The Butchers Of Nigeria

Jan 16, 2012 12:00 AM EST


How a corrupt nation bred Boko Haram, the Islamic sect terrorizing the country’s Christians.



Over the past year, Nigeria’s homegrown terror group Boko Haram has escalated its deadly attacks against Christian and government targets, with the aim of establishing a Sharia state in the country’s north.

   
Nearly 30 years ago, in the largely Christian heartland of a multireligious Nigerian nation, and at that nation’s pioneer institution—the University of Ibadan—a minister of education summoned the vice chancellor and ordered him to remove a cross from a site dedicated to religious worship. Some Muslims had complained, he claimed, that the cross offended their sight when they turned east to pray.

The don’s response was: “Mr. Minister, it would be much easier to remove me as vice chancellor than to have me remove that cross.” Christians mobilized. 

A religious war was barely averted on campus. Today the Christian cross occupies that same spot, with the Islamic star and crescent raised only a few meters away. 

As I observed at a lecture several years later, there has been no earthquake beneath, no convulsions of the firmament above that space, no blight traceable to the cohabitation of that spot by Christian and Muslim symbols.

I evoked that occurrence when the latest torch bearers of fanaticism—a group called Boko Haram—emerged. 

I did so to draw attention to the fact that religious zealotry is not new in the nation, nor is it limited to the “unwashed masses” who have been programmed into killing, at the slightest provocation or none, in the name of faith.

 Unfortunately, far too many have succumbed to the belligerent face of fanaticism, believing that any form of excess is divinely sanctioned and nationally privileged.

Sectarian killings—numbered in the thousands—preceded Boko Haram, much organized butch-ery, sometimes announced in advance, always tacitly endorsed by silence and inaction, escalating in intensity and impunity. 

It was consciousness of the geographical expansion and the increasingly organized nature of the fanatic surge and its international linkages that compelled me to warn on three public occasions since 2009 that “the agencies of Boko Haram, its promulgators both in evangelical and violent forms, are everywhere. 

Even here, right here in this throbbing commercial city of Lagos, there are, in all probability, what are known as ‘sleepers’ waiting for the word to be given. If that word were given this moment, those sleepers would swarm over the walls of this college compound and inundate us.”


Much play is given, and rightly so, to economic factors—unemployment, misgovernment, wasted resources, social marginalization, massive corruption—in the nurturing of the current season of violent discontent. 

To limit oneself to these factors alone is, however, an evasion, no less than intellectual and moral cowardice, a fear of offending the ruthless caucuses that have unleashed terror on society, a refusal to stare the irrational in the face and give it its proper name—and response.

 That minister was not one of the “unwashed masses.” He was, quite simply, the polished face of fanaticism. 

His prolonged career as secretary of the Universities Commission and minister of education inflicted on the nation a number of other policies of educational separatism that left a huge swath of Nigeria open to fanatic indoctrination.

Yes, indeed, economic factors have facilitated the mass production of these foot soldiers, but they have been deliberately bred, nurtured, sheltered, rendered pliant, obedient to only one line of command, ready to be unleashed at the rest of society. 

They were bred in madrassas and are generally known as the almajiris. From knives and machetes, bows and poisoned arrows they have graduated to AK-47s, homemade bombs, and explosive-packed vehicles. Only the mechanism of inflicting death has changed, nothing else.

This horde has remained available to political opportunists and criminal leaders desperate to stave off the day of reckoning. 

Most are highly placed, highly disgruntled, and thus highly motivated individuals who, having lost out in the power stakes, resort to the manipulation of these products of warped fervor. 

Their aim is to bring society to its knees, to create a situation of total anarchy that will either break up the nation or bring back the military, which ruled Nigeria in a succession of coups between the mid-1960s and the late ’90s. 

Again and again they have declared their blunt manifesto—not merely to Islamize the nation but to bring it under a specific kind of fundamentalist strain. 

Rather than act in defense of Nigeria’s Constitution, past rulers have cosseted the aggressors for short-term political gains. However, those who have tweaked the religious chord are discovering that they have conjured up a Frankenstein. 

