Perspectives

Nigeria: Boko Haram raises more questions than answers

By Misbahu Ahmed Rufai | Last updated: Feb 2, 2012 - 1:23:30 PM

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They have become a menace to Nigerian society. A terrorist organization that strikes with such ferocity that national and international attention is drawn to a puzzling question: Who are they and why they do what they do?

Recently, this dreaded group Ahlan Sunnah Lid Da’waati wal Jihad Yaanaa also known as the Boko Haram, struck in Kano  and killed more than 260 in a city where I had stayed for more than a month. One of the bombed targets, the police headquarters, was only a few blocks from my residence. A source at the station told me the group targeted 19 areas and succeeded in striking 10. Nine cars set with bombs were  later recovered and more than 120 suspects were arrested. 

The attackers came dressed in police uniforms and gained access into the precincts of the police headquarters, offices of the State Security Service, Immigration, the Assistant Superintendent of Police and his home. They would have leveled the police headquarters, if they had not been refused access to the main building.  

The name Boko Haram has its origin from colonial times when Northern Nigerians rejected Western education introduced by missionaries as “karatun boko” meaning “stupid education.” Founded by Sheikh Jaa’far Mahmud Adam, during the Olusegun Obasanjo administration, the group’s initial aim was condemnation of the negative influence of Western values on northern society, which is predominantly Muslim. 

Sheikh Jaafar later disagreed with the extreme tone of the movement and began to condemn the actions and thoughts of his fringe members such as Muhammad Yusuf. For his verbal attacks, Jaafar was murdered.

Muhammad Yusuf, a former Shi’a Muslim turned Sunni, took over and radicalized the group’s position. In an attempt to persuade him to lower his tone, he was met by various Islamic scholars for dialogue. One of these leaders is Sheikh Muhammad Awwal Adam Albani, leader of the Salafiyya group in Nigeria. “I sat with him and his students, and on other occasions, just the two of us ... to convince him that since he claimed to be  a follower of Sunna, the idea of Boko Haram is contrary to those teachings, but all our efforts fell on deaf ears,” said Sheikh Albani. Sheikh Albani said Muhammad Yusuf offered arguments clearly expunged by many Islamic scholars hundreds of years ago with regard to Western education. One of those arguments has to do with the theory of evolution in Western educational textbooks. The second is in regard to blaming Western education for corrupting our young men and women because they engage in committing sins like adultery.

Yusuf was killed in a July 2009 gun battle after escaping from police custody, according to Nigerian authorities.

Sheikh Albani said the aggressive approach of the Nigerian government towards Boko Haram, rather than dialogue is responsible for the current spate of violence and terror the group is inflicting on the country.

“Now where are the government’s security agents? Where are the weapons? Are all the forces able to tackle the present problems? Have all the checkpoints solved the present problems? How many people were caught with explosives at those checkpoints? What about the huge resources which are supposed to be used in developing the country but wasted on security?  These were issues we  wanted the government to realize but unfortunately they refused to listen, and refused to dialogue,” he said.

Last September, former Nigerian President  Olusegun Obasanjo  visited the family house of Yusuf, who died in Maiduguri and police officers accused of killing him are currently on trial for his murder.  

The Obasanjo meeting with Yusuf family members, held at the group’s demolished headquarters, lasted about 90 minutes. “This is a personal initiative. I urge you to forgive and forget the past. I plead with you, give me the chance to mediate between the family and government,” Obasanjo told the family.

In response, Yusuf’s brother-in-law, Babakura Fuggu, whose father was also murdered in 2009 said: “Since 2009, this is the first time any high profile figure would be commiserating with the family. We are happy with this visit. About 30 to 40 percent of our members are scattered in neighboring countries of Chad, Niger and Cameroun.”

Fugu wanted the Nigerian government to guarantee the safety of Boko Haram members as a prelude to peace. But barely 72 hours after the meeting, Fugu was murdered by those believed to be hardline members within the group.

While Boko Haram began as a radical but non-violent group opposed to Western education, which it blamed for growing immorality in the country, it also opposed injustices in the Sharia  (Islamic law) system in northern Nigeria as most of those tried under Sharia were poor and vulnerable while the rich and powerful escaped justice. The group turned violent after police attacked members in a funeral procession, and escalated its violence after the death of  Muhammad Yusuf in police custody.

Last month Borno State government paid compensation to the families of those killed in the first attack. But this action came too late.  As national and international concern is raised about Boko Haram, questions remain about who is behind the group and whether their actions can lead, as some fear, to a disintegration of Nigeria along religious lines. Religious leaders in Northern Nigeria have unilaterally condemned the group. Boko Haram membership numbers a few hundred, but there is fear growing poverty, especially in Northern Nigeria, creates fertile ground for increased membership.

