Jobs, not religious doctrine, the lure for people to join Africa’s militant groups: UN

Geneva, Switzerland (AFP):

Poverty and the prospect of better-paid work, rather than religious ideology, are what fuel recruitment to violent groups in Africa, the United Nations said Tuesday.

The conclusion debunks the preconceived notion that religious doctrine is the main lure for joining groups like Boko Haram, al-Shabaab and the Al-Qaeda-linked Support Group for Islam and Muslims (GSIM).

The UN Development Programme (UNDP) in 2021 interviewed nearly 2,200 people across eight countries torn by violent militancy — Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Somalia and Sudan.

The interviews included nearly 1,200 former members of radical groups, of whom nearly 900 had joined voluntarily while the others had been coerced.

Of those who had voluntarily joined, a quarter said the prospect of paid work had been their primary motive, UNDP said in a report.

That marks a 92-percent increase for that justification, compared to its previous report on the issue in 2017.

“In many countries… the lack of income, the lack of job opportunities, livelihoods, desperation is essentially pushing people to take up opportunities with whoever offers them,” UNDP chief Achim Steiner told journalists.

Another 22 percent said they joined to be with family or friends.

Religious motivations came in third, cited by just 17 percent as the main reason for joining.

‘Tipping point’ 

In contrast, nearly half the respondents cited a specific trigger event that also pushed them to join — 71 percent pointed to an abuse, often by state security forces, as “the tipping point.”

“It is one of the sad realities that in the context of trying to push back on violent extremism, often the state itself becomes a trigger factor,” Steiner said.

Properly defining what is driving violent extremism in sub-Saharan Africa is vital, at a time when the region is seeing surging numbers of attacks.

Deaths from terrorism have declined in the rest of the world over the past five years, but attacks south of the Sahara have more than doubled since 2016, the UNDP said.

Between 2017 and 2021, there were 4,155 attacks in the eight countries listed in the report, UNDP said, putting the number of resulting deaths at over 18,400.

In 2021, nearly half of all terrorism-related deaths were in this region, with more than one-third in just four countries: Somalia, Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali.