It was over 34 years ago, the 18 th of December, 1980 to be precise. A Fulani teacher named Shehu Shagari was the first elected civilian Nigerian President but the nation he was leading was in flames, set alight by a skinny but energetic man who spoke high-pitched Fulani like him too. The
security forces were helpless and even the Commander-in-Chief of the Nigerian Armed
Forces seemed confused. The violence, the horror and the terror that ensued from the wild ideas of one old man who was not even a Nigerian was about to consume the nation. Sheer madness was mixed with agonizing destruction as major cities burned.
Untamed hordes of insurgents brandishing all sorts of primitive weapons like bows and arrows, dane guns, leopard skins to serve as bulletproof vests, and powdered charms went from house to house in the northern state of Kano and went on
looting, maiming, burning, raping and killing as they wished. But despite the low sophistication of their weapons, their pattern of destruction was so brutal and complete that in a matter of just days, about 5,000 Nigerians lay dead.

Considering the fact that Boko Haram’s activities have claimed the lives of over 15,000 Nigerians since 2009, you will appreciate the scope and degree of violence of this red-faced sect that killed so much Nigerians in just 12 days. Maitatsine had become a terror and a fast-growing one, with 12,000 followers ready to march to the death on the vehement orders of their much-revered spiritual leader. For the first time in the history of Nigeria, religious differences would lead to the loss of thousands of lives and Nigerians would witness a horror that would be surpassed only by the Nigerian Civil War which had ended ten years earlier.

SEEDS OF TERROR: THE ORIGIN
The founder of the Maitatsine sect, Alhaji
Mohammed (Muhammadu) Marwa was not
a Nigerian even if his activities would later
lead to the loss of thousands of precious
Nigerian lives. He migrated from the town
of Marwa (Maroua) in northern Cameroon
to Kano State in 1945.

In 1960, Nigeria became an independent nation but
the politics that would follow in Kano State
was far from peaceful. The senseless jostling for power by the politicians led to an entropy in the society, and Maitatsine,who was already gaining some followership, took advantage and rode on
this resultant wave of disorder initially
generated by the power-hungry politicians.
Unemployment soared, crime rate increased, poverty was not abating, people were disgruntled and the citizens were already tired of the fumbling and corrupt politicians. It was at that time that Maitatsine decided to launch his own
movement. His message was simple but
brutally efficient: to oppose the
government and even orthodox Islam itself.
He had transformed himself into another
creature, one that would terrorize the
world’s most populous black nation.

LOVE, FAMILY AND MARRIAGE
Maitatsine was reportedly a caring
husband and father but it is not clear the
precise layout of his familly but he was
polygamous. His children lived above and
outside the law. One of his sons, Tijani,
once told a neighbour that the amount of
weapons under the bed of his father in his
room alone would wipe out the entire
police force. It is believed that the death of
Tijani, Maitatsine’s son was a turning point
in his life. One fateful day, Tijani went out
with his friends to one of their wild parties
as usual. A very sad piece of news would
later reach Maitatsine that his son was
dead, he was shot in unclear
circumstances. As Maitatsine set his eyes on
the blood-stained lifeless body of his son,
he cried in agony saying:
‘ Oh the people of Kano, what have I done to
you to deserve this? ’
Maitatsine believed the death of his son
was orchestrated by his enemies i.e the
government forces and that the people of
Kano would definitely pay for it. His tone
change markedly from that point on.
Maitatsine was absolutely against the
government and anything that represent
constituted authority. Even the Emir of
Kano was not safe from his wrath. He
would later be known for his fierce and
curse-filled speeches against the Nigerian
government. It was this practice that
earned him the nickname Mai Tatsine.
That was because he would mount the
pulpit and lash out in his red-hot speeches
in a not-too-perfect Hausa:
Allah ya tsine maka albarka!
(Meaning: May God deprive you of His
blessings!)
He would continue thus:
Whoever uses wristwatches, radios or ride
bicycles,
Allah ya tsine maka albarka!
In no time, the people of Kano quickly
labelled him Mai Tatsine which can be
loosely translated to mean ‘ the one with
curses ’ or ‘the one who curses’.
But that was not all. There was another
dimension to Maitatsine’s teachings that
alarmed millions all over northern Nigeria:
he preached clearly against the
conventional form of Islam. He came with
his own brand of puritanical Islam and
condemned everything else. The Emir of
Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi,
(who incidentally was the grandfather of
the former Central Bank Governor, Mallam
Sanusi Lamido Sanusi and now the Emir of
Kano) was shocked at Maitatsine’s
audacity. A majority of the city’s clerics
were also appalled and outraged at
Maitatsine’s teachings and the challenge
that he would pose as an obstacle to
constituted authority, both in the religious
and political spheres. But the man from
Cameroon did not even send anyone of
them, including the all-powerful Emir. He
continued his fiery ‘preachings’ and scary
sermons to his amused followers, who
obviously lapped up and enjoyed
everything he said.