Arrogance has given way to fear. The former governors of the northern states of Gombe and Borno wasted no time in issuing full-page advertorials in the media, apologizing to Boko Haram when the latter issued threats against them for their alleged role in the deaths of the group’s members at the hands of security forces in 2009.

They had precedent. It was in Nigeria, after all, that a deputy governor, later backed by his superior, pronounced a fatwa on a Nigerian citizen in 2002: “Like Salman Rushdie, [her blood] can be shed. It is binding on all Muslims, wherever they are, to consider the killing of the writer as a religious duty.”

That was the fallout from a beauty contest in Abuja that drew the ire of some Islamic extremists. Reacting to the mayhem, a female journalist had speculated that, were the Prophet Muhammad alive, he might have selected one of the contestants for wife. 

For that alleged blasphemy, hundreds, guilty only of innocently pursuing a living, were massacred by hordes of fanatics, who were mostly bused into the capital for organized violence. The president went groveling before the presumably offended elite.

It was the same governor of an impoverished state called Zamfara who unilaterally commenced the separatist agenda that turned parts of Nigeria into theocracies under a supposed secular Constitution. His whim was indulged, his political support was courted by the then-sitting president, obsessed with prolonging his tenure. The governor, now turned senator, was also caught as a serial pedophile. Challenged in the media, he boasted that the Quran was above the Constitution, and thus he was not subject to laws that criminalized copulation with underage children or, indeed, cross-border sex trafficking, of which he was equally accused. He was neither censured by his fellow senators nor placed on trial. His followers have taken their cue from his declaration, convinced that the greater the crime, the greater its deserving of immunity.

How many of the hundreds of cases of impunity need one cite, with their corresponding gestures of appeasement? Where does one begin? 

Can the Nigerian police or judicial records reveal how many were prosecuted when a man called Gideon Akaluka was beheaded, his head paraded on a stake through the streets of Kano in northern Nigeria, for allegedly desecrating the Quran? It turned out no such offense had been committed. Nor has there been a single arrest in the secondary school where an invigilating teacher, a Mrs. Oluwasesin, was stripped naked, beaten, and then “necklaced”—set on fire by students for allegedly “treating the Quran with disrespect.” Her real crime? She had confiscated a Quran—and, incidentally, a Bible as well—from cheating students during a paper on religious studies.

 How does one convey scenes where killers perform ritual recitations before or after the meticulous throat-slitting of schoolchildren, in the conviction that this carries the same potency of immunity as papal indulgences once did in the decadent era of Christianity? 

For decades, leaders of those communities remained mute or uttered pietisms. Now the foot soldiers have matured on the taste of blood. They understand the essence of power. Some have come to realize they have been programmed, used, abused, and discarded. Now they seek to exercise power and have turned on all, mentors and appeasers alike.

Nigeria is at war. The Somalia scenario nibbles at her cohesion. When we insisted that the nation had become a prime target of al Qaeda, the reply was that Boko Haram was a homegrown phenomenon—as if this were ever the question! The reality is that it has, inevitably, developed ties with al Qaeda and its borderless company of religious insurgency. 

Only a few have sown the wind, but that wind was fanned by the breath of appeasement. Only one choice remains: to ride, or else reap, the whirlwind.


http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/01/15/wole-soyinka-on-nigeria-s-anti-christian-terror-sect-boko-haram.html

Home page please.

Soyinka, as usual, gets the full picture.

War broke out in Nigeria a long time ago, anyone waiting for an official announcement is on a "long thing"

I would love to have a one-on-one chat with Wole Syinka. I want to feel his bias towards religion. For me i dont trust him, because of the Pirates Confraternity he tried modelling along Skulls and Bones (Freemason extension). I know the Skulls and Bones disregard any form of Religion and its ideologies. So i say Wole is speaking from a textbook agenda till i speak with him and know his mind from way back till now.

Why didnt he include the muslims killed in north central in his examples?Though the article is excellent

diluminati:

I would love to have a one-on-one chat with Wole Syinka. I want to feel his bias towards religion. For me i dont trust him, because of the Pirates Confraternity he tried modelling along Skulls and Bones (Freemason extension). I know the Skulls and Bones disregard any form of Religion and its ideologies. So i say Wole is speaking from a textbook agenda till i speak with him and know his mind from way back till now.

