Contrary to the belief of the United States Department of Justice, Former Ambassador of the country to Nigeria, Ambassador John Campbell has said that Boko Haram, an Islamic Sect terrorising the Northern parts of Nigeria was different from Foreign Terrorist Organisations (FTOs).
In his latest publication which was co-authored by Mr. Asch Harwood, John Campbell, a Ralph Bunche Senior Fellow for Africa Policy Studies, said that Boko Haram was different from other FTOs, such as Hezbollah, Hamas, or the Tamil Tigers, which had an organisational structure and a unified goal.
The former United States Envoy added that Boko Haram was a highly diffuse movement with little central organisation, stressing that the name “Boko Haram” was a label applied only by the Nigerian government, press, and security services, usually to describe the violence occurring daily in the northern parts of the country.
The American Scholar who was one of the twenty Scholars that recently sent a letter to the Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton to warn the United States government against its moves to designate Boko Haram as a foreign terrorist group, pressed further that most watchers agree that the violence in the Northern part of Nigeria was perpetrated by a myriad of actors, including former followers of the murdered preacher Mohammed Yusuf as well as criminal and other elements.