TEACHINGS

Maitatsine’s teachings were quite
interesting indeed. Although many may see
Boko Haram as a new creation or novel
development, the truth of the matter is that
this is not the first time in the history of
Nigeria that a fundamentalist religious sect
would challenge the state with their
audacious teachings and unleash maximum
destruction in a bid to establish their own
version of how a society should operate.
Maitatsine spoke with anger and instructed
his followers that:
-Western education is a sin.
-The use of money is not important and even
accumulating too much money is a grave
sin. He preached that sleeping with more
than one naira was lack of trust in Allah.
He encouraged his followers to dress simply
and they were engaged in low-paying
occupations as begging, transient labourers,
cart pushers, petty traders and tea sellers.
etc

THE POWER

Maitatsine’s genius laid in his ability to
utilize the contemporary social problems
like poverty, despair, corruption and
unemployment as tools to indoctrinate
hopeless youths and then turn them against
the government, simultaneously blaming
the government as the source of their
misery. His cult was massive and as at
December 1980, he had between 8,000 and
12,000 members ( Falola, 1998, 143 ). He
would send his followers out in small
groups of three to five to preach at major
junctions near the Sabon Gari Mosque or
in places around Koki and Kofar Wombai
where they ferociously attacked secularism,
modernity, corruption and blasted the
other clerics. It was rumoured that
Maitatsine was supported by one of the
wealthiest contractors in Kano and that he
even got assistance from politicians but
there is no evidence for this. His mystique
was fed by tales of his magical powers,
tales of cannibalism and human slaughter,
hypnotized students and brainwashed
women.
As he spoke with considerable rage from
his pulpit, his gleeful supporters and
frenzied followers nodded in agreement to
everything Maitatsine said. To them, he
was nothing but an angel, God’s own
manifestation on the face of the earth.
Many swore they would lay down their
lives for him, and they were not joking. At
the height of his power and influence,
Mohammed Marwa was the toast of the
high and mighty.
At a point, Marwa had become so
powerful to the extent that he operated his
own autonomous enclave. Because his
followers regarded other Muslims as
heretics, they avoided the general
population and lived in an isolated section
of the city. You know, in the Reverend Jim
Jones style. Like the Hamaliyya sect of the
Tijanniya order, the Maitatsine preferred to
live in their own hermit kingdom, creating
a minuscule North Korea in the heart of
Kano. Interestingly, one of the fastest and
most efficient ways to indoctrinate anyone
is to isolate them or cut them off from
relatives and friends and then subject them
to a constant stream of sweet propaganda.
Maitatsine and his followers lived in an
area of Kano called Yan Awaki, it was a
vast tsangaya (community) on its own. In
this enclave, he was the absolute ruler and
the king that no one dared question. He
was clearly, a power unto himself.
From within the comfort provided by the
confines of his Yan Awaki residence, he
launched scathing verbal assaults against
the city’s imperial ruler, Emir Sanusi who
was the traditional leader of all Muslims in
the city. With thousands of eager youths at
his beck and call, flanking him on all sides
and ready to carry out his even his
flimsiest instructions to the last, Maitatsine
felt he had the height of it all. He became
bolder, more confrontational and even
more daring as the sun rose and set.
But the Emir, the government and the
security agents were not finding his
astronomical rise and popularity funny at
all. The royal institution in ‘collabo’ with
the religious establishment and with the
tacit support of the state government,
decided to act fast before this volcano blew
up on their turbaned heads. So in the year
1962, the Emir released a royal edict
indicting Marwa of various crimes. He was
accused of preaching illegally and for
engaging in what is called shatimati or
abusive speech in fiqh (Islamic
jurisprudence). An obstinate Maitatsine was
then brought before a qadi (Muslim judge)
to face proper judgment. It was not funny
at all. The qadi sentenced him to 90 days in
jail and after serving out his sentence, he
was promptly deported to Cameroon.

