₦airaland Forum

GworoChewinMaga:
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/content/dam/news/2015/03/14/bokoharammemoir/05bokoharam.jpg

To repel mounted Muslim raiders from the east, the Gwoza and other fierce tribes in the Mandara Mountains invented a throwing knife that could slice the tendons of invaders' horses.

GworoChewinMaga:
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/content/dam/news/2015/03/14/bokoharammemoir/07bokoharam.jpg

After the 1960 raid by the Matakam, the British colonial administration handed out blankets, salt, and corn to the Hithe, whose houses had been set on fire and livestock and corn stolen.

GworoChewinMaga:
[size=18pt]How Northern Nigeria's Violent History Explains Boko Haram[/size]
Long before this extremist group arose, other radicals terrorized the region, British former administrator says.

By John Hare, National Geographic
PUBLISHED MARCH 14, 2015

https://news.nationalgeographic.com/content/dam/news/2015/03/14/bokoharammemoir/01bokoharam.adapt.1900.1.jpg

Muslim Kanuri horsemen ride in the independence day durbar in Kaduna, the regional capital of northern Nigeria at the time. Nigeria gained its independence from the U.K. in 1960.

In the northern Nigerian town of Gombe, I became a registered alcoholic at the age of 22.
The year was 1957, and I was starting out as a district officer (the last to be recruited by the British government for service in northern Nigeria) just three years before the country won its independence.

The only way I could enjoy a "drink" in Gombe—a sleepy mud-brick township, laid out by the British in the 1920s, where Islamic laws were in force—was to issue myself an "addict's license." That document allowed me to obtain liquor from the "pagan" city of Jos, 175 miles (280 kilometers) away.

In my administrative capacity, I also had the authority to issue addict's licenses to the 12 other expatriate Europeans who lived in Gombe. I doubt many other towns in the world can claim the distinction of having their entire expatriate community registered as alcoholics.

I lived in a circular, thatched mud house and rode to work on my horse, which I hitched to a rail outside my office.

Gombe was essentially a happy place, presided over by a benign and astute Muslim emir of the Fulani tribe and a team of enlightened councillors. Apart from the odd dispute over a woman or land, there was little violence. Gambling was frowned on, but a blind eye was turned toward the drumming and dancing that in a pre-television age carried on throughout the year, except during the month of Ramadan.
But today Gombe is on the front lines of the obscene and bloody battle waged by Boko Haram to impose an extreme interpretation of Islam on the whole of northern Nigeria.

How has it come to pass that 55 years after Nigeria's independence, peaceful towns are being terrorized, attracting suicide bombers and an invading army of fundamentalist Islamists? 

The answers lie in Nigeria's northeasternmost state, Borno—a 27,000-square-mile (70,000-square-kilometer) territory south and west of Lake Chad whose prominent inhabitants are the Muslim Kanuri tribe and where radical dissent led by brutal, fanatical men goes back well over a century.

In one burst of violence last month, Boko Haram attacked Gombe and Dadin Kowa, another sleepy town in my former administrative orbit, on the banks of the Gongola River. 

Boko Haram invaded Dadin Kowa, which translates as "tranquility for everybody," in 30-some Toyota HiLux vehicles from Borno State to the east, setting fire to houses and government offices.

In Gombe, 60 miles (95 kilometers) to the south, the Nigerian army repelled the attack and called in the air force, which strafed and bombed the militant Islamists. There were numerous casualties on both sides—possibly as many as 50—but the exact number of dead has not been reported.

I still have a strong personal link to these troubled areas. One town in Borno I knew, Kukawa, was my jumping-off point in October 2001 for a trek that took me on a 1,500-mile (2,400-kilometer), three-and-a-half-month journey by camel across the Sahara to Tripoli, in Libya. It's saddening to realize that this trek would be impossible to undertake today.

The Kanuri Empire
After my time in Gombe, I was posted to Mubi 145 miles east (233 kilometers) on the border between Nigeria and Cameroon. One of my main tasks was to follow the old maps and confirm the international border between Nigeria and Cameroon just prior to independence. (See "Geography in the News: Nigeria's Boko Haram Terrorists."
The Kanuri Empire
After my time in Gombe, I was posted to Mubi 145 miles east (233 kilometers) on the border between Nigeria and Cameroon. One of my main tasks was to follow the old maps and confirm the international border between Nigeria and Cameroon just prior to independence. (See "Geography in the News: Nigeria's Boko Haram Terrorists."

