What do terrorists want?

On Thursday, January 27, 2011, J. K. Randle International hosted a security summit (land, air, and aea) which focused on the security challenges which were already festering in Nigeria. The venue was the huge new banquet hall of Eko Hotel and Suites, Victoria Island, Lagos.

The turnout was truly amazing as papers were delivered by security experts not only from Nigeria but from different parts of the world. The presence of Nigerians from the diaspora and their very robust scholarly contributions provided solid proof that their sojourn in foreign parts had not blunted their patriotic zeal.

The National Security Adviser, General Owoye Andrew Azazi (CFR), was the Guest of Honour; and the Chief of Army Staff, Lt-General Onyeabo Azubuike Ihejirika, was represented by GOC 18 Division (Lagos) (General Officer Commanding) Brigadier-General K.T.J. Minimah, who later became Chief of Army Staff.

Afterwards, all attempts to ensure that the recommendations were followed with action fell on deaf ears.  The only outcome was the award of a N10 billion contract to a Chinese company for the installation of CCTV cameras in Abuja. Here we are, 15 years afterwards; the contract appears to have gone the way of so many abandoned projects.

The House of Representatives has resolved to investigate the $460 million closed-circuit television project awarded to a Chinese firm (ZTE Corporation) for surveillance in Abuja, following concerns that the system has remained non-functional despite Nigeria servicing the loan obtained for it.

This followed a motion of urgent national importance that was moved on Wednesday by Amobi Ogah (LP, Abia) during the plenary, where lawmakers decried the continuous repayment of the loan obtained for the abandoned security infrastructure.

It appears to have joined the list of Nigeria’s Abandoned Projects – A Colossal Waste of Resources.

“Nigeria’s infrastructure deficit is made worse by countless abandoned or failed projects, leading to severe economic losses. Key national projects such as the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, East-West Road, and the Abuja Millennium Tower remain incomplete, wasting billions of naira.

“Successive administrations often neglect or abandon these projects, leading to inefficiency and wasted resources. With over 56,000 abandoned projects valued at an estimated N17 trillion, a systematic approach to project management is urgently needed. We must reflect on the scale of this waste, the reasons behind it, and potential solutions, including a national policy for the continuity of projects across administrations.”

However, before the year ended, two incidents jolted our nation.  The first was the attempt to assassinate the Inspector-General of Police Hafiz Ringim. Terrorists followed his convoy right into Louis Edet House, the Police Headquarters in Abuja.

The first suicide bombing in Nigeria’s history occurred on 16 June 2011, when a suicide bomber drove a car bomb onto the premises of the Louis Edet House in Abuja, the headquarters of the Nigeria Police Force.

He may have been trying to kill Inspector-General of Police, Hafiz Ringim, whose convoy he followed into the compound, but he was stopped by security before he could do so.

It was confirmed that the bomber and a traffic policeman were killed, although authorities said there may have been up to six casualties.

It was the first suicide bombing in Nigeria’s history. A suicide bomber named Mohammed Manga drove a car bomb into the premises of the police headquarters.

The second was the bombing of the United Nations office in Abuja. One of the casualties was Sarah Feese, the daughter of a former Minister of Works and Housing, Mr Ambrose Feese.

The United Nations House in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, home to 26 UN agencies and programmes, was struck by a car bomb on 26 August 2011. A total of 23 people were killed.  Eleven were UN staff, including one international staff member. More than 80 were wounded.

A bomb blast ripped through the United Nations offices in the Nigerian capital of Abuja, heavily damaging the building and killing at least 18 people, after a car rammed into the building and crashed through two security barriers.

The United Nations Security Council issued a statement denouncing as a “heinous crime” the bombing of the UN headquarters in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, that killed at least 18 people.

The August 26 car bombing was claimed by Boko Haram, which is described as a radical Muslim sect that has been waging a sectarian battle against Nigeria’s central government.

Boko Haram is translated from the Hausa language to mean “Western education is sinful.”

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said 26 UN humanitarian and development agencies were housed in the compound. Hundreds of people were at work there at the time of the attack.

Ban described the attack as an assault on those who devote their lives to helping others, and said the UN condemned it “utterly.”