Finish d story na

Many thought that was the end but the
battle had just started. Maitatsine would
return, full of renewed vigour, hate and
anger. When he was catapulted into
Cameroon from Kano, he continued with
his subversive teachings much to the anger
of the local authorities in Cameroon who
then bundled him again and threw him
into Gongola State in another wave of
‘repatriation’ in early 1963. That same
year, Maitatsine’s old enemy, the Emir of
Kano would abdicate the throne and the
coast was finally clear: Maitatsine sneaked
back into Kano. The Nigerian populace
would suddenly be rudely woken up to the
latest brand of terror in town.
After Maitatsine managed to slip back into
Nigeria ( na wa for our immigration pipu
sef) and made his way back to Kano, he
properly settled in his Yan Awaki area.
Bitter and enraged, he would once again
warm his way into the hearts of his
followers who believed that he was unjustly
victimized by the Kano elite and monarchy.
A very clever and intelligent man,
Maitatsine was not blind to all these
developments and in time, he would make
his boldest claim ever. He told his
enthusiastic followers that he was the
forerunner of the much-awaited Mahdi
(Saviour or Messiah) who would wipe
away all their tropical tears and take to the
much-desired Promised Land. He said he
was the saviour to rescue them from the
tyranny of the establishment. He would
banish the infidels, bring peace to the
land, erase all their wheelbarrow-pushing
suffering and water-hawking stress. For
centuries, West African Muslims (and
others across the globe) believed (and still
believe) that a Mahdi would eventually
emerge to get rid of all the injustices of this
world. Maitatsine cashed in on this age-
long belief of the people and kukuma
declared himself as the one they’ve been
waiting for, the one to come before the
Mahdi himself. He even compared himself
to the late Fulani scholar-warrior, Uthman
Dan Fodio. The other Kano clerics could not
get their head over Maitatsine’s latest
pronouncements, which many of them
regarded as nothing but heresy.
But while they were trying to grapple
with what Maitatsine was saying, he fired
another shot. He declared all the hadiths
and sunnah (recorded actions, sayings and
traditions of Muhammad, the Prophet of
Islam) as false and that no one should
follow them. Maitatsine did not stop there.
He went further to ban his followers from
facing Mecca, Saudi Arabia while praying.
This clearly went against the standard
requirement in Islam that mandated that
worshippers face the Ka’aba in Mecca
while praying. But that was not Maitatsine’s
business. He would release another
damning pronouncement: no one must say
Allahu Akbar (God is Great) while praying
and whoever said so was condemned to
Hellfire. Christians, Muslims, government,
traditional worshippers, Maitatsine
criticized and fought with everybody.
You thought he would end there but he
did not. The Emir of Kano and the clerics
were more than alarmed but Maitatsine
was yet to drop the real shocker. He simply
declared himself the nabeey (Prophet) after
initially making demands to be addressed
as a prophet in 1976. His excited followers
happily shouted his praise and truly
believed in his new gift of prophethood.
Still riding his wave of power and
influence, he stated that Muslims in
northern Nigeria should not mention the
name of Prophet Muhammad again, as they
regarded him as any other Arab. Reports
have it that after his death, copies of the
Qu’ran found in Maitatsine’is home were
already altered: Prophet Muhammad’s
name was replaced with Maitatsine’s
name. But that was not even the strangest
part. The most curious part was yet to
come.
He declared that while the Holy Qu’ran
was indeed the true word of God, no one
but him was in the right position to
interpret and explain the contents of the
Qu’ran and issue new proclamations in his
new status as a prophet. A deafening howl
of approval from his thousands of followers
assured him that all was well. But all was
far from well or even borehole. Just as
Maitatsine was busy proclaiming himself
the overall lord of the heavens, the earth
and all that was in between, his terrified
enemies knew that they had to do
something really quick if not they would
have willingly signed their own documents
of annihilation because Maitatsine and his
overzealous band of followers would stop
at nothing to bitterly fight the opposition
this time around. Once bitten, the shame of
1962 would never repeat itself again. For
Maitatsine and his followers, their actions
were justified and they were backed by
God Himself with His Divine Armed Forces
with invisible jet fighters.