I think if you pick up his books you will get a pretty good insight into his mind.

If you read his Brother Jero Plays closely for example, you will get a sense of his thoughts concerning some religious practices.

I don't think Soyinka is against religion, as a self confessed admirer and sometimes worshipper of Ogun, The Yoruba God of War and Iron, I don't think he's 100% against religion.

I'm yet to read where he called himself an atheist.

As per the Pirates thing, Soyinka formed a University Fraternity, a student club at best and a pressure group to fight for well articulated ideals. He never formed a cult.

Whatever brought cultism to Nigeria is Nigeria's fault, Soyinka did not bring Cultism.

Nigerian University cultism is a product of Corruption, Military rule and the militarization of the Nigerian Psyche, all mixed with ignorance plus poorly channeled Youthful exuberance

Reading this excellent summation by Kongi, one wonders what the long-term objective of the terrorists would be if they were in fact able to achieve their goal of carving an autonomous Republic of Sharia-Land out of present day northern Nigeria.   Surely, if all that is being requested by the Boko Haram terror group is for southern Nigerians to leave the north, and for the north to be allowed to secede and become an independent  nation governed by religious dogma, that excision of the Islamic north from the existing Nigerian federation would be joyfully welcomed by the Christian south PROVIED that ALL claims to crude oil wealth were surrendered by the new Islamic republic, as a VITAL component to that fond parting of ways.

Would that new Islamic Republic of Sharia-Land government still insist on partaking of the crude oil export proceeds from the Niger Delta, whose constituent tribes would in that scenario either remain within the Southern Nigerian Federation, or opt out, taking ALL the oil income with them ?    If the Sharialand government did decide to lay claim over oil reserves located outside the territorial boundaries separating that new nation from the rest of what was once Nigeria, would the Shariland army immediately launch a jihad war of conquest against the south to enforce that claim over the oil-fields, or would they be inclined to negotiate a gradual phasing out of their previous entitlement to that crude oil pie, while they develop alternate means of generating national wealth after the free ride inevitably ends ?

Good piece

Jakumo:

that excision of the Islamic north from the existing Nigerian federation would be joyfully welcomed by the Christian south PROVIED that ALL claims to crude oil wealth were surrendered by the new Islamic republic, as a VITAL component to that fond parting of ways.

No part of Nigeria has a legitimate or valid claim to the resources outside their own land. So there is no claim to withdraw really.

What we have is a sharing agreement by the owners of Nigeria, an agreement forged in the fire of corruption and strengthened by the bonds of  padi-padi, chop-make-I-chop looting.

one wonders what the long-term objective of the terrorists would be if they were in fact able to achieve their goal of carving an autonomous Republic of Sharia-Land out of present day northern Nigeria.

I doubt if up to 6 local governments in the North will agree to this separation or creation of a new theocratic Islamic country.

I believe this administration can fix Nigeria. But is must first clean house. The cobwebs of impunity must be removed from it's cupboards and it must purge itself of the sin of corrupt collusion.

He that comes to equity must come with cleaned, washed and sanitized hands.

Those hands may need to be washed in the blood of the greedy and wicked looters sitting in the public and private highplaces of Nigeria.

This piece by Wole Soyinka is nothing but a bunch of crappy common knowledge. The man has added nothing tangible to the problem at hand. In an expression of intellectual cowardice, he avoided mentioning any viable solution to the problem at hand, rendering his article a bunch of crap. He concluded, "Only one choice remains: to ride, or else reap, the whirlwind." What da heck does that mean?  ride ko, sour like a bird ni.

Jakumo:

Would that new Islamic Republic of Sharia-Land government still insist on partaking of the crude oil export proceeds from the Niger Delta, whose constituent tribes would in that scenario either remain within the Southern Nigerian Federation, or opt out, taking ALL the oil income with them ?    If the Sharialand government did decide to lay claim over oil reserves located outside the territorial boundaries separating that new nation from the rest of what was once Nigeria, would the Shariland army immediately launch a jihad war of conquest against the south to enforce that claim over the oil-fields, or would they be inclined to negotiate a gradual phasing out of their previous entitlement to that crude oil pie, while they develop alternate means of generating national wealth after the free ride inevitably ends ?

