Confronting the Terrorism of Boko Haram in Nigeria - Resourcedat

Forest: Boko Haramadministrators decided to keep a weakened version of the Sokoto dynasty aspart of their system of indirect rule, though they banned punishments associatedwith Shariah law, like amputation and stoning. During the last yearsof British colonial rule, Sheik Abubakar Mahmoud Gumi became one of themost influential and revered Nigerian Muslim leaders of the 20th century.A native of Sokoto, Gumi studied law, religion, and Arabic, and eventuallybecame widely known among Nigerian Muslims for his translation ofthe Koran into Hausa. During the late 1980s, the elderly Gumi became anoutspoken critic of the country’s military rulers, but also preached peacefulcoexistence, and refused to condone the outbreaks of religious violence.When he passed away in 1992, Gumi left an influential legacy that few otherNigerian Muslim leaders have been able to emulate. 145After independence in 1960, Nigeria’s new secular constitution declaredthat criminal law was now a matter for the secular courts; Islamic courtswere limited to family law. 146 The weakening of the central authority inNigeria’s Muslim community allowed for new political and spiritual movements,led by charismatic and influential leaders in places like Kano, Katsina,and Zaria. 147 Some of them were radical Islamist clerics (like IbrahimZakzaky, Yakubu Yahaya, and Mallam Yakubu) who refused to recognizethe state of Nigeria because its laws are not Islamic, and at various timeswere responsible for inciting religious unrest in several northern regions,such as Bauchi, Kaduna, Kano, and Katsina. 148Implications: The Religious Dimensions of Violence in theNorthSince Nigeria’s independence, religious authorities have faced growingcompetition by secular forces for influence in Muslim communities. This,as Benjamin Barber has observed, is a common trend among traditionalsocieties in many developing countries impacted by modernization, andby Western globalization in particular. In his analysis, a “tribalism andreactionary fundamentalism” produces militants “who detest modernity—the secular, scientific, rational and commercial civilization created by theEnlightenment as it is defined by both its virtues (freedom, democracy, tolerance,diversity) and its vices (inequality, hegemony, cultural imperialism,and materialism).” 149 This is in part an apt description of the motivations55