A petrified government watched helplessly as events snowballed. Other Muslims in the city were not just angered at Maitatsine’s arrogant and heretical pronouncements, they were also genuinely worried about the menace he was rapidly constituting. The clerics also knew that more masculinization of Maitatsine and his adherents would mean a catalysis of the progressive erosion of the power and influence they had enjoyed unbridled for centuries. Something really decisive had to be done. But as his foes were planning, Maitatsine too was not sleeping, he was scheming. But his plans were interrupted suddenly in 1973 when the military government of General Yakubu Gowon started a wave of arrests and incarceration of religious leaders who were brainwashing kids for anti-social activities. Maitatsine was one of those that they picked up in Kano and he was promptly given a room in jail. But when Gowon was overthrown in July 1975 by Murtala Muhammed, people like Maitatsine regained their freedom and once again, he was on his way to Kano, this time around, with some really new and devastatingly efficient strategies to ultimately wreak maximum havoc. Upon reaching Kano, Maitatsine quickly rallied his lieutenants and divided them into three wings for recruitment of new members, each for one sector of Kano City. The job of the first wing was to recruit members from the railway stations and public transport garages. The other two wings would focus on public parks and parking lots, the most ideal location to see the constant troops of ambitious but jobless youths streaming into the commercial city of Kano in search of the greener pasture. Many of these naïve boys would soon be ensnared to become fighters for Maitatsine. They were recruited for doom. Some of them were refugees from Chad, Niger and Cameroon who joined simply because they would be guaranteed food, clothing and a roof over their dusty heads. That was the initial motivation for many to join.

But being the troublemaker that he was,
Maitatsine would soon land in hot soup
again in April 1978 when he was arrested.
His violence-laced teachings had brought
wahala on his head again. He would spend
one horrible year in prison with hard
labour before he was released. Following
his release, he stopped making public
appearances, seemed to melt into the
background but his followers became
noticeably more outspoken and violent. By
October 1979, the military regime of
General Olusegun Obasanjo handed over to
the civilian president, Shehu Shagari.
With the iron-fisted military gone and a
less repressive civilian government in
power, the time was perfectly ripe for
Maitatsine to emerge from the shadows. He
became bolder, expanded his colony
(which now had over 6,000 people),
forcefully took the property of neighbours
and erected illegal structures on it. He even
had a kangaroo court in his Yan Awaki
colony where offenders, infidels kidnapped
by sect members and disloyal members
were made to face ‘justice’. He was a law
unto himself and built his own ‘state within
a state’.
As he continued his arrogant strides of
defiance, Nigerians in Kano became tired
and frustrated and increased pressure on
the government to act and do something.
Finally, in 1980, the Kano State House of
Assembly summoned courage to introduce
a bill that would clearly combat abusive
religious preaching. But you know the
amusing thing? The bill did not pass.

THE BLOODBATH
Maitatsine was on the edge. He
summoned his thousands of followers near
and beyond to come to his aid and join him
in the mother of all battles against the
infidels. They heeded his call and flocked
in in their thousands. Maitatsine was to
lead the attack and all the plans were fine-
tuned and perfected. All the ‘holy warriors’
were at alert and ready to fight at the
slightest flick of Maitatsine’s slim fingers.
The residents of Kano knew trouble was
going to explode soon but no one had any
precise idea of where and when. Finally,
the D-Day came and the venue where
demons descended on earth that day was
the football field of the Shahuchi Playing
Ground where Maitatsine had camped his
followers and was giving his usual fiery
sermons.
Security forces were around his venue to
maintain law and order but in an instant,
a skirmish broke out between the armed
followers of Maitatsine and the Nigerian
Police, four police units were actually on a
mission to arrest some of his preachers. In
a matter of seconds, police officers were
killed and their vehicles were in flames.
For a people used to living in impunity and
believing they were in their own republic,
free of any government, the followers of
Maitatsine regularly clashed with the
Nigerian Police. But this particular clash
was extremely bloody. Considering the fact
that the government was already planning
on how to smoke Maitatsine and his
followers out of their fortress and that the
populace was already fed up, the
government decided to land the blows one
after the other. By the time the madness
ended, about 5,000 Nigerian lives were
wasted. Maitatsine was one of the dead, he
was killed in the first wave of fighting.

