Rationalising the appeal of the Boko Haram sect in Northern Nigeria before July 2009

ABSTRACT

In recent years, academic researchers and commentators have devoted a great deal of attention to the question of why some sections of the Muslim population in northern Nigeria sympathise with the Boko Haram sect. This article elaborates on original accounts of imprisoned Boko Haram members, former members of the sect, their relatives, and other categories of informants to draw out the dynamics which foregrounded the relative success of the Boko Haram sect in attracting members before July 2009. More specifically, I analyse the dynamics of the relationship between the Muslim public in northern Nigeria and the Nigerian state, in order to contextualise Boko Haram’s emergence and appeal as existing on that spectrum. I focus on both the healthcare sector and police force as case studies, to demonstrate how the perceived failure of successive Nigerian administrations in both areas has engendered gaps which alternative providers of social services have attempted to fill. The sect’s ability to provide social services helped in adding to Boko Haram’s appeal and local legitimacy. In doing so, it becomes clear that before July 2009 the Boko Haram sect took advantage of failures in governance, particularly at the local level, to attract a section of the Muslim public in northern Nigeria.

KEYWORDS:

• Boko Haram
• Nigeria
• public
• muslims
• police

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to the editors, editorial assistants, and the two anonymous reviewers for their feedback, comments, and assistance in bringing this paper to life. I am also grateful to Benjamin Kirby for being generous with his time, his feedback, and for the invaluable insights he offered on how to fine-tune the ideas in this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Hausa: Writing slate.

2. Hausa: Dates (fruit).

3. Interview with Ali Abacha (not his real name), a former Boko Haram member. Shehuri North ward, Maiduguri. 6 July 2014.

4. Interview with Baba Gana (not his real name), a former Boko Haram member. Shehuri North ward, Maiduguri. 6 July 2014.

5. Interview with Ahmad Salkida. Undisclosed location. 6 October 2013.

6. For more exposition on this practice, see Masquelier (2005). The Scorpion’s Sting: Youth, Marriage and the Struggle for Social Maturity in Niger. The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 11(1), pp. 59–83.

7. Interview with W.B., an acquaintance of Mohammed Yusuf in Maiduguri who has liaised/negotiated with Boko Haram intermittently on behalf of the Nigerian government. Maiduguri, 21 December 2015.

8. Hausa: the bath of the dead.

9. Tattoo-like henna body paintings usually reserved for brides who are about to be married but also used to adorn unmarried women; it is also applied to the dead before burial.

10. Interview with Halima Mohammed (not her real name). Maiduguri. 13 July 2014.

11. Not the interviewee’s real name.

12. For a fleshed-out understanding of Hirschman’s exposition on the concept of exit, see Hirschman (1970). Exit, Voice & Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations and States. Harvard University Press.

13. Hausa: ‘straighten the rows’, as in a mosque before congregational prayer.

14. For reference to a study that details the periods in which Mohammed Yusuf/Boko Haram members participated in government, see Harnischfeger (2014). Boko Haram and its Muslim Critics: Observations from Yobe State. In M-A, Perouse de Montclos (ed.). Boko Haram: Islamism, Politics, Security and the State in Nigeria (pp. 33–63). African Studies Centre. See p.47.

15. For a nuanced study on Muslim publics, see Kresse (2018) Swahili Muslim Publics and Postcolonial Experience. Indiana University Press.

16. Hausa: disabled – this is also specifically the Hausa word for those disabled through polio.

17. For different accounts of the 11 June 2009 incident between Boko Haram members and the Operation Flush II team, see Galtimari (2009). Report of the Administrative Committee of Inquiry into the Boko Haram Insurgency in Borno State. Main Report, Borno State Government (Maiduguri: October 2009, vol.5); Yusuf (2009). Budediyar Wasika ga Gwamnatin Taraya (Open Letter to the Federal Republic of Nigeria, recorded on VCD, 11 June 2009) and Mohammed, K. (n.d.). Matters Arising from the Boko Haram Crisis. Gamji. Accessed online via: http://www.gamji.com/article8000/NEWS8744.htm

18. Translated from Hausa (document in my possession).

19. Hausa: praise of the Prophet (i.e. the prophet Mohammed Ibn Abdullah, founder of Islam).

20. Fully known as Jama’atu Izalatul Bid’a Wa’ Iqamatis Sunna (JIBWIS) (Arabic: the Society for the Removal of Innovation and the Reestablishment of the Sunna).

21. Hausa: people of help.

22. Interviews with residents of Railway Quarters, Maiduguri. December 2015.