Boko Haram: Nigeria’s Nemesis
By: Deji Yesufu
One of the leading weapons that Ukraine has succeeded in using against Russia’s incursion into their land is American drones. The technology behind drones is simply breathtaking. If you have a moment, