At the moment, Nigerian President Muhammad Buhari is able to stop the violence by pushing the Islamists to the vast Sambisa forests of the Borno State. However, what worries many experts in the field is ISIS’ growing influence in Boko Haram’s daily affairs. It would be really difficult for Buhari to eliminate Boko Haram, if ISIS makes inroads into Nigeria
Boko Haram is a Sunni Islamic group based in north of Nigeria. Its only aim is to establish Sharia law. In fact, the origin of Boko Haram is inseparable from the long history of the Hausa people of northern Nigeria, who have strong Islamic roots in the past. Since 1804, most of the Hausas were actively ruled by the Fulani Muslims, who conquered the old Hausa chiefdoms in a jehad launched by Shehu Othman Dan Fodio. He literally launched a war against the corruption-ridden Hausa regime. The jehad led to the establishment of the Sokoto Caliphate, largely based on the credentials of the Sharia law. Therefore, what Boko Haram tries to impose on its people have its deep roots in their long past, which even the British could hardly destroy.
But many experts say that Boko Haram has its roots in the Maitatsine riots of 1980s. Muahammed Marwa, known popularly as Maitatsine and less commonly as Tatsine, was a controversial Islamic preacher in the Kano State of Nigeria. He was known for his anti-State pronouncements and at times even against the Haddith and Sunnah. His militant followers, known as Yan Tatsine, were famous for wreaking havoc on Nigerian Government authorities. In December 1980, his followers mounted attack on other religious figures and on State security forces. This followed swift mobilisation of the Army against Maitatsine and his cadre, leading to the death of the cult leader. To some experts, Boko Haram leaders derived its legacies from the historic Maitastine riots. And interestingly, it was Muhammad Buhari, then Army General and current President, who was instrumental in bringing an end to the Maitastine riots. But then the riots spread to various parts of Nigeria and took violent turns.
Since the Maitastine riots in Kano, the north of Nigeria has witnessed several other crises, each with its own idiosyncratic challenges. However, the message coming out from all these are loud and clear: an undercurrent against the successive regimes in Abuja had solidly taken its root. But unfortunately, the authorities in the capital city had viewed them simply as a law and order problem. This was probably the biggest mistake the Nigerian Government had done so far, and this directly escalated Boko Haram’s brutalities. Moreover, it has gradually alienated the Hausa people from the mainstream of Nigeria. Needless to say that those who are familiar with the uneasy relationship of the State with the rebels can safely say that Boko Haram is a metamorphosis of the earlier unresolved religious clashes. Precisely, evidence shows that the ideology followed by Boko Haram is in tandem with the ones pronounced by fiery clerics like Maitatsine, Kala Kato and some others who displayed loyalty more towards the Hadith than to the Quran.
The current Boko Haram was established in 2002 under the leadership of Mohammed Yusuf in the city of Maiduguri. His aim was to bring a Sharia Government in the Borno State in northern Nigeria. He began with the establishment of a religious complex in his hometown which included a mosque and a school. It was a gathering point for many poor children from both Nigeria and the neighbouring countries, initially for educational purpose. However, soon the educational centre turned into a recruitment ground for jehad against the Nigerian State. It was so popular at one point that it attracted as big as 2,80,000 members from across northern Nigeria and from neighbouring Chad and Niger. The present name of the group is also contested. Its full name is “Jamaatu Ahlis Sunnah ladda’awatih wal-jehad” or “People Committed to the Propagation of the Prophet’s Teachings and Jehad”. This name has been abbreviated as JASlW or JAS. And many call it as the “Yusufiah sect” (after its founder Mohammed Yusuf), the Nigerian Taliban and lately as the Islamic State of Africa. The Boko Haram base in Kannama in the Yobe State near the Niger border is locally known as “Afghanistan”.
The term Boko Haram is derived from the Hausa word “book” which refers to “book” and the Arabic word “haram” for “forbidden”. Put together, Boko Haram means “western education is forbidden”. But it seems the meaning, context and the current narratives of Boko Haram go much beyond secular education. In an interview to the BBC, Mohammed Yusuf said, “Western-style education is mixed with issues that run contrary to our beliefs in Islam.” later, the outfit took on western civilisation and institutions, which includes democracy, modern science and western education.
Boko Haram’s ideology is based in radical Salafism. Its followers are solely guided by the Quranic phrase: “Anyone who is not governed by what Allah has revealed is among the transgressors.” They also justify the ouster of the secular regimes as the rulers of such States are seen as the ones who either follow the western-style governance or show leanings towards the enemies of Islam. Besides, “Yan Boko” is a phrase used to describe the elite created by the policy of indirect rule used by the British to colonise Nigeria — “the people who have had their heads turned away from Allah by easy money and corrupting Western values”.