Ban added that the attack would not deter the UN from doing vital work for the people of Nigeria and the rest of the world.

U.S. President Barack Obama was among world leaders who condemned the attack. Obama said in a statement that “an attack on Nigerian and international public servants demonstrates the bankruptcy of the ideology” of the militants who carried out the attack.

Mike Zuokumor, police commissioner for the Abuja region, told journalists that a suicide bomber was behind the blast, which he said occurred when a car laden with explosives rammed into the building.

“A vehicle, loaded with explosives, drove against traffic, entered the exit gate, smashed it, got to the second gate, smashed it, went to the reception, detonated, and the man inside the vehicle died,” Zuokumor said.

Between 2011 and now, the security situation in our nation has deteriorated far beyond what previously prevailed.  In retrospect, I wish I had distributed many more copies of the book: ‘What Terrorists Want: Understanding the Enemy, Containing The Threat,’ by Professor Louise Richardson, who was then the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford, to the participants at the J.K. Randle International Security Summit:

Professor Dame Louise Richardson is President of the Carnegie Corporation of New York. She was previously Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford, and Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University of St Andrews.

A native of Ireland, she studied history at Trinity College, Dublin before gaining a PhD from Harvard University, where she spent twenty years on the faculty of the Harvard Government Department and later as Executive Dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. She currently sits on the boards of the Carnegie Corporation of New York and numerous charities including the Booker Prize Foundation.

A political scientist by training, she is recognised internationally as an expert on terrorism and counter-terrorism. Her book What Terrorists Want: Understanding the Enemy, Containing the Threat (2006) is widely accepted as one of the most influential in the field.

Her awards include the Sumner Prize for work towards the prevention of war and the establishment of universal peace, and honorary doctorates from the Universities of Aberdeen, Edinburgh and St Andrews in Scotland; Trinity College Dublin and Queen’s College Belfast in Ireland; Moscow State Institute of International Relations in Russia; Notre Dame University in the USA and the University of the West Indies.

She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the Academy of Social Sciences in the United Kingdom, an Honorary Member of the Royal Irish Academy and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. She was made DBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2022.

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After a seven-year term as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford, she joined the Carnegie Corporation of New York as President in January 2023.

Louise Richardson is a member of the Booker Prize Foundation’s board of trustees. This is the full breakdown, the way she teaches it at Harvard University:

Louise Richardson, an internationally recognised expert on international security who spent 20 years on the faculty at Harvard University’s Department of Government, structured her foundational teachings on political violence around a distinct, logical framework.

Most famous for her definitive book What Terrorists Want: Understanding the Enemy, Containing the Threat, she views terrorists not as irrational lunatics, but as rational political actors operating under specific tactical motivations.

Richardson emphasises a precise, strict definition to cut through emotional and political rhetoric: “Terrorism, simply put, means deliberately and violently targeting civilians for political purposes.”

Political motivation: Without a political purpose, an act is a conventional crime, not terrorism.

Targeting non-combatants: It is a tactic characterised by targeting civilians.

Sub-state actors: She focuses her primary framework on sub-state groups rather than sovereign states.

Applying her three wants plus three needs to Boko Haram/ISWAP we have: The Three R’s (what terrorists want short-term)

While terrorist organisations seek sweeping political changes in the long term, Richardson teaches that their immediate, near-term actions are driven by a “lethal triple cocktail” known as the three R’s.

Revenge: Retaliating against perceived injustices, military occupations, or humiliations suffered by their community.

Renown: Gaining media coverage and public attention to elevate their cause out of obscurity.

Reaction: Goading an adversary (usually a government) into overreacting. An excessive military response helps the terrorists by validating their narrative and driving new recruits into their arms.

These three Rs are the immediate, proximate desires that drive a group’s day-to-day tactical decisions and violence.

Revenge: Terrorists usually seek vengeance for perceived historical humiliations, state violence, or systemic injustices inflicted upon their community. Its application – When analysing an attack, look at who the target represents. Attacks are often calculated to avenge a specific event, like a government raid, military strike, or restrictive law.

