wealth are in the range of ten to fifteen million U.S. dollars.) He regularly claims to work healing miracles and to prophesize. He is also regularly denounced by other Christian leaders from across the denominational spectrum, including pentecostals whom he sometimes superficially resembles. Among his prophesies was that Hillary Clinton would win the 2016 U.S. presidential election, as did much of the Nigerian media. Posted prominently on his website, Joshua’s prophesy was withdrawn shortly after the elections but later it was reinstated. In response to mocking criticism, Joshua is now arguing that his prophesy was correct–that Hillary Clinton won the most votes and therefore “won” the election. Joshua and his seemingly failed Clinton prophesy has been a focus of Nigerian media attention, especially in the south. It is an illustration of the importance that religion, and religiosity, plays in public life. But, the episode should not be taken as a rejection of the legitimacy of Donald Trump’s presidency because it will be achieved by the vote of the electoral college. For some or many Nigerians, Trump’s presidency, like much else, reflects the will of God.

Security service abuses in Nigeria, primarily by the army and the police, date from colonial times. Observers commonly accept that such abuses are an important driver of recruitment by Boko Haram and other insurgencies. There has been a drumbeat of criticism of the Jonathan and Buhari administrations’ seeming lack of action to curb the abuses. Of late, a focus of that criticism has been credible allegations of security service abuse of civilians, especially rape of women, in camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the northeast. Perhaps in response to the criticism, the director of defense information, Brigadier General Rabe Abubakar gave an interview to THISDAY. He insisted that the military is responding to episodes of rape: “on soldiers arrested for raping IDPs, we have said that if there is any case of sexual harassment and abuse, it will definitely attract the attention of the Nigerian Defense Headquarters (DHQ). Our position is that such cases must be investigated and those officers involved must be thoroughly dealt with.” He went on to say, “the DHQ has an internal administrative mechanism to deal with such cases. After investigations are concluded and the soldiers are found culpable, appropriate punishments including dismissal will be meted out.” Abubakar cited the specific case of a non-commissioned officer assaulting a ten year old girl, “he was given three years imprisonment in addition to his dismissal from the force. These are therefore offences that we do not tolerate.” Brigadier General Abubakar’s comments indicate that it is the security services that are addressing abuses by their own personnel, not a civilian agency or civilian courts. This is the practice of many other militaries, including the U.S. military. The challenge is that the Nigerian security services have little credibility among the general population with respect to addressing abuses.

Below is a visualization and description of some of the most significant incidents of political violence in Nigeria from December 3, 2016 to December 9, 2016. This update also represents violence related to Boko Haram in Cameroon, Chad, and Niger. These incidents will be included in the Nigeria Security Tracker. var divElement = document.getElementById(’viz1481566621384’); var vizElement = divElement.getElementsByTagName(’object’)[0]; vizElement.style.width=’100%’;vizElement.style.height=(divElement.offsetWidth*0.75)+’px’; var scriptElement = document.createElement(’script’); scriptElement.src = ’https://public.tableau.com/javascripts/api/viz_v1.js’; vizElement.parentNode.insertBefore(scriptElement, vizElement); December 3: One person was killed in a communal clash in Ikwo, Ebonyi. December 4: Nigerian troops battled Boko Haram militants, killing thirteen and losing one soldier in Kukawa, Borno. December 5: A battle between Nigerian troops and Boko Harm militants in Bama, Borno led to "heavy casualties" for Boko Haram (estimated at twenty) and the deaths of one soldier and one CJTF member. December 7: PDP and APC supporters clashed in Obi Ngwa, Abia, leading to a number of injuries. December 9: Two suicide bombers killed themselves and fifty-six others in Madagali, Adamawa. Boko Haram was suspected.  

Wole Soyinka, the first African to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature, says he has “torn up” his green card and left the United States to return to Nigeria. Soyinka’s act is in protest against the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president. During the campaign, Soyinka had said that he would leave the United States if Trump were elected. As reported in the British media, Soyinka said “I had a horror of what is to come with Trump… I threw away the card and I have relocated, and I’m back to where I have always been.” (Holders of a green card are alien permanent residents of the United States with most of the privileges of U.S. citizenship, including the ability to freely travel abroad.) Now 82, Soyinka has spent most of the past twenty years teaching at Ivy League universities in the United States, notably Harvard, Cornell, and Yale. A prolific playwright, poet, essayist, and novelist, perhaps his best known play to American audiences is “Death and the King’s Horseman.” He has long been a fierce critic of Nigerian governance. One military dictator, Sani Abacha, condemned him to death for treason in abstentia. Soyinka’s disengagement from the United States apparently has been widely anticipated on Nigerian social media. Now that he is back in Nigeria, Soyinka has gone a step further and announced a "funeral for Nigerian common sense" to coincide with President-Elect Donald J. Trump’s inauguration on January 20. His concerns are the rhetoric used by Trump, and the Nigerian response to the destruction of his green card. Soyinka is the most prominent African cultural personality to protest the Trump election victory.