The answers to the questions you posed are why Nigeria can never split peacefully.  Note that no one is willing to go to war for separation because the human costs will be unbearable.  The government will kill 5,000 of you people rather than go to war and risk losing millions.

God Bless Wole Soyinka

This is what old men do, they stand up for the truth and damn the consequences!

adamabdul:

[b]Why didnt he include the muslims killed in north central in his examples?[/b]Though the article is excellent

Another obtuse attempt to suggest that organized and unprovoked religion-based violence is not exclusive to Islam, when everybody knows that it IS indeed exclusive to Islam and muslims.

Never ceases to repulse me when so-called 'good' muslims avoid the real issues anytime Islamic fanatics wreck havoc in the name of Allah as they always do. . .rather they would go all defensive and insecure. Sickening. Hpw many times have muslims been deliberately targeted and killed in the name of Jesus Christ or God? Anywhere in Nigeria?

Nice article. Couldn't have said it better; but then again, i ain't no Prof or Nobel Laureate.

Can someone help me tell that bastard Igbo-imposter 'ndu chuks' to do us all a favour and drop dead? Or is that too much to ask ?

ndu_chucks:

This piece by Wole Soyinka is nothing but a bunch of crappy common knowledge. The man has added nothing tangible to the problem at hand. In an expression of intellectual cowardice, he avoided mentioning any viable solution to the problem at hand, rendering his article a bunch of crap. He concluded, "Only one choice remains: to ride, or else reap, the whirlwind." What da heck does that mean?  ride ko, sour like a bird ni.

The write up is a "critique" of certain behaviours.
If this was my 2yr old nephew asking the questions you put up above. I will simply advise him that Wole Soyinka provided an implied solution to the problem. When a set of behaviours are criticised, the solution is to either change those behaviours where necessary, revert systems where necessary etc. But because you are an adult my response is "I am not sure what solutions you still want"?

Solution?

The expansion of sharia law in certain states beyond the jurisdictions provided in our Federal Secular constitution must be reversed.
The Almajiri system must be banished.
Aspects of education curriculum that promotes religious hate should be banished from our education system
Muslim Leaders must take more responsibility to reject and purnish hate crimes!

etc.

"lol this is like interpreting English to English - Hardwork!"

Nice article!

On the issue of resource control and particularly oil, the North is self sufficient!  The only pain they will have is coastal access.  

From what I have heard, they are not carving a sharia ruled Northern Nigeria. . . .far from it, they are carving a islamic kingdom which will amalgamate Northern Nigeria, Niger, Chad, and so on.  Chad has abundant oil.

It will be like merging Western Nigeria with Republic of Benin and Togo to return back to the pre-colonial days.  They speak one language, have same culture and customs, worship same God. . . why not have same destiny?  

They will go gaga with their new found freedom, and in a case where the Northern voice has defaulted to that of boko, the Northen Nigeria piece of that kingdom will be controlled and manipulated by boko interests. I see boko serving a role similar to taliban sharia police and flogging anyone who appears in public without a beard.

_chucks, start growing some !

mikeansy:

The write up is a "critique" of certain behaviours.
If this was my 2yr old nephew asking the questions you put up above. I will simply advise him that Wole Soyinka provided an implied solution to the problem. When a set of behaviours are criticised, the solution is to either change those behaviours where necessary, revert systems where necessary etc. But because you are an adult my response is "I am not sure what solutions you still want"?

Solution?

The expansion of sharia law in certain states beyond the jurisdictions provided in our Federal Secular constitution must be reversed.
The Almajiri system must be banished.
Aspects of education curriculum that promotes religious hate should be banished from our education system
Muslim Leaders must take more responsibility to reject and purnish hate crimes!

etc.

"lol this is like interpreting English to English - Hardwork!"

a very good one! Many don't understand English beyond go, come, stand, sit.

The expansion of sharia law in certain states beyond the jurisdictions provided in our Federal Secular constitution must be reversed.
The Almajiri system must be banished.
Aspects of education curriculum that promotes religious hate should be banished from our education system
Muslim Leaders must take more responsibility to reject and purnish hate crimes!

i disagree wit these solutions.

mikeansy:


Solution?

