That proposition comes from Jacob Udo-Udo Jacob, a digital journalism professor at American University of Nigeria and author of a forthcoming paper on a 2013 cellphone blackout that the Nigerian government imposed to counter the Islamist insurgent group.
“Shutting down mobile phones to curb insurgency is tantamount to throwing away the baby with the bath water,” states Jacob’s paper, titled “Silencing Boko Haram: Mobile Phone Blackout and Counterinsurgency in Nigeria’s Northeast Region.”
The paper, which is being published next month in Stability: International Journal of Security & Development, says that, while more insurgents from Boko Haram were captured or killed during the cellphone blackout and attacks were lessened, the blackout may have ended up helping Boko Haram.
“While the shutdown helped reduce Boko Haram attacks in the short term, it did inspire the sect to make the important strategic move of relocating members to the Sambisa forest,” the paper states. “Moreover it fundamentally altered the nature of their operations, resulting in a more closed, centralized system rather than the previous open, cell or networked system.
“While the mobile phone blackout helped checkmate Boko Haram in the short term, it forced the group to develop new coping strategies and to evolve.”
The paper notes that more insurgents from Boko Haram were captured and killed and that attacks from the group lessened during the cellphone blackout, which took place between May 23 and July 12, 2013, in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe—three states in northeastern Nigeria.