THE AFTERMATH
But his sect did not die with him. In fact, in
October 1982, his followers would launch
another round of violence. This time, it was
not in Kano but in the town of Bulunkutu
(Bullumkutu) near Maiduguri in Borno
State which would later be under siege by
the rampaging Boko Haram. What sparked
this crisis was the attempt of the police to
arrest the sect members. Mohammedu Goni
was the Governor of Borno State that time
and he was also taken aback with the scale
of the ferocity of the Maitatsine sect and
the attack spread to Kaduna where 39
members of the sect were killed by the
vigilante group (total killed was 44 in
Kaduna and at least 452 people had
already lost their lives in the Maiduguri
attack). It was a brutal assault launched by
the surviving remnants of the sect that fled
from Kano. (Please note that the Kano crisis
of 1982 in which Bala Muhammed, the
beloved Secretary to the State Government,
SSG of Governor Rimi was murdered in
cold blood was a different incident).

Hmmnnn

The military head of state, Major-General
Muhammadu Buhari, who had barely
spent two months in office, responded with
a deafening ferocity. He moved in his
forces to wipe off the sect from existence
with the same ruthlessness that he pursued
Chadian forces under President Shagari.
General Buhari had flown into Yola to
personally on a Wednesday oversee the
military offensive against the sect ( AF Press
Clips, United States Department of State,
Bureau of African Affairs, 1984 ), this
include the bombardment of the sect’s
hideout at Rumde, a suburb of Yola. The
counterattack was so brutal that the Jimeta
Main Market was destroyed, over 700
people had died and 30,000 were displaced
from their homes by the time the smoke
cleared. With constant artillery pounding,
the unrest was finally controlled and
Maitatsine was severely decimated, the
blow was clearly a mortal one.
Nigerians were very excited with the
offensive with various personalities like
Dele Giwa hailing the military campaign.
the Buhari-
led military regime set up its own panel
headed by Mr. Justice Mohammed Lawal
Uwais to investigate the causes, remedies
and incidental matters of the crisis.
( I must state that under the Buhari regime,
the suppression and crackdown on militant
religious sects were second to none. The
military dictator launched a terrifying wave
of repression against sects as the ‘Yan Izala
with many of their members imprisoned and
tortured by the secret service. Donors like
Alhaji Haruna Danja who funded the ‘Yan
Izala sect were imprisoned under the
charges of corruption. These multiple
suppression tactics severely weakened
religious sects that had the ability and
capability to foment trouble, disturb public
peace or undermine state security. However,
this would change when Buhari was
overthrown on the 27 th of August, 1985 and
the incoming regime of General Ibrahim
Babangida relaxed the rules and provided a
broader political context for sects as the
‘Yan Izala and others. Babangida released
the jailed ‘Yan Izala members and
supporters, Sheikh Abubakar Gumi was
reinstated to his old position as a religious
adviser to the president and his sect
resumed its controversial preaching and
activities ). – Islamic Reform and Political
Change in Northern Nigeria by Roman
Loimeier, pages 220 – 223.

THE SECRETS OF MAITATSINE
Remember the three recruitment wings of
Maitatsine? Yes, once they got batches of
new recruits, what followed next was a
bizarre initiation ceremony in which they
all met Maitatsine who would then
administer hypnotizing potions and
concoctions on them, special tattoos are
made on their abdomens after which they
pledged eternal allegiance to him. The new
recruits, many of them in their teens would
also be given charms and amulets that
were supposed to protect them from bullets
and other weapons. The military training
and combat rehearsal sessions were
handled by the sect members who were
former officers in the Nigerian Police or the
Nigerian Armed Forces. Many people
feared them and this made them have this
aura of invincibility like Abubakar Shekau
has today but in actual sense, all na wash.
The ends of violent actors like Maitatsine
are usually very shameful indeed.
However, it must be said that although
there were widespread rumours on the sect
receiving weapons from Libya and Israel,
the government commission of inquiry set
up to look into the crisis found no evidence
of any foreign support. In fact, Maitatsine
fighters made use of the crudest weapons
such as machetes, daggers, bows, knives,
arrows, spears and a few rifles but which
they used with the devastating efficiency of
a King Shaka-led Zulu army. Their main
source of financing was alms collecting and
that was surely not enough for them to
procure arms from overseas. All in all, they
launched four devastating series of attacks:
Kano (December 1980), Bullunkutu
(October 1982), Rigasa (October 1982) and
Yola (February 1984).