Therefore, such people are widely seen as “spiritually and morally corrupt”, lacking in religious piety, and guilty of criminally enriching oneself rather than dedicating oneself to the Muslim umma (community). When it comes to reality, Boko Haram does not altogether reject the use of modern scientific tools. Needless to say that the Islamists are not averse to resorting to latest information and communication technologies for meeting their own needs. Thus, they are not too far from the potential impacts of the giant waves of globalisation.
Boko Haram started its operations around 2007 when Sheikh Ja’afar Mahmoud Adam was assassinated in a mosque in Kano State. But the peak came when the clash took place between Boko Haram fighters and the Nigerian security forces as the former refused to wear motorcycle helmets. These pitched battles between the two sides across the States of Borno, Bauchi, Kano and Yobe resulted into the death of their revered leader Yusuf in police custody. The clash popularly known as the “Boko Haram riots of 26-30 July” finally set the stage for another brutal war against the Government of one of the most powerful countries of the continent. It forced many of the disciples of Yusuf to flee to Niger, Mali, Cameroon and Algeria. This was the time when Yusuf’s former deputy Abubaker Shekau, who moved to northern Cameroon, took over and since then the jehadis have expanded their base and cadre much beyond north-eastern Nigeria. And then in June 2010, the leader of the Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), Abu Mousab Abdel Wadoud, “announced that his group would provide support, weapons, and training to Boko Haram”. Many believed that with the support of the AQIM, under the leadership of Shekau, the Islamists had spiralled their violent chain of activities, most notable ones being the jail break in Bauchi in September 2010, attack on the police headquarters in Abuja in June 2011, and the bombing on the UN office in the same capital city. The most disturbing trend observed in the last two incidents was the beginning of the suicide attack by the group. Notably, the attack on the UN building came months after the killing of Osama bin laden in Pakistan.
In 2013, John Campbell aptly described the background behind the members of the militant outfit: “The revolt’s foot soldiers are drawn from unemployed youth in northern Nigeria, a region of profound poverty. Many of them attended Islamic schools where they learned little other than to memorise the Quran. Often they are children of peasants, rootless if not homeless, in a big city. They can bond through a common radical Islamic sensibility, inchoate rage, and the prospect of earning a little money as terrorists.” This indicates that it is not only a religious sentiment that binds them together to fight the infidels, but also what forces them to continue the war against the Nigerian State is their abject poverty. Years of neglect and mis-governance of Abuja certainly stoked the youth’s fire. And the same is further compounded by the long-drawn teachings of Yusuf in his madrasa.
Apart from its dastardly killings, Boko Haram made the international headlines when it kidnapped more than 200 schoolgirls from Chibok town in the Borno State in April 2014. later the rebels said that it would treat these girls as slaves and marry them off, by making a reference to an ancient Islamic belief that women captured in conflict are considered as war booty. Still they are in their captivity and no one knows what happened to them. What once again brought them to the mainstream of global Islamic jehad was Shekau’s declaration of a caliphate in August 2014 in areas under Boko Haram’s control. He even proclaimed, “We have nothing to do with Nigeria. We don’t believe in this name.” And by March 2015, he formally pledged allegiance to ISIS, moving out of the Al-Qaeda stranglehold. later, ISIS accepted the pledge, naming the territory under the rebels command as the Islamic State of West Africa Province and as being part of the global caliphate it was trying to establish.
But then the widespread news that Boko Haram’s leadership has been changed from Shekau to Abu Musab al-Barnawi last August has brought confusion to both the Government and the cadre of the insurgent group. This could be an attempt to dislodge Shekau from the top leadership by his defectors. However, he clearly refuses to accept the division in his group. Though Nigeria’s military has declared that Boko Haram is nearly finished, many believe that it is an exaggeration. The clear proof of the same came when the outfit launched attack on the Government forces this year and killed more than 10. It once again reminded the group’s brutality across the northern part of the country.
What road lies ahead for President BuhariIJ Will he be able to contain or completely eliminate Boko Haram from the Nigerian soilIJ Hopefully, he will be in a position to stop the violence of the Islamists for now, as most of them are being pushed to the vast Sambisa forests of the Borno State, one of the strongholds of Boko Haram. What worries many experts in the field is that if ISIS becomes more active in Boko Haram’s daily affairs, it would be really difficult for Buhari to eliminate them. Also, the involvement of ISIS may offer a new dimension to the conflict in Nigeria. With the winding down of the major parts of the territories of ISIS in Iraq and in Syria, ISIS may gradually see its African constituents rising in the days to come.
(The writer is Senior Editor, The Pioneer)