Renown: Terrorists desire publicity, global attention, and glory for their cause. An attack is a symbolic message meant to show strength and draw recruits. Its application – Mass media and social media footprints are key metrics here. Highly visible, shocking attacks (such as hijacking or livestreamed violence) are executed specifically to command news cycles and force the world to acknowledge their presence.

Reaction: Terrorists deliberately look to provoke a chaotic response or state overreaction. By baiting a government into heavy-handed military crackdowns, curfew restrictions, or mass arrests, the terrorists successfully radicalise the moderate local population. Its application: Counterterrorism strategies apply this by opting for measured, intelligence-led police work rather than massive military operations that risk playing directly into the group’s traps.

How they survive – Her second 3R’s

1. Recruits: Not just poor. When security forces crack down harshly or indiscriminately on a community, it alienates locals and generates a fresh wave of willing recruits.
2. Resources: They seek passive backing, shelter, and silence from local populations who share cultural, ethnic, or grievances-based ties.
3. Reward: Groups with deep ethnonationalist roots tend to last the longest because their identity is fused with the survival and narrative of a specific population.

What Richardson would recommend for Nigeria.

1. Law, not just war
2. Separate them from the community
3. Don’t give renown
4. Intelligence over tanks
5. Patience.

In short:  Boko Haram wants you to be angry, scared and overreacting.  The way to beat them is to be calm, lawful and smarter.

Richardson’s book, What Terrorists Want: Understanding the Enemy, Containing the Threat, was published in 2006. Because of this, she does not mention the names of later Boko Haram leaders like Abubakar Shekau or Malam Ibrahim Shekarau (the former Governor of Kano State) in relation to the Nigerian terrorist crisis, as the group’s violent, global notoriety did not escalate until the 2009 uprising and subsequent years.

Researchers frequently use Richardson’s famous “Three Rs” framework—which states that secondary terrorist motives are driven by Revenge, Renown, and Reaction—and apply it to northern Nigerian figures.

How can the most powerful country in the world feel so threatened by an enemy infinitely weaker than we are? How can loving parents and otherwise responsible citizens join terrorist movements? How can anyone possibly believe that the cause of Islam can be advanced by murdering passengers on a bus or an aeroplane?

In this important new book, ground-breaking scholar Louise Richardson answers these questions and more, providing an indispensable guide to the greatest challenge of our age.

After defining–once and for all–what terrorism is, Richardson explores its origins, its goals, what’s to come, and what is to be done about it. Having grown up in rural Ireland and watched her friends join the Irish Republican Army, Richardson knows from firsthand experience how terrorism can both unite and destroy a community.

As a professor at Harvard, she has devoted her career to explaining terrorist movements throughout history and around the globe. From the biblical Zealots to the medieval Islamic Assassins to the anarchists who infiltrated the cities of Europe and North America at the turn of the last century, terrorists have struck at enemies far more powerful than themselves with targeted acts of violence.

Yet Richardson understands that terrorists are neither insane nor immoral. Rather, they are rational political actors who often deploy carefully calibrated tactics in a measured and reasoned way. What is more, they invariably go to great lengths to justify their actions to themselves, their followers, and, often, the world.

Richardson shows that the nature of terrorism did not change after the attacks of September 11, 2001; what changed was our response.

She argues that the Bush administration’s “global war on terror” was doomed to fail because of an ignorance of history, a refusal to learn from the experience of other governments, and a fundamental misconception about how and why terrorists act. As an alternative, Richardson offers a feasible strategy for containing the terrorist threat and cutting off its grassroots support.

The most comprehensive and intellectually rigorous account of terrorism yet, What Terrorists Want is a daring intellectual tour de force that allows us, at last, to reckon fully with this major threat to today’s global order.

Abubakar Shekau: Academic papers regularly use Richardson’s concepts to explain why the former Boko Haram leader used highly unvarnished, aggressive YouTube videos to gain international renown and provoke heavy-handed government reactions.

Ibrahim Shekarau: Other political-religious analyses discuss Malam Ibrahim Shekarau’s tenure as Governor of Kano State (2003–2011) and his implementation of Sharia law alongside the socio-political climate that birthed radicalism in Northern Nigeria during the exact era Richardson’s book was published.