Below is a visualization and description of some of the most significant incidents of political violence in Nigeria from November 26, 2016 to December 2, 2016. This update also represents violence related to Boko Haram in Cameroon, Chad, and Niger. These incidents will be included in the Nigeria Security Tracker. var divElement = document.getElementById(’viz1480948902672’); var vizElement = divElement.getElementsByTagName(’object’)[0]; vizElement.style.width=’100%’;vizElement.style.height=(divElement.offsetWidth*0.75)+’px’; var scriptElement = document.createElement(’script’); scriptElement.src = ’https://public.tableau.com/javascripts/api/viz_v1.js’; vizElement.parentNode.insertBefore(scriptElement, vizElement); November 26: Nigerian troops killed thirty Boko Haram militants in Bama, Borno. November 27: Gunmen kidnapped seven in Epe, Lagos. November 28: A communal clash led to forty deaths in Bassa, Kogi. November 28: Gunmen killed a policeman and three others in Nasarawa Egon, Nasarawa. November 28: Police killed three robbers in Port Harcourt, Rivers. December 1: Unknown gunmen killed ten in Ohaji/Egbema, Imo.

Amnesty International has published a report claiming that the Nigerian military killed some 150 pro-Biafra demonstrators between August 2015 and August 2016. Amnesty analyzed 87 videos, 122 photographs, and took the testimony of 146 witnesses. It concludes that “the military fired live ammunition with little or no warning” into crowds of demonstrators. Amnesty also has “evidence of mass extrajudicial executions by security forces” of demonstrators calling for an independent Igbo state. Despite official military denials, the Amnesty report, like  other reports of Nigerian military abuse, is credible. The 1967-70 Biafran civil war still haunts Nigeria. Against a backdrop of military coups and anti-Christian, anti-Igbo pogroms in the north, Igbos attempted to secede from Nigeria and form the independent state of Biafra. In the civil war that followed, an estimated one million died before Biafra was re-incorporated into Nigeria. Then-military chief of state Yakubu Gowon followed a general policy of “no victors, no vanquished,” and the former Biafra and the Igbo were quickly re-integrated into the Nigerian state. However, Igbos continue to complain of a “glass ceiling” and myriad other forms of discrimination. Especially during periods of economic difficulty, sentiment for Biafra resurges. Government response to Biafra sentiment is rarely subtle. Since Nigeria’s 1999 restoration of civilian government, there have been recurring, credible reports of military massacres of civilians and of extra-judicial killings. Some of the better known include the 2001 military killing of more than one hundred civilians near Zaki-Biam in Benue state in retaliation for the killing of nineteen soldiers. Another was the killing of Muhammed Yusuf and several hundred of his followers in 2009, an episode that led to the emergence of Boko Haram. Amnesty International and the western press documented the military’s massacre of hundreds of detainees at Giwa barracks in 2014. In 2015, the military massacred several hundred Shia in Zaria. Official commissions investigate the killings and produce reports. Yet, thus far, the military killings continue. As part of an effort to forestall possible military coups, successive civilian governments have starved the Nigerian military of resources. Further, the massacres usually take place in circumstances and situations where in other countries it would be the police, not the military, which would take action. But, the Nigerian police is weaker than the military, even if much more numerous. Ever since colonial times, it has been the military that governments have used to restore domestic order, not the police. Yet, as its defenders say, the military is not trained or equipped to fulfill a police function. Further, genuine civilian command-and-control of the military remains an aspiration.

Below is a visualization and description of some of the most significant incidents of political violence in Nigeria from November 19, 2016 to November 25, 2016. This update also represents violence related to Boko Haram in Cameroon, Chad, and Niger. These incidents will be included in the Nigeria Security Tracker. var divElement = document.getElementById(’viz1480357510961’); var vizElement = divElement.getElementsByTagName(’object’)[0]; vizElement.style.width=’100%’;vizElement.style.height=(divElement.offsetWidth*0.75)+’px’; var scriptElement = document.createElement(’script’); scriptElement.src = ’https://public.tableau.com/javascripts/api/viz_v1.js’; vizElement.parentNode.insertBefore(scriptElement, vizElement); November 19: A suicide bomber was shot dead before they could detonate at an IDP camp in Maiduguri, Borno. Boko Haram is suspected. November 19: Nigerian troops killed seven Boko Haram militants in Kukawa, Borno. November 19: Nigerian troops killed eleven Boko Haram militants in Bama, Borno. November 19: Bandits killed two policemen and twenty-three others in Zurmi, Zamfara. November 20: Sectarian violence led to the deaths of ten in Abi, Cross River. November 21: Boko Haram killed six Cameroonian soldiers and one vigilante in Darak, Cameroon. November 21: Cameroonian troops killed a Boko Haram suicide bomber before they could detonate in Kolofata, Cameroon. November 22: Eleven were killed in a clash between police and hunters in Ona Ara, Oyo (the relative number of police and hunters killed is unknown). November 23: A suicide bomber killed himself and one other in Maiduguri, Borno. Boko Haram was suspected. November 23: Boko Haram killed five Nigerian soldiers in Askira/Uba, Borno. November 23: Fulani herdsmen killed eight in Sabuwa, Katsina. November 24: 1 Boko Haram suicide bomber killed herself and another was gunned down by Cameroonian soldiers in Mora, Cameroon.