Muslim leaders have raised questions about operations of the group and its relations with certain vested interests, especially security agencies. Sheikh Muhammad Sani Yahya Jingir, head of the Jama’atu Izalatul Bid’a Wa Ikamatu Sunnah in Nigeria, believes Boko Haram is a Western creation aimed at destroying the image of Islam. Jingir’s group aims  to fight innovations in Islam and uphold traditions of the Prophet Muhammad.

“We believe that the sect’s aim is to attack Muslims and at the same time dress like Muslims and attack Christians simply with the aim of giving Islam and Muslims a bad name. For instance, what happened in Bauchi State where a Christian lady was arrested trying to plant a bomb in a church, and the incident in Bayelsa State where a Christian man dressed in Muslim garb attempted to plant a bomb in a church so they can blame it on Muslims,” he charged.

Sheikh Jingir added that Western powers have predicted that Nigeria would break up in 2015, so they are sponsoring violence to create a justification for such predictions. “Some religious leaders recently saying that since security agents cannot protect them they should be given the chance to protect themselves. These are leaders who do not want Nigeria to remain one,” he continued.

Last December, dozens of Muslims were killed in the Northern Nigerian city of Damaturu. Referring to these killings, Sheikh Jingir said, “What is surprising to me is that whenever Muslims are killed, people will sometimes say those who perpetrated the act are unknown. It was a well known fact that whenever Muhammad Yusuf, the Boko Haram leader, was arrested during his lifetime, it was some key politicians in this country, Christians for that matter, who usually went to bail him. Apart from that, there was a former president in this country, a Christian too, who, while in power, visited Muhammad Yusuf. I think there is need to look at these issues critically as a basis of finding solution to the Boko Haram crisis.”

Jingir is not alone in this opinion. Sayeed Ibrahim Yakubu El-Zazzaki, leader of the Islamic Movement, the leading Shiite group in Nigeria, echoed the same sentiment about attempts to destroy Islam’s image. He believes the existence of Boko Haram is aimed at “justifying the spending on security and push(ing) the blame on Islam.”

“I want to believe that it is government and security agents that are just killing people in Abuja and some parts of the Northeast as well as other parts of the country. They just want to justify their security vote. They are creating fear in the minds of the people so they can use their security money without any question and they found the Boko Haram platform the best way of achieving that.”

Bishop Mathew Kukah, head of the Catholic Diocese of Sokoto, believes “what we call insecurity is more or less an external agency that is not really in keeping with who we are. It does not define us as a society. I do not believe the problems of insecurity in Nigeria are purely and simply the result of Boko Haram. The point I am making is that it is a problem with many faces; we have not done much to look very closely at it. Many grievances have been left unattended to; too many people left unpunished.”

Bishop Kukah concluded there is a need for dialogue and compared the current government’s effort with that of its predecessor, Umaru Musa Yar’adua. During the Nigerian Delta crisis with hijackings and kidnappings, the late President Yar’adua negotiated with the armed group and offered amnesty. “I think that is a telling lesson. If you compare them with where we are now, and how Boko Haram has been handled, it is not so much a question of whom are we to speak to (although in fairness you might say that the issues of Boko Haram have not been structured in a way and manner that you can identify what needs to be done.) But I don’t believe in all the saying that this group is faceless and so on and so forth. They definitely are not from thin air,” said Bishop Kukah.

The terror group Boko Haram is real. In its initial form, it was much easier to have been curtailed. But in its current formation, it is a proxy for outside powers and interests. Politicians have entered the scene, people with various grievances over one thing or another have joined in. The international community, especially those who stand to gain from greater insecurity with sale of outdated security and intelligences materials, have also cashed in. A high ranking security officer told me during my visit, that it has been established that some of the bomb blasts in the country were not actually done by Muslims.

Governor Jonah Jang of Plateau State, where 10 years ago, the first in a series of religious killings began in Jos, recently said he was always surprised when those arrested for their link with what is happening in his state end up being released when taken to the nation’s capital Abuja. It came out that most of those arrested by security agents in relation to bomb blasts end up being drug addicts, sponsored by some prominent people most of whom are not Muslims. 

For Sheikh Dahiru Bauchi, leader of Tariqatu Tijjaniyya in Nigeria, the problem is the country’s lawlessness. “We are in a lawless society, a Christian is committing crime without fear of government, and a Muslim commits crime without fear that there is law and order in the country.”  Sheikh Bauchi cited the killing of Muslims last year, during the Eid-Ul-Fitr (end of Ramadan) celebration when Christians in Jos surrounded Muslims and killed them while they were praying. “Government was silent on the issue. No Nigerian or American government, or somebody said anything on the killing of those Muslims. No one was punished,” he said.

“Why will anybody go to churches and kill people? We are not happy with the way Muslims were killed during the eid in Jos. We are equally not happy with the way Christians were killed in their churches during Christmas celebration,” he added.

Misbahu Ahmed-Rufai is a Chicago-based imam and professor of history at Malcolm X College. He can be reached via email at  biyiola99 [at] yahoo.com.