The violence in northern Nigeria deepened the fissure between the country's Muslims and Christians
Imagine this. A right-wing fundamentalist organisation is set up
in a poverty-ridden African nation. Its name itself reflects its ideology – to oppose anything western. It is run by a western-educated leader, Yusuf, who sends his children to private English-medium school. An affluent member of nation’s middle-class, Yusuf boasts of a fleet of cars (of course, all of them of western make), and loves to ride his chauffeured Mercedes SUV. It is completely another matter that his comrades and henchmen are asked to forsake wealth for the sake of “the cause”. Surprising? Welcome to Nigeria. Welcome to the world of Boko Haram.
The last week’s violence in the northern Nigeria that saw as many as 700 dead has deepened the fissure between country’s Muslims and Christians, two of country’s main religious groups. Through the entire week, government and health officials have been clearing bodies from the streets of the north-eastern city of Maiduguri, which saw the heaviest fighting. Government officials say most of the dead have been buried in mass graves. Police officials continue to search for members of the Boko Haram (Westernism is forbidden); who unleashed the reign of terror after security forces arrested some of their leaders. The subsequent week, its members ransacked and burnt police stations, places of worships and government buildings in four northern Nigerian provinces.
Meanwhile, conflicting reports of the death of its leader Yusuf has emerged after an unknown body was recovered from the police station. Police had earlier detained Yusuf. However, following hue and cry, police released a video showing Yusuf alive. Violence has subsided since then. The police have completely discarded reports in international media that have linked Boko Haram with other international terrorist groups. In fact, despite calling themselves "the Nigerian Taliban," the Boko Haram fundamentalist group have no known association with external groups.
Boko Haram supporters want northern Nigeria to implement a stringent version of Shariah law. Close to a dozen of Nigeria's 36 provinces have capitulated to their demand one after another in the last ten years. The nation is squarely split between Christians and Muslims, with Islam being predominant religion in the northern part and Christianity in the southern tip. Sporadic, but consistent clashes between the two groups have left thousands of people dead in the past five years.
Boko Haram, set up in 2002, is identified primarily with two ideological commitments: in quest of the execution of full Shariah law all through Nigeria, and the denunciation of everything even remotely Western. Nonetheless, these characters do not amount to a coherent philosophy. Cultish, sectarian and isolationist in exercise, it has incessantly been preoccupied with a brutal wrath against supposed “infidels”.
But there is a reason behind Boko Haram’s popularity that everybody has conveniently ignored. Boko Haram is also enthused by a third attribute: an aggressive, intolerable apprehension for Nigeria’s crippling poverty. This consecutively is derived from an overwhelming need for a significant welfare scheme for the poor and deprived, which consecutive regimes have failed to carry out.
“This is the product of frustration. This is anger. It was not against people. It was rather against the government. The speed with which it spread says a lot about prevailing frustration,” reacted Dr Murtalal Muhibbu-Din, an expert on ethnic relations at Lagos State University, while talking to TSI. “The swarming jobless youths can be easily mobilised and nobody can do it better than the fundamentalists.”
The only ray of hope in this latest edition of violence is that unlike in the past, respective communities have not lined up behind their fundamentalist organisations. In fact, Jama'atu Nasril Islam (JNI), the umbrella organisation of Muslims in Nigeria, portrayed the architects of the crisis as “murderers” and a “gang of criminals”. They also condemned the attack against western education and called on security agencies to bring members of the sect to books.
Imagine this. A right-wing fundamentalist organisation is set up
in a poverty-ridden African nation. Its name itself reflects its ideology – to oppose anything western. It is run by a western-educated leader, Yusuf, who sends his children to private English-medium school. An affluent member of nation’s middle-class, Yusuf boasts of a fleet of cars (of course, all of them of western make), and loves to ride his chauffeured Mercedes SUV. It is completely another matter that his comrades and henchmen are asked to forsake wealth for the sake of “the cause”. Surprising? Welcome to Nigeria. Welcome to the world of Boko Haram.The last week’s violence in the northern Nigeria that saw as many as 700 dead has deepened the fissure between country’s Muslims and Christians, two of country’s main religious groups. Through the entire week, government and health officials have been clearing bodies from the streets of the north-eastern city of Maiduguri, which saw the heaviest fighting. Government officials say most of the dead have been buried in mass graves. Police officials continue to search for members of the Boko Haram (Westernism is forbidden); who unleashed the reign of terror after security forces arrested some of their leaders. The subsequent week, its members ransacked and burnt police stations, places of worships and government buildings in four northern Nigerian provinces.
Meanwhile, conflicting reports of the death of its leader Yusuf has emerged after an unknown body was recovered from the police station. Police had earlier detained Yusuf. However, following hue and cry, police released a video showing Yusuf alive. Violence has subsided since then. The police have completely discarded reports in international media that have linked Boko Haram with other international terrorist groups. In fact, despite calling themselves "the Nigerian Taliban," the Boko Haram fundamentalist group have no known association with external groups.
Boko Haram supporters want northern Nigeria to implement a stringent version of Shariah law. Close to a dozen of Nigeria's 36 provinces have capitulated to their demand one after another in the last ten years. The nation is squarely split between Christians and Muslims, with Islam being predominant religion in the northern part and Christianity in the southern tip. Sporadic, but consistent clashes between the two groups have left thousands of people dead in the past five years.
Boko Haram, set up in 2002, is identified primarily with two ideological commitments: in quest of the execution of full Shariah law all through Nigeria, and the denunciation of everything even remotely Western. Nonetheless, these characters do not amount to a coherent philosophy. Cultish, sectarian and isolationist in exercise, it has incessantly been preoccupied with a brutal wrath against supposed “infidels”.
But there is a reason behind Boko Haram’s popularity that everybody has conveniently ignored. Boko Haram is also enthused by a third attribute: an aggressive, intolerable apprehension for Nigeria’s crippling poverty. This consecutively is derived from an overwhelming need for a significant welfare scheme for the poor and deprived, which consecutive regimes have failed to carry out.
“This is the product of frustration. This is anger. It was not against people. It was rather against the government. The speed with which it spread says a lot about prevailing frustration,” reacted Dr Murtalal Muhibbu-Din, an expert on ethnic relations at Lagos State University, while talking to TSI. “The swarming jobless youths can be easily mobilised and nobody can do it better than the fundamentalists.”
The only ray of hope in this latest edition of violence is that unlike in the past, respective communities have not lined up behind their fundamentalist organisations. In fact, Jama'atu Nasril Islam (JNI), the umbrella organisation of Muslims in Nigeria, portrayed the architects of the crisis as “murderers” and a “gang of criminals”. They also condemned the attack against western education and called on security agencies to bring members of the sect to books.
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