USA Africa Dialogue Series - Boko Haram: Terrorists With or Without Designation

Numerous petitions and efforts in Congress have not succeeded in pressuring the U.S. State Department to designate the northern Nigerian jihadists Boko Haram as a "Foreign Terrorist Organization" (FTO). But on Thursday, July 25, a Washington, DC-based Northern Nigeria Task Force comprised of numerous Christian, human rights, global security, and Nigerian-American organizations¹ released an open letter to Secretary of State John Kerry urging once again the FTO designation for Boko Haram. The letter was accompanied by a 44-page brief, compiled by Jubilee Campaign and its Nigeria project, Just for Jos+, detailing the origins and history of the terrorist group along with a list of atrocities committed. The brief provides ample documentation for Kerry to create the necessary administrative record to determine that Boko Haram is well within the statutory criteria for designation as a foreign terrorist organization, if he should wish to do so.

The release of the letter followed a Capitol Hill briefing and press conference with the President of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor. CAN represents some 80 million Christians, but northern Nigeria's Christian population has suffered severe blows from Boko Haram and other Nigerian jihadists. Pastor Oritsejafor gave a name and a story to the massive suffering of the Christians of northern Nigeria. He spoke about receiving text messages "every week" about a church being burned or a pastor killed or church members targeted in the streets. With pain in his voice, Oritsejafor told how the Secretary of CAN for Borno State in northeastern Nigeria, Rev. Faye Pama Musa, was dragged out of his house and shot to death in front of his daughter who had been pleading for his life.

Stories of these human lives snuffed out, of men and women of God martyred for their faith, of tiny children-casualties of jihad have not seemed to move the State Department to action against these terrorists. The fact that the U.S. Congress, and even the Department of Justice, has urged FTO designation has not changed the foreign policy of Foggy Bottom. The Nigerian government officially identified Boko Haram as a terrorist organization on June 4, 2013, and on July 8, the British government began the process of adding Boko Haram to its list of foreign and domestic terrorist organizations. But although the Obama Administration has offered a bounty for Boko Haram leader Abubaker Shekau, they have not followed suit, so in the July 25 letter to Secretary, the Northern Nigeria Task Force reminded Secretary Kerry that the "Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 ('AEDPA'), 8 U.S.C. §1189 (amended 2004)" empowers him to designate any entity as a foreign terrorist organization if it meets the necessary criteria of "engaging in terrorist activity" and that such terrorist activity "threatens the security of United States nationals or the national security of the United States." Read More

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