In the view
of Adeyemi B. O.22, “although activities of different groups that target
civilians are definitely terrorist in nature, the attempts of the government in
Nigeria to use this label may have created some confusion, especially when
political opponents, civil society groups, and opponents of governments have
also been branded terrorist. There have also been doubts as to whether groups
agitating for purely panoptical interest of ethnic, religious and social groups
are terrorist groups because of how they have been classified by the UN and the
US government”.
Whatever the conception may be, we shall be limiting our focus to groups
agitating for political, philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic and
religious interests of their people and groups with the aim of injecting
terror. Historically, three waves of such groups are discernible in Nigeria23.
The first of such groups existed even before colonial rule24. They were the
age-grades, quid associations and special interest groups performing one
function after another in the overall engineering of their respective polities
examples include Ndinche, Modewa, Aguren, Eso, Akoda and Ilari and so on. The
second wave relates to groups, [1] essentially based on kinship affinity,
with presence in every part of Nigeria, including the northern region Fernando
Po and the Gold Coast. As Coleman had noted such groups were formed as people
began moving from one area to the other in search of colonial jobs. As ethnic
associations, they were based on strong loyalty and obligation to their kinship
group, towns or villages. These associations were the organizational expression
of strong persistent feeling of loyalty and obligation to the kinship group,
the town or village where the lineage is localized25. Examples include the
Calaber improvement league, Owerri Divisional Union, Igbira Progressive Union,
Urhobo Renascent Convention, Maze family meeting, Ngwa Clan Union, Oji Rivers
People’s league, Ijaw tribe union, etc.
According to Adeyemi27, the third wave comprises of groups such as the O’Odua
Peoples’ Congress (OPC) Arewa Youth Consultative Forum, Movement for the
Actualization for the Sovereign State of Biafra, Anambra State vigilante
service, Abia State vigilante service, Imo State vigilante service, Niger-Delta
Volunteers force, Ogoni Youth, Ijaw Youth, Bakassi Boys, etc. [2]
It is worthy to be noted that the military dictatorship, especially under
generals Babangida, Abacha and Abubakar, not only stifled opposition, but also
introduced favouritism in government appointments, promotion and allocation of
developmental projects. These trends combined to make crime and criminal
activities rampant. The inability of law enforcement agencies to curtail the
spate of crime and violent conflicts in the country engendered a situation
whereby non-state actors, in their bids to provide security and other
necessities contested crime control and community policing with law enforcement
agents. This, undoubtedly, was a flagrant abuse of the Nigerian criminal procedure29.
As just discussed in the last paragraph it is crucial that we buttress that terrorism in Nigeria did not just start in this dispensation of democracy but has been (please permit me to use) “an orchestration” of the military dictatorships in Nigeria. This is against the popular notion that Nigerian compatriots have whenever terrorism is mentioned- which they only understand to be Boko Harma. For instance, on February 20th 2001, in a clash between the police and O’Odua Peoples’ Congress members two police officers and three members of the O’Odua Peoples’ Congress were killed in Ikotun Egbe in Lagos State after the police tried to [3] disperse a gathering of the O’Odua Peoples’ Congress considered illegal.
As just discussed in the last paragraph it is crucial that we buttress that terrorism in Nigeria did not just start in this dispensation of democracy but has been (please permit me to use) “an orchestration” of the military dictatorships in Nigeria. This is against the popular notion that Nigerian compatriots have whenever terrorism is mentioned- which they only understand to be Boko Harma. For instance, on February 20th 2001, in a clash between the police and O’Odua Peoples’ Congress members two police officers and three members of the O’Odua Peoples’ Congress were killed in Ikotun Egbe in Lagos State after the police tried to [3] disperse a gathering of the O’Odua Peoples’ Congress considered illegal.
What seems to be terrorism in Nigeria today is Boko Haram31. But that is not
true. There had been other terrorist groups that existed before Boko Haram (as
has earlier been pointed out) and some of which still exist but seem to have
been silenced by the deafening uproar of the Boko Haram recent insurgency. Over
the years, it seemed that the southern part of Nigeria has been a haven for
terrorism and its perpetrators counting down form the Odua’a People’s Congress
(OPC) in the South West to the Niger-Delta Militants in the South-South. Though
the North was a boulevard of inter-ethnic tensions occasioned and engulfed by
inter-ethnic cum religious crises, it was never a harbour for terrorism. Today
with the emergence of Boko Haram in the North, Nigeria (not only the North) is
rated among the world’s terrorist States.
