A Sectarian Jihad in Nigeria: The Case of Boko Haram

Abstract

Boko Haram is an Islamic sect turned terrorist group. Despite its ethnic leaning, it is not a liberation front, and it does not advocate a people’s revolution. From an ideological point of view, it is a jihadist movement because it fights for full implementation of strict sharia law which would require a change of political regime and the establishment of an Islamic state. But it does not really follow the Wahhabi model of Al Qaeda or Daesh, unlike AQIM in Northern Mali or Al Shabaab in Somalia. In the region of Greater Borno, which encompasses parts of Nigeria, Chad, Niger, and Cameroon, the sect remains embedded in local dynamics which this article explores through an analysis of the mobilization of its members.

Keywords:

• Nigeria
• jihad
• sect
• Boko Haram
• Lake Chad

Notes

1. The Anglican bishop of Kaduna, Josiah Idowu Fearon, in The Economist, 29 September 2012.

2. Such an approach includes a systematic recording of lethal incidents involving alleged Boko Haram members. See http://www.nigeriawatch.org.

3. The name Boko Haram was coined by local journalists during the uprising of July 2009, especially on Radio Kaduna. Before, the sect bore no name and was sometimes called Yusufiyya, after its founder. Under the leadership of Abubakar Shekau, it then claimed to be the ‘Sunni Community for the Propagation of the Prophet’s Teachings and Jihad’ (Jama’atu Ahlis-Sunnah Lidda’awati Wal Jihad).

4. Interview with the author, Koutoukalé prison, Republic of Niger, 27 February 2015.

5. Many young men actually marry divorced women first, because they cannot afford to pay the bride-wealth of a virgin.

6. After the extrajudicial execution of Mohammed Yusuf, for example, Abubakar Shekau allegedly adopted his children and married one of his four wives. In the Kanuri tradition of Borno, also, the payment of bride-wealth was not required in so-called “weddings of charity” (nya sadaabe), when a pious father would “give” his daughter to a Muslim scholar. Yet this was rarely the case because ulamas, who lived from their religious activities and preferred to remain independent, were then obliged to the wife-giver for free prayers and constant officiating in his household. See Cohen, Ronald [1967], The Kanuri of Bornu, New York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, p. 38; Cohen, Ronald [Dec. 1961], “Mariage Instability among the Kanuri of Northern Nigeria”, American Anthropologist vol. 63, no. 6, pp. 1231–1249.

7. Interviews under Chatham House rule in Abuja in 2011.

8. Galtimari, Final Report, 10.

9. The pieces of legislation adopted by Cameroon in December 2014 and Chad in July 2015 were somewhat similar in this regard. They defined terrorism in very vague terms, which allowed the repression of all forms of political opposition and the application of death penalty for non-violent acts, for example damage to property or disruption of public services during a demonstration. In addition, they militarized justice and lengthened pre-trial detention in police custody: from 48 hours to 90 days in Chad; for periods of two weeks renewable indefinitely in Cameroon.

10. Onuoha, Why Do Youth Join Boko Haram?, 4.

11. In July 2013, five men were tried for their participation in bombings in Niger State in July 2011; in November and December 2013, two commandants of the sect, Kabiru Umar ‘Sokoto’ and Mustapha Umar, were then given life sentences for having organized various attacks, the first against the Saint Theresa Catholic Church in Madalla in Niger State, near Abuja, during Christmas 2011, the second against the offices of a newspaper in Kaduna, This Day, in April 2012.

12. Jeune Afrique 16 March 2016.

13. Ogori, ‘Return of the Boko Haram’.

14. Amnesty International, Stars on Their Shoulders.

15. Ibid.

16. Yet the atrocities perpetrated by Boko Haram members also incited the youth to fight back with the government’s CJTF (Civilian Joint Task Force). According to a small panel of 33 respondents, 60% of the militia’s volunteers decided to join to revenge the killing of a relative or a friend by the insurgents. See Yusuf, Umar Lawal [2014], « The Role of Civilian JTF in tackling Boko Haram problems in Borno », Al-Mahram International Journal (Maiduguri) vol. 6, p. 66.

17. In Borno, the First Bank was often targeted, allegedly as a vengeance for the seizure of a million dollars in Mohammed Yusuf’s account.