The expansion of sharia law in certain states beyond the jurisdictions provided in our Federal Secular constitution must be reversed.
The Almajiri system must be banished.
Aspects of education curriculum that promotes religious hate should be banished from our education system
Muslim Leaders must take more responsibility to reject and purnish hate crimes!

etc.

"lol this is like interpreting English to English - Hardwork!"

If the above is the implied solution in Soyinka's beautiful article, then it falls short of our current needs and it is woefully inadequate. The solutions you itemized may have been enough if implemented back in 2007, but they are not sufficient to deal with the problem at hand. May I remind you that BH has declared a war and fighting that war. Nigerians, Christians, Moslems, Ifa practitioners, and others, are being killed in a guerilla war??

The solutions would have been deemed reasonable if they contained suggestions for GEJ on how to fight and win this war. Anything short of full fledged military operations including covert and overt actions will not defeat BH. GEJ needs to grow some balls, purge the government of traitors and BH sympathizers (afterall he appointed most of them politically), close the borders, declare state of emergency in appropriate states, and put the squeeze on these terrorists. I maintain that all Soyinka has done is written a beautiful article which unfortunately is devoid of real solutions to our current problems with BH.

Negro_Ntns:

Nice article!

On the issue of resource control and particularly oil, the North is self sufficient!  The only pain they will have is coastal access.  

From what I have heard, they are not carving a sharia ruled Northern Nigeria. . . .far from it, they are carving a islamic kingdom which will amalgamate Northern Nigeria, Niger, Chad, and so on.  Chad has abundant oil.

It will be like merging Western Nigeria with Republic of Benin and Togo to return back to the pre-colonial days.  They speak one language, have same culture and customs, worship same God. . . why not have same destiny?  

They will go gaga with their new found freedom, and in a case where the Northern voice has defaulted to that of boko, the Northen Nigeria piece of that kingdom will be controlled and manipulated by boko interests.  I see boko serving a role similar to taliban sharia police and flogging anyone who appears in public without a beard.

_chucks, start growing some !

To the bolded I say   

If I didn't know that you have a weird and wild imagination, I would have concluded that you attended some BH executive meetings. BH is a terrorist group which was not dealt with promptly by GEJ and which can be defeated in less than a month if our C in C can muster the courage to do so.

BTW, I accept your show of submission which you displayed by truncating my NL userid. Keep it up, I accept the honour.

Nice one from Prof.

Just wondering where all these will end.

BTW, I accept your show of submission which you displayed by truncating my NL userid. Keep it up, I accept the honour

oh, i didnt know there was a rivalry. Believe me. . . a far greater honor is awaiting when hisbah catches you using ipad. You western educated rascal!

@ndu_chucks

It is beginning to appear to me that there is more than courage lacking here. There seems to be a complete abscence of ideas.

The military's job is to locate a target and destroy it - they do not do well when asked to babysit as in this case, so the Nigerian military is not at fault here. Even the mightiest military on earth does not go after terrorists with guns blazing. They follow the lead of the intelligence services. That is the job of the police and other intelligence services. With the right kind of leadership and direction this should not be too difficult when such terrorism is home grown.

The Nigerian police force seems completely bereft of any ideas on modern policing.

However, the greatest lack of idea is with the C-in-C and the national assembly. The latter especially has come up with no initiatives beyond mouthing the usual palliatives. Today David Mark proclaimed that "we will confront BH with the law". What does this even mean? Similary, when GEJ declared a state of emergency it was in some local governments - the reasoning behind this is unfathomable, except of course that the man is either lacking in courage, ideas or too beholding to powerful interests. How could a president proclaim that his government has been infiltrated by BH, yet do nothing about it? Was he trying to shame such people away? It buggles the mind.

ndu_chucks:

If the above is the implied solution in Soyinka's beautiful article, then it falls short of our current needs and it is woefully inadequate. The solutions you itemized may have been enough if implemented back in 2007, but they are not sufficient to deal with the problem at hand. May I remind you that BH has declared a war and fighting that war. Nigerians, Christians, Moslems, Ifa practitioners, and others, are being killed in a guerilla war??