This involved walking 170 miles (275 kilometers) along the top of the Mandara Mountains—great bosses of granite sticking more than 3,000 feet (915 meters) into the air, strewn with rounded boulders the size of houses and stretching between Lake Chad in the far northeast of Nigeria to just beyond Yola in the south.https://news.nationalgeographic.com/content/dam/news/2015/03/14/bokoharammemoir/03bokoharam.jpg

Scarification on the back of this female member of the Fali tribe, in the Mandara Mountains, has been done to enhance her beauty. But scarification on the face was done to ensure that if a person were captured, his or her tribal origin would be clearly identifiable.
In precolonial times the mountains formed a central backbone in the vast Kanuri tribal empire, which extended eastward into today's Cameroon and Chad and north to the Fezzan, in southwestern Libya.
For centuries the Marghi, Hithe, Gwoza, Fali, and Matakam tribes—some of the wildest in Nigeria—had secured this mountainous fortress, fending off raids by mounted Muslim Kanuri slavers from Borno.

The tribesmen developed a deadly throwing knife, which spun through the air and sliced through the tendons of the raiders' horses

In 1900, the British and the Fulani emirs agreed to establish the Protectorate of Northern Nigeria. The north was divided into provinces, one of which, Borno, was excised from the former Kanuri-inhabited Borno Empire. The agreement stated that Christian missionaries would be allowed to proselytize only among pagan tribes—not Muslims.

When I traversed the Mandara Mountains, about 30 percent of the people I encountered were Christians, 65 percent pagans, and 5 percent Muslims.

But since independence, missionizing has proceeded apace. Today nearly all the inhabitants are Christians, and they—especially the youth—are the targets of forced conversion to Islam by the followers of Boko Haram.

But even these conversions aren't entirely new. In 1964, the northern Nigerian government sent "Islamic missionaries" to forcibly circumcise and convert pagan tribesmen to the Muslim faith.
Today Boko Haram insurgents—headquartered in the town of Gwoza—are in complete control of the Mandara Mountains, where they've driven out and slaughtered tribespeople and forced others to adopt Islam.

These new killers didn't come on horseback but in armored cars, with ample supplies of sophisticated modern military equipment. The throwing knives were obsolete.

History Repeats
Boko Haram's form of violent dissent, which is particularly horrific, has an exact historical precedent 125 years ago in precisely the same part of what is now Nigeria and Cameroon.
In 1893, a renegade Islamic fanatic, Rabih Fadi Allah, invaded the region from Darfur, in western Sudan.

Rabih had fallen out with the Islamic reformer and self-proclaimed al-Mahdi, or holy man, Muhammad Ahmad, whose presence on Earth was thought to presage the end of the world and whose troops in 1885 killed the British general known as Gordon of Khartoum.

Rabih's horde of Islamic fighters swept in on horseback, beheading, looting, and enslaving in the name of Allah in a manner similar to Boko Haram today.

Nothing has been remembered more faithfully about Rabih than his violent temper, a passion that could be aroused for no apparent reason and not infrequently led to his inflicting savage beatings with his sword or killing people either by slitting their throats or cutting off their heads.

Rabih's favorite curse was Allah rektar rasak—may God cut off your head.Abubakar Shekau, the self-proclaimed leader of Boko Haram, is said to be a fearless loner, a complex and paradoxical man, part-theologian, part-gangster.

Since he assumed the insurgency's leadership in 2009, after the death of Mohammed Yusuf, the movement's founder, Boko Haram has become more radical. Abubakar Shekau has carried out even more appalling atrocities than his predecessor.

He achieved savage notoriety in a video clip that showed him laughing as he admitted having abducted more than 200 Christian schoolgirls, mainly of the Kibaku tribe, in April 2014.

"I abducted your girls," he jeered. "I will sell them in the market, by Allah. I will sell them off and marry them off."

The two men appear to be similar kinds of fanatical, psychopathic leaders with a shared appetite for enslavement and murder.

One habit of Rabih's has not as yet been imitated by Abubakar Shekau: Known as "Rabih's mark," it was his way of defining ownership of all his slaves, followers, and subject communities. The marks varied—three small cuts on either cheek, three lines at the corner of the mouth, or a notched cross on the face forming an enormous raised scar.