18. Smaldone, Warfare in the Sokoto Caliphate, 137.

19. In 1897, the explorer Emile Gentil already mentioned them as pirates. Cf. Dion, Vers le lac Tchad, 157.

20. Niven, Rex, Nigerian Kaleidoscope, 16.

21. Daily Times 19 March 1984.

22. The Guardian, 26 June 2013, 5.

23. Pérouse de Montclos, Violence in Nigeria, ch. 6. See also the NigeriaWatch annual reports: http://www.nigeriawatch.org/index.php?html=7.

24. United Nations High Commission for Human Rights, Report on Violations and Abuses Committed by Boko Haram, 12; Anyadike, ‘Road to Redemption’, 9.

25. Data on file with the author. See http://www.nigeriawatch.org.

26. Amnesty International, Cameroun; United Nations High Commission for Human Rights, Report on Violations and Abuses Committed by Boko Haram, 12.

27. Interestingly enough, the medieval kings of Kanem-Borno already destroyed their enemies’ livestock and cut down shrubs likely to hide combatants when they fought the So of present-day Damasek in the very same region, near a river called Yo at the time. Cf. Fisher, ‘The Central Sahara and Sudan’, 75.

28. As early as 2010 in Nigeria, the prohibition of motorcycle taxis in Borno had also led to the unemployment of some 34,000 young men, some of whom joined the ranks of Boko Haram. Cf. Anyadike, ‘Road to Redemption’, 9.

29. In case of absolute necessity, compromise (muwalat) with infidels is justified by the Koran’s Surah (III, 28) on the Family of Imran, rather than the option of war (jihad) or exile (hijra).

30. Thurston, ‘The Disease Is Unbelief’, 24.

31. In February 2016, the Nigerian secret services announced that a recruiter for the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, Abdussalam Enesi Yunusa, had been arrested along with seven alleged members of a dissent group, Ansaru. But his nationality was not revealed, and rumors about Boko Haram combatants in the city of Sirte with the Islamic State in Libya have never been confirmed.

32. In fact, Abubakar Shekau never proclaimed a caliphate in Gwoza, which was run by a Boko Haram emir called Ibrahim Tada Nglayika ‘Gooya’ who was killed by soldiers in August 2014 and replaced by his elder brother Ali Gooya. According to local and anonymous sources, the main preacher is the area was a man named Adamu Rugurugu. See also Apard, ‘Boko Haram’; Pérouse de Montclos, ‘Boko Haram et Daech’, 31–2.

33. Ibn Khaldun, Le livre des Exemples, 471–7.

34. The sharif of Mecca and king of Hedjaz from 1916, Hussein ben Ali, was thus deposed by Abdelaziz Al Saud in 1924 because he tried to proclaim himself caliph following the establishment of a Republic in Turkey. Since then, Saudi kings do not use the title ‘Caliph’ but ‘Guardian of the two holy mosques’.

35. Vanguard, 14 August 2009. See also the statement of another spokesman, Abu Qaqa, reported by Mark, ‘Boko Haram Vows to Fight’.

36. Zenn, ‘Nigerian al-Qaedaism’, 111.

37. According to Bernard Barrera, the General in charge of Operation Serval in Northern Mali, the French Army captured (on 2 March 2013) only one Boko Haram member who sought refuge in the mountains of the Adrar des Ifoghas and who was in charge of kidnaping Fulani young boys in the region of Gao to provide AQIM with child soldiers. This is very far from the 300 fighters mentioned by some journalists who claimed that Boko Haram had a training camp near Timbuktu in 2012. See Barrera, Bernard [2015], Opération Serval : notes de guerre, Mali 2013, Paris, Seuil, p. 216.

38. Smith, Boko Haram, 87. For the report clearing Al-Muntada of the accusation and written by a corporation of lawyers linked to European and Saudi oil companies, see: http://www.almuntadatrust.org/pdf/am-international-report.pdf.

39. Sahara Reporters, 21 September 2011. http://saharareporters.com/2011/09/21/punch-interview-i-told-inspector-general-police-advance-abuja-would-be-bombed-says-boko.

40. Lecocq and Schrijver, ‘The War on Terror in a Haze of Dust’.

41. Pérouse de Montclos, Nigeria’s Interminable Insurgency?, 20–2.

42. Imam and Kyari, ‘Yusufuyya and the Nigerian State’; Murtada, Boko Haram in Nigeria, 3.

43. Interview with the author in Zaria on 2 October 2012.

44. Ogori, ‘Return of the Boko Haram’.