Terrorist activities “climbed the pole” in the year 1999 after the military handed power to civilian government. a number of analysts have variously attributed the disturbing trend to political dissatisfaction, ethnic and religious differences, perceived societal neglect and pervasive poverty among the people for example, while youth restiveness in the [4] Niger Delta and parts of the South East, occasioned kidnapping and disruption of oil installation, activities of the Members of the Odua’a peoples’ congress (OPC) in the South West and that of Boko Haram saga in the northern states; have also been worrisome since 1999.
To many Nigerians, the Islamist militant group, Boko Haram emerged around the
year 2013 while to others the time of their emergence is not traceable on the
contrary, Sunday tribune of 12 February, 2012 indicated that the group has been
in existence since 1995. However, Sunday tribune confirms that it was the
sojourn of the slain Mallam Mohammed Yusuf that successfully radicalized the
group and open it to foreign collaboration, especially with the Al-Qaeda in
Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). Also, details obtained by investigators revealed that
the Jama’atul Ahlus Sunnah Liddciawati Wal jihad (brethren in pursuit of holy
war), a k a Boko Haram started off its activism in 2001, under the leadership
of the late Yusuf. From that year, the group had intensified its propagation of
an extreme Islamic doctrine, which sees western education and democracy as an
abo-mination33. It is said that the group in 1995, operated under the
name Shabaab, Muslim[5]
Youth
Organization34. The group operated from the indini mosque, located along Damboa
road, Maiduquri, Borno state and had one mallam Lawal as leader and another
Mallam Usman as secretary it was learnt that in 1999, Lawal left Nigeria for
further studies at the university of Medina, Saudi Arabia, thereby yielding the
leadership of the group o the man know as Mustapha Modu Jon Commonly called
Mohammed Yusfu. Yusfuf’s leadership was said to have opened the group to
political influences and increase popularity. Although Yusuf’s religious
activism was linked to Kano, where he had branches with popular Islamic clerics,
he was said to have laid the foundation for the growth of the growth the
organization. Yusfu with uppish and holier- than thou attitude became head over
all the older teachers to emerge a leader. Yusuf having been a favourite
scholar of prominent Nigerian Islamic scholar Sheikh Jafar Mahmud Adam and
hailed from Gingir village in Jakusko Local Government Area of Yobe state,
Yusuf rose to the enviable height of being a leader by winning the respect and
confidence of some clerics and youths at indimi Mosque35. It was also learnt
that many youths who followed him saw the older clerics as secular and
anti-Sharia[6]
I am sorry for that little digression to Yusuf’s history. But it was necessary
since one cannot give a pedigree of the Boko Haram without reference to the
life of the imitator and “propeller” of the ideology of the sect.
The menace created in the nation’s security by the sect is enormously
terrifying and the country is now at the precipice of economic retardation. The
upheaval in the North has brought with it a “slow-down” in national
development. The incessant insurgency of the sect has claimed the lives of many
Nigerians, civilians, security officials as well. Having understood the concise
pedigree of terrorism globally and in Nigeria, we shall now forge ahead with
the manning of suicide-bombing with that of terrorism.
22 (supra) pg 19 above
23 ibid pg 4
24 Ibid pg 4
25 J. S. Coleman, “Nationalism and Development in Africa selected essay, USA Carcinoma: University of California Press, 2001, 15
26. Adeyemi, B.O., (supra) 4
27 Ibid pg 4
28 Ibid pg 4
29 Ibid pg 5
30 Ibid pg 5
31 Boko Haram is a terrorist group politically and religiously motivated with a compain against western education and democracy
32 Abimbola J. O, “Domestic, Terrorism and Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria, issues and trends A historical Discourse” Journal of Arts and contemporary society volume 4, September 2012, pp.11
33 Taiwo, Adisa, “ Boko Haram’s Sokoto Opens up” 12th February, 2012, vol. 5, Sunday Tribune
34 Abimboloa J. O. et al (supra) pg 28
35 Ibid pg 18
22 (supra) pg 19 above
23 ibid pg 4
24 Ibid pg 4
25 J. S. Coleman, “Nationalism and Development in Africa selected essay, USA Carcinoma: University of California Press, 2001, 15
26. Adeyemi, B.O., (supra) 4
27 Ibid pg 4
28 Ibid pg 4
29 Ibid pg 5
30 Ibid pg 5
31 Boko Haram is a terrorist group politically and religiously motivated with a compain against western education and democracy
32 Abimbola J. O, “Domestic, Terrorism and Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria, issues and trends A historical Discourse” Journal of Arts and contemporary society volume 4, September 2012, pp.11
33 Taiwo, Adisa, “ Boko Haram’s Sokoto Opens up” 12th February, 2012, vol. 5, Sunday Tribune
34 Abimboloa J. O. et al (supra) pg 28
35 Ibid pg 18