Abstract
Boko Haram has been made and influenced by modern trends in Islam in Nigeria. Thus, it is a product of its socio-religious contexts and has responded to contemporary socio-economic and political challenges in Nigeria. Some of these contemporary influences and drivers of the sect include the politicization of Shari’a, the traditional tension between Sufi and Salafi Islam, the rise of radical Salafi sects which incidentally provided what can be regarded as context or religious apprenticeship for Yusuf. Equally often implicated in the growth of Boko Haram is the almajarai system and rapid urbanization without opportunity in the North of Nigeria. The utilization of the Shari’a by the emergent political class in the early 2000s to gain ascendancy in politics and the subsequent utilization of the law on marginal members of the society buoyed up the rhetoric of Boko Haram regarding pollution of Islam and decadent political manifestations of modernity.
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Notes
- 1.
Zamfara state, other states where sharia has been declared in the North include Borno, Gombe, Bauchi, Jigawa, Kano, Kaduna, Katsina, Niger, Kebbi, Sokoto and Kebbi (a total of 12 sharia states in Nigeria).
- 2.
Personal interview with Hajia Mairo Alhassan (Gwoza, 19 April 2016).
- 3.
Personal interview with Ja’afar Mala, 38 year old member of the CJTF and former Boko Haram member (Gwoza, 21 April 2016).
- 4.
Ustaz Adams, Imam of a mosque in Gwoza in his early fifties (28 April 2016).
- 5.
Personal interview with Staff-Sergeant Lazarus Haruna (Gwoza).
- 6.
Male FGD Panel (Maiduguri 17 August 2016).
- 7.
Known also as Yan Tatsine or followers of Maitatsine and because of their militaristic and confrontational posture.
- 8.
Marwa was succeeded by his trusted disciple and confidant, Musa Makaniki who later fled to Cameroon after wreaking enormous havoc in Nigeria. He was reportedly arrested by Nigerian security sometime in 2004.
- 9.
This is interesting against the background that Islamic education is often seen as essentially nothing more than a focus on the Qur’an, the Hadiths and Arabic language or scholarly devotion to the various schools and ideologies driving from the above. While recitation and interpretations of the Qur’an are critical elements of the study, they are not all that the system entails.
- 10.
Indirect rule which was a favoured administrative approach of the British in West Africa entails the devolution of day-to-day administrative responsibilities of government to pre-existing local/traditional authority while the colonial power acted in supervisory and oversight capacities.
- 11.
Perhaps emblematic of the colonial administration’s love for the way of life of the North can be captured in the views of Flora Shaw the wife of Nigeria’s pioneer administrator, Lord Lugard. According to the London Times editorial of 1904 written by Shaw, “the Fulani were a striking people, dark in complexion but of the distinguished features, small hands, and fine, rather aristocratic carriage of the Arabs of the Mediterranean coast. They were of the Mahomedan (sic) religion, and were held by those who knew them to be naturally endowed with the characteristics which fitted them to rule. Their theory of justice was good enough though their practice was bad; their scheme of taxation was most elaborate and was carried even into a system of death duties which left little for an English Chancellor of the Exchequer to improve” (Times London—Lady Lugard on Nigeria—2 March 1904: 12). The above sentiments which point to the fact that the colonial masters were enamoured with aristocratic North can be seen as the root of the conviction of the North in post-independence Nigerian society that they are best suited to rule. A conviction boldly captured in the slogan “born to rule” which at some point was boldly inscribed in the number plates of vehicles registered in one of the prominent Northern states.
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Anugwom, E.E. (2019). Contemporary Trends and Factors in the Making of Boko Haram. In: The Boko Haram Insurgence In Nigeria. New Directions in Islam. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96959-6_5
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