http://naijarchives.com/maitatsine-the-story-of-nigerias-religious-terror-of-the-1980s/

Even without formal education, an average Southerner will never be easily manipulated like a Northerner. Look at how a silly 1diot was able to manipulate the brains of many all in the name of religion just like shekau is doing right now.

Take away 1slam and this world will know no terror.

Lugard will forever be cursed to making me bear the name Nigerian with these people.

IdiAmin1:
Even without formal education, an average Southerner will never be easily manipulated like a Northerner. Look at how a silly 1diot was able to manipulate the brains of many all in the name of religion just like shekau is doing right now.

Take away 1slam and this world will know no terror.

Lugard will forever be cursed to making me bear the name Nigerian with these people.

Let us hope Nnamdi Kanu doesnt command his Aba boys one of these days to destroy all "Awusa" and "Ofe mmanu" living in south east. Then you will know that anyone can commit any atrocity if sufficiently indoctrinated.

The Hutus in Rwanda were predominantly catholic christians.

Even without formal education, an average Southerner will never be easily manipulated like a Northerner. Look at how a silly 1diot was able to manipulate the brains of many all in the name of religion just like shekau is doing right now.
Take away 1slam and this world will know no terror.
Lugard will forever be cursed to making me bear the name Nigerian with these people.

The voice of the one and the only son of Harlot and kidnapper. I salute your stupidity

honeychild:


Let us hope Nnamdi Kanu doesnt command his Aba boys one of these days to destroy all "Awusa" and "Ofe mmanu" living in south east. Then you will know that anyone can commit any atrocity if sufficiently indoctrinated.

The Hutus in Rwanda were predominantly catholic christians.

Unlike Maitatsine, Kanu has no interest in political power. He is a freedom fighter. He wouldn't ask anyone to attack 'Awusa' unless it was in self defence.

One thing about the Maitatsine story is that it shows the blood thirsty nature of Buhari. This is not to say that a violent religious sect shouldn't be put down, but there are rules of engagement. Buharis "all guns blazing" approach to most matters exposes him as a man bereft of leadership qualities. Only God knows how many innocent people were killed and how many human rights violations were committed by Buhari as he chased after Maitatsine. The surviving sect members of Maitatsine later scattered and regrouped to become present day Boko Haram.

Ahmed4002:
But being the troublemaker that he was,
Maitatsine would soon land in hot soup
again in April 1978 when he was arrested.
His violence-laced teachings had brought
wahala on his head again. He would spend
one horrible year in prison with hard
labour before he was released. Following
his release, he stopped making public
appearances, seemed to melt into the
background but his followers became
noticeably more outspoken and violent. By
October 1979, the military regime of
General Olusegun Obasanjo handed over to
the civilian president, Shehu Shagari.
With the iron-fisted military gone and a
less repressive civilian government in
power, the time was perfectly ripe for
Maitatsine to emerge from the shadows. He
became bolder, expanded his colony
(which now had over 6,000 people),
forcefully took the property of neighbours
and erected illegal structures on it. He even
had a kangaroo court in his Yan Awaki
colony where offenders, infidels kidnapped
by sect members and disloyal members
were made to face ‘justice’. He was a law
unto himself and built his own ‘state within
a state’.
As he continued his arrogant strides of
defiance, Nigerians in Kano became tired
and frustrated and increased pressure on
the government to act and do something.
Finally, in 1980, the Kano State House of
Assembly summoned courage to introduce
a bill that would clearly combat abusive
religious preaching. But you know the
amusing thing? The bill did not pass.

because of the then governor of kano who happen to be his in-law, alj. Abubakar rimi

the op forgot or did not know that mohammed yusuf is adirect descendant of marwa ( maitastine). Rimi the then governor was giving them logistics cos he is his in-law. It was shagari that sign for the military to intervene.