In 1893, Rabih destroyed the Kanuri shehu (emir) of Borno's capital in Kukawa, killing more than 3,000 people and enslaving 3,800.

Rabih established his capital in Dikwa, 80 miles southeast of Kukawa, where his arbitrary rule was conducted in a sea of blood and horror. The remains of his house can still be seen today.

The parallel with Boko Haram is compelling. Kukawa is only 23 miles (37 kilometers) from Baga and a nearby town, where this year, on January 3, Abubakar Shekau's followers are alleged to have killed 300 people or more and destroyed 3,000 houses.

Abubakar Shekau established Boko Haram's Gwoza headquarters a hundred miles (160 kilometers) south of Dikwa, killing the incumbent emir of Gwoza in the process.

Rabih was finally killed on April 22, 1900, in a battle with the French, and the illustrious Borno Empire was divided among the French, Germans, and British.

Abubakar Shekau is still at large.

haffaze777:
Nigeria is 99.5% Christian u made a mistake up there,Op,no one can islamize or Christianize Nigeria,Nigeria is secular state,fayose know dis as well he just took is oshogbo weed hence dis trash he is spewing

cosby02:
Have always heard PDP, Fayose, FFK and the rest about Buhari, APC trying or would Islamise Nigeria but non of them have in their wisdom explain to Nigerians what we will face if Nigeria is finally pronounced an Islamic State. However, i dont understand why some of our so called leaders like Fayose and Co. cannot in anyway reason politics and governance beyond inciting the populace against their opponents negatively. Fayose isn't afraid of alleged BH founder islamising PDP, but afraid of Buhari Islamising Nigeria... I need to know the merit and demerit of islamising a nation and what does it actually mean to islamise a nation?

kaakulator4:
Some people from the erosion ravaged land are trying their best to create such

ZombieNation:
The Christians in the north east who are facing the full brunt of Boko Haram and whose suffering is a mere "embarrassment " to Buhari's gov and claims of technical victory, deserve refuge in a foreign country since Buhari is not ready, willing or capable of protecting them.


The entire Christians in Chibok whose sufferings and pleas for help in reuniting with their lost daughters deserve asylum in a country that will protect them.

The Christians in the middle belt facing daily attacks by Fulani muslims deserve asylum from Buhari's kins men.

Dr. John Dan Fulani qualifies for asylum for being persecuted in a criminal case over statements he posted on social media condemning Buhari's blind fanatic supporters.


The Shiite population who are hounded and massacred by the Nigeria govt over their religious persuasion need to seek refuge in a country that will guarantee their freedom to practice and observe their religion without fear of discrimination and persecution.


The pro Biafran separatists whose rights to peaceful agitation is guaranteed by a UN resolution deserves asylum from Buhari's cold blooded murderous regime.


Political opponents and critics of Buhari's tyrannical and despotic regime are qualified to apply for asylum in the light of Buhari's tyranny.


Niger Delta resource activists protesting the unfair exploitation of their resources at the expense of their environment need seek asylum from Buhari's tyranny for fear that they will be labelled criminals and their communities pillaged by the Nigeria security forces on the orders of the despot himself are qualified to seek asylum from the tyrant.



So Buhari, we all qualify for asylum from your tyranny.

Bishops10:
I just received alert which says Your acct has
been credited with #400m by Colonel Sambo
Dasuki. pls friends what does it mean?

chloee:
The fact that GEJ didn't contest the 2015 election should not make any one affected by political injustice not to go to court for redress.

otokx:
Let it get to Supreme Court, in fact no need for tribunals anymore, straight to Supreme court.

GenOrumov:
As things are Yes I will vote for them.

8 months is not enough to judge a government especially with the rot that has enveloped all the spheres of life in Nigeria.

My only grouse with Buhari is his indecisiveness as per economic matters and CBN policy flip flops. 2016 budget implementation is what I will use in judging him at the end of this year. But at the moment, he should fire on.

ddippset:
And what about your God Jonathan who kept on doing projects and appointing and empowering the northerners over his own people? What do you call that? Solidarity? I call it a disgrace and a super betrayal. Nonsense!

Laeroy:
must u wail on every move by government to secure live and property?

alphamodel1:
All this tribunal buhaha is not helping this country move at the pace it ought to.