By Chris Nwedo
December 2013
The Boko Haram sect and other Islamic religious groups furiously fight against western education and blamed it as the source of evil in their society. Boko Haram, has its religious foundation in the Izala sect, a group of Islamic preachers founded in the 1970s and led by a man called Mohammed Yusuf, who had studied in Saudi Arabia. Boko Haram evolved from one of the poorest states in Nigeria, and with some of the world’s worst levels of education and health.
Maiduguri has been a fount of Islamic revolution since the early 19th century, when Muslim rebels overthrew the ruling Hausa dynasties, accusing them of un-Islamic corruption. According to Alex Perry of Time Magazine World ‘that dynamic anti-authoritarian, revivalist Islamic movements challenging an avaricious, secular elite endures. Boko Haram means Western education is a sacrilege. It is not surprising that the young, penniless, homeless and ‘futureless’ northerners who scavenge localities in search of what to eat, in the name of learning how to read holy Qur’an are easy preys to the ideologues. Being destitute economically, socially and politically, these growing violent groups had western education a culprit for decades of deliberate impoverishment. As poverty and unemployment among the neglected youths became more severe and the future bleak, resentment against the statuesque is symbolised by the violence without provocation.
Deprivation and neglect are potent factors contributing to some of the bloodiest episodes of inter-communal violence in recent years in Nigeria. These make it difficult to engage in democratizing reforms. This is why the freest, fairest and most credible election in April 2011 was a curse going by the violent destruction of lives, properties and displacements that greeted it in the north. It is phenomenal that the attack now is no longer principally centered on Christians and their institutions but the symbols of western education such schools, government establishments and officials. This Taliban style of violence is spreading and gaining acceptance. According to Alex Perry the ingenuity of some of the attacks led many to conclude that Africa’s nascent Islamic terrorism threat is metastasizing. The continent is a home to three main Muslim militant movements all are al-Qaeda ‘franchises,’ groups inspired by Osama bin Laden. Even after Osama’s death, and his organizations, even if they have no direct contact with it proliferate. The Abuja attack suggests Boko Haram is linked to and learning effectively from the mentors.
According to Zayyad “this is a big challenge to northern Nigerian political, traditional and religious classes because the world and indeed the Nigerian state demand a lot from them. Ignoring this crisis is costing the north a lot. It is time for a rethink. Northern leaders should turn things around because the situation we are in is not where we ought to be”. So, authorities, especially the political class in the north should tackle this new challenge via two ways: first is development that will align with the expectations of the people, while the second is enlightening and educating the populace through honest engagement. This for me implies rewinding the clock and returning the illegitimate gains made through decades of exploitative manipulation to the people and religion. The politicisation of religion is nothing new in Nigeria but has become more pronounced since the introduction of Islamic sharia criminal code in 12 northern states after 1999 election.
Zayyad was collaborated by David Mark who unambiguously challenged the conspiratorial-silence of the northern leaders as the region’s harm less folks are metaphorically murdered by insensitive brutes. Mark raised questions on the failure of Northern leaders to openly take a stand on the Boko Haram menace and the continued backwardness of the North in education. He rhetorically asked whether the political leaders and elders are afraid to openly condemn Boko Haram either for political reasons or out of fear of possible attack by the sect? According to Mark, ‘how can we keep quiet when a group begins to propagate the ideology that Western education is Haram? Western education today remains the pivot of development. Mark queried thus “have we forgotten that evil thrives when good men are silent? “When is the North truly north? Is it when the interest of a few but vocal group is met? Is it when the interest of a select religious group is met? Is it when a section of the North is satisfied? Or is it when the interest of the common good of the North is addressed? ‘Why has the North continued to lag behind in education? It is because for so long the north abandoned or despised the basic structures of sustainable growth and development for cheaper wealth in politics.
