NIGERIA, the most populous country in Africa, is no stranger to violent upheavals. The latest such incident occurred in the last week of July in the northern Nigerian cities of Bauchi, Yola and Maiduguri.
According to the official version, Boko Haram, a fundamentalist Muslim organisation, led a violent assault on a police post in Bauchi. The police retaliated by raiding the groups local headquarters, killing around 30 militants. The militants, alleging that unarmed people were killed, responded by attacking police posts in the three northern cities. The authorities, at the federal and local level, were initially caught napping.
Swift and brutal state retribution followed. Umaru YarAdua, the President, ordered the military to root out Boko Haram, whose supporters were armed with locally fabricated bombs, firearms and other crude weapons. The Nigerian Army claims that the group had AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades. YarAdua had said that those involved in the violence would be severely dealt with and that the military would contain them once and for all. Within a few days of the Presidents speech, the security forces killed more than 300 militants, including their leader, Mohammed Yusuf.
The security forces were evidently told not to take any prisoners. Yusuf, who was paraded alive in front of the media, was dead soon after. A video showing him asking for mercy was shown to the media along with the picture of his body. The police claim that he was shot while trying to escape. Dora Akunyilli, the Information Minister, while condemning extra-judicial killings, said that it was important to take the militant leader out of the way, to stop him using people to cause mayhem.
In the local Hausa language, Boko Haram means Western education is sin. The local media have dubbed it the Nigerian Taliban. The goal of the group was to introduce Sharia throughout the country. It viewed Western-style democracy as being against the basic tenets of Islam. Yusuf was a university graduate who became a preacher. The group was founded in 2004 in the northern State of Borno. For reasons yet unclear, the authorities allowed it to grow unchallenged, and allowed it to spread to other parts of the Muslim-majority north. In 1980, an Islamist sect led by Marwa Maitasine, a charismatic preacher, was wiped out by the army, killing more than 1,000 people.
Over 10,000 people have been killed in the country owing to sectarian violence since civilian rule was restored in 1999. Most of the casualties are the result of clashes between Muslims and Christians. Since the late 1980s, after the economic downslide began, fundamentalism of all stripes has made deep inroads into Nigerian society.
In the country where the population is almost evenly divided between Muslims and Christians, communal harmony is a casualty. Militant Islam has become attractive to the impoverished masses in the north. In the south, evangelical preachers are busy exploiting the beliefs of the poverty-stricken masses. Osama bin Laden, in a speech in 2000, said that Nigeria was among the countries most qualified for liberation.
The introduction of Sharia in the 12 northern States was not taken kindly to by the Christian-majority south. A substantial Christian minority lives in the north. The violence of the past 10 years has further widened the divide between the two communities at the street level. A demonstration against the U.S-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 in the northern city of Kano degenerated into a communal clash between Muslims and Christians, resulting in the death of more than 100 people.
In late 2008, following a disputed local election, riots erupted in Jos, the capital of Plateau State. They claimed more than 700 lives.
John CherianCOMMents
COMMents
SHARE