'Glory days' translate into killings, kidnapping, hunger

Boko Haram said it is building an Islamic state that will revive the glory days of northern Nigeria's medieval Muslim empires, but for those in its territory, life is a litany of killings, kidnappings, hunger and economic collapse.

The Islamist group's 5-year-old campaign has become one of the deadliest in the world, with around 10,000 people killed last year, according to the Council on Foreign Relations. Hundreds, mostly women and children, have been kidnapped.

It remains the biggest threat to the stability of Africa's biggest economy ahead of a vote on Feb 14 in which President Goodluck Jonathan will seek re-election.

But while it has matched the Islamic State group in its brutality, it has seriously lagged in the more-mundane business of state building.

"The Islamic State is a figment of their imagination. They are just going into your house and saying they have taken over," said Phineas Elisha, government spokesman for Adamawa state, one of three states under emergency rule to fight the insurgency.

"They have no form of government," said Elisha, who saw the devastation caused by Boko Haram after government forces recaptured the town of Mubi in November.

Boko Haram, which never talks to media except to deliver jihadist videos to local journalists, could not be reached for comment.

Islamic empire

Boko Haram's leaders talk about reviving one of the West African Islamic empires, but they demonstrate little evidence of state building.

In August a man saying he was Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau - the military says it killed Shekau - issued a video declaring a "Muslim territory" in Gwoza, by the Cameroon border.

There were echoes of the Islamic State group's proclaimed caliphate in Iraq and Syria two months earlier. Boko Haram controls an area just over 30,000 square kilometers of territory, about the size of Belgium, according to a Reuters calculation based on security sources and government data.

Those who escaped Boko Haram say the rebels do little for them beyond forcing them to adopt their brand of Islam on pain of death.

"They provide raw rice to cook, the rice that they stole from the shops. They provide a kettle and ... scarves to cover up the women," said Maryam Peter from Pambla village. "People are going hungry. They are only feeding on corn and squash. No meat, nothing like that."

A government-run camp in a former school is now her home, along with 1,000 others, where mothers cook on outdoor fires while children run around. Some 1.5 million people have been rendered homeless by the war, Oxfam says.

And those the militants kill, they often fail to bury. The first thing the Nigerian Red Cross has to do when a town falls back into government hands is clear the corpses, Aliyu Maikano, a Red Cross official, told Reuters.