The north has not invested enough in education. It generally abandoned the basic infrastructure of development where Sardauna left it. This is not a show of faith in following his footsteps. But on the contrary mobilized the people against all they claim the late Premier was. Sincerity of purpose, consistency, transparency and honesty are some of the qualities of the Premier as we are reminded every day in speeches which only the elders and political leaders make. Mark noted, as northern leaders and elders we now must show seriousness, courage and responsibility in addressing these challenges squarely without fear, favour or mudslinging. Because doing that would go a long way to prove that there is no conspiracy of silence by the leadership in the Northern states on the issue of peace and security in Nigeria.
The introduction of sharia had originally been very popular among the majority Muslim north largely because of the high public dissatisfaction with the failures, of the existing legal system. In addition, sharia’s emphasis on welfare and social justice helped to inspire hope that its introduction would help alleviate the plight of Nigeria’s dismal poor. The overwhelming of Northern Nigeria with illogical violence resulting in deaths and destruction has been significantly detrimental.
On the other hand, Rev. Chris Oyakhilome said some people believed the only way they can be heard is by being restive and protesting violently in public. This is wrong. We have to learn the value, precipitation, and processes of nonviolent protests. History is replete with stories of men and women who inspired revolutions through their writings. This does not mean writing malicious things about people just to berate them, but penning constructive suggestions that can improve the society and the country as a whole. Ijaw politicians, for instance, have used violence to seek to squeeze concessions like more states from the oligarchy. Amnesty in the Niger Delta region remains indelible payoff for great violent campaigns of obstinate destruction of government institutions, kidnap of citizens and expatriates and disruption of oil flow in the Nigeria Delta. On the other hand, there is a danger that some aggrieved members of the oligarchy are mobilizing groups along Nigeria’s fault lines into violent conflict or unrest whose ultimate objectives are to take revenging on the society.
This revenge ensured that there is enough pain, tears and sorrows for the vulnerable folks. For instance, on December 7, 2011 an explosion occurred around 9 am in the morning at Oriakpata, a popular vehicle spare parts market on the Katsina/Ogbomoso road, opposite the former Scala Cinema in Kaduna. According to eye witnesses’ account, two men on an army green Honda motorcycle detonated a bomb in a busy spare parts market. One of the two riders died on the spot. The other was taken by security agents to an unknown destination. Among the 12 people believed to have died from the explosion so far were two children. Eleven shops and surrounding properties were either badly affected or completely destroyed.
The killings were planned to coincide with the end of Arewa Conference on Peace and Unity in Kaduna which was designed to contain the pervasive violence in the northern states. The danger for Nigeria is that such conflicts could serve as flashpoints for a wider conflagration which could derail the country from the reform path upon which it has tentatively embarked.
Prejudices impinged understanding and cohesion in Nigeria’s heterogeneous communities, as it figuratively incinerated and scorched viscosity for unity and harmonious post-independence coexistence. The prejudices negatively impacted considerably social, political, and economic development of the north and indeed Nigeria as a whole. The unbearable massive weight of ethno-religious sentimentalism constantly sparks fires of fatal conflicts and frequently heavy violence with vast destruction. Incessant confrontations among the communities derail efforts at democratization of the country. The crisis creates economic maladjustment and colossal wastes, social tension and gripping fear, political discords, instabilities and unsolicited military intervention in the politics.
On the whole, the post-independent leadership of approximately more than fifty years is still unfledged enough and unable to articulate common and acceptable political and economic initiative capable of invigorating the society. The problem of Nigeria in general is attributable to the complications of dictatorial leadership. The following are easily identifiable: Clientelist patterns of politics with elites acting extra-legally; disruptive ethnic militias, some of which are growing increasingly autonomous of their former political masters; biases in the electoral system, executive authoritarianism and the weakening of other components of the governance, the poor executive respect of legislative and judicial constitutional prerogatives.
- Others included endemic police corruption encouraged from the highest levels of the governance and dept of corruption in the Force is complicated by absence of incentive,
- the subjugation of judiciary at all levels, lack of adequate human rights safeguards in the enforcement of law: and confused roles of Federal and State enforcement agencies.
The other dimension is the never-ending complications traced to cleavages and contradictory tendencies within the country. “This could be seen in the activities of MOSOB, the Ijaw Peoples’ Congress and the Middle Belt Forum, Northern Elders, Afenifere etc…the differences in the interests of these cultural groups make it difficult to form common front. This itself has affected the process of genuine democratization. With the heralding of the nation’s new phase of democratisation, violence has tripled in the polity. And also ‘in the Niger Delta, new rebel groups such as MEND have escalated their attacks on government and multinational installations, including the use of car bombings. Proliferation of small arms in the country has further helped to bring violent conflict closer to the surface. The persistent ethnic and religious grievances susceptible to elite manipulation, political and economic over-centralization under the executive and poverty amid massive oil revenues since 2004 are factors undermining public faith in the Federation and the political system.
According to Afigbo, A. E… the colonial administration passed on their Nigerian wards the prejudices which enabled them think and act in the belief that this informal federation was a marriage of convenience between incompatibles. The north looked down on the south as uncivilised, pagan, undisciplined, rowdy and nakedly materialistic. The south returns this contempt with compliments regarding the north as feudalistic, conservative, uneducated… and as the pliant tools of the imperial masters. Third major factor in this series of hindrances is that the leadership structure put in place by the colonialists was evidently uninsulated from steady influx of exploitation and manipulation wave currents. Although, it was the ultimate aim of the British and French to hand over power to Africans, steps towards the achievement of this aim were rather half- hearted’, consequently, the eventual collapse is not only anticipated but preferred.
African leaders sought and obtained independence in isolation of the prerequisite structures, essential knowledge of governance and establishments on which stable political institution must be built. There were no corresponding enlightenment, motivation and mobilization to guarantee reorientation of the natives’ attitudes. Reorientation was essential for the new political, economic and social revolution that attended the new states. The polarisation of the African states along divergent and conflicting religious, political and socio- economic ideologies destroyed cohesion and dissected the states. Among the states were subsisting disputes and wars…From Sudan where for many years the Black peoples of the south were at war with the Muslim north; through Congo Kinshasa, which was torn apart in 1960s by tribal groupings under Koloji and Tshombe, and is still struggling to achieve unity…to Uganda where late King, Sir Edward Mutesa, Kabaka of Buganda was in 1967 forced to escape into exile in the United Kingdom in the alleged interest of national unity.
Emerging from tipsy turvy of bruising subjugation and protracted violations, an average African was immediately unable to quickly comprehend the intricacies of these limitless events that have encompassed and oppressed him. He was grossly limited in effective self-diagnosis and preoccupied with the demands of basic needs, though self-government should be a significant relief indeed. But the determination to live liberated is continuously flickered and assaulted by unhealthy extraneous overtures, conflicts, strives and petty wars. Besides, the African discovered himself at the centre of inescapable traps of cross-currents of mixed values, the much understood and preferred traditional and the unexamined extraneous labelled modernity. He is pressurized. According to a commentator “everywhere in the world whenever the word Africa is mentioned four words come to mind: poverty, hunger, wars and diseases. Apart from Botswana where the leaders have relatively been able to use their resources to advance the development of their people, the rest of Africa is nothing but misery. Misery in sense that the average African is hardly able to experience one-third of the comfort that a citizen of US, Canada and Europe is able to enjoy in his/her lifetime. Apart from the corrupt politicians, dictatorial leaders and their cronies who live in luxury, the rest of the population have to survive the harsh realities of the African economy on less than two dollars a day. The pervasive insecurity in some African states especially in northern Nigeria makes the two dollar a day an unrealistic luxury. Today, in this enclave abjectly impoverished people are slaughtered in their slums by folks sponsored to plant time bombs with a view to destabilize the government.
This article was written by Chris Nwedo and published in the Cross News December 2013, p.14.