The solutions would have been deemed reasonable if they contained suggestions for GEJ on how to fight and win this war. Anything short of full fledged military operations including covert and overt actions will not defeat BH. GEJ needs to grow some balls, purge the government of traitors and BH sympathizers (afterall he appointed most of them politically), close the borders, declare state of emergency in appropriate states, and put the squeeze on these terrorists. I maintain that all Soyinka has done is written a beautiful article which unfortunately is devoid of real solutions to our current problems with BH.

To the bolded I say   

If I didn't know that you have a weird and wild imagination, I would have concluded that you attended some BH executive meetings. BH is a terrorist group which was not dealt with promptly by GEJ and which can be defeated in less than a month if our C in C can muster the courage to do so.

BTW, I accept your show of submission which you displayed by truncating my NL userid. Keep it up, I accept the honour.

ndu_chucks:

To the bolded I say   

If I didn't know that you have a weird and wild imagination, I would have concluded that you attended some BH executive meetings. BH is a terrorist group which was not dealt with promptly by GEJ and which can be defeated in less than a month if our C in C can muster the courage to do so.

BTW, I accept your show of submission which you displayed by truncating my NL userid. Keep it up, I accept the honour.

Indeeed! Defeated in under a month indeed!
America, the world's greatest power is only now beginning to defeat Alqaeda after 10 years and 3 Trillion Dolllars!
Any you say 1 Month!! Thats delusional! The nature of terrorism is such that you can only fence it out of your territory, you can hardly defeat it!

The thing I still find hard to understand is this: Muslims are the ones killed by terrorist bombs all over the world, and yet they find it so hard to criticize the terrrorists. Instead they point to conspiracy theories indicting the CIA and Mossad!!
The truth of the matter is that the moment Muslims begin to fight against the extremists in their midst, the end of terrorism will be near!

Soyinka has hit the nail squarely on the head here. BH may have outgrown its original sponsors and turned on them. There has always been grassroots support in the north for killing and maiming "southern infidels". I think that support has fed BH, and the north is now reaping what it sowed. I say "let them eat cake". I pity any foolish southerner still in the north. I'd leave and let the Islamists enjoy their harvest all by themselves.

Cultism in schools has killed more people in Nigeria than Boko Haram, Wole should focus on what he started, stu.pid atheist

Same reason why cattle herdsmen are allowed to go about in "Daga" and knives for self protection while every other person would be arrested for doing same, is exactly the reason why all the butchers in the north will go unpunished.
We are in 2 different countries in Nigeria.

*yawn*

subjective

The Jihardistas will never stop, they have been doing stuffs in screets for long.
The only difference now is that Jonathan has stopped them from using the "Federal Power" to do their islamisation.

They will continue to and to kill until they kill or are killed.

We can either prepare for them or sit down and pay lip service to the problem.

I believe most of us read the nobel lauret's last sentence perhaps some might pretend not to have. We are left with one choice: To ride or reap the whirlwind.

birdman:

Soyinka has hit the nail squarely on the head here. BH may have outgrown its original sponsors and turned on them. There has always been grassroots support in the north for killing and maiming "southern infidels". I think that support has fed BH, and the north is now reaping what it sowed. I say "let them eat cake". I pity any foolish southerner still in the north. I'd leave and let the Islamists enjoy their harvest all by themselves.

The violence in the north isn't going to stay there. Nigeria is one country. Eventually it will spread south. There are muslims in the south and poor people everywhere. Anybody who thinks Boko Haram is someone else's problem is deceiving himself. If we don't solve this then we are all fvcked.

birdman:

Soyinka has hit the nail squarely on the head here. BH may have outgrown its original sponsors and turned on them. There has always been grassroots support in the north for killing and maiming "southern infidels". I think that support has fed BH, and the north is now reaping what it sowed. I say "let them eat cake". I pity any foolish southerner still in the north. I'd leave and let the Islamists enjoy their harvest all by themselves.

The violence in the north isn't going to stay there. Nigeria is one country. Eventually it will spread south. There are muslims in the south, christian fanatics and poor people everywhere. Anybody who thinks Boko Haram is someone else's problem is deceiving himself. If we don't solve this then we are all fvcked.

D last sentence of prof is d solution,it very clear, we shld hold a SNC and break up frm those jihadist, gov of niger state hs said nigeria might break up by 2015,I think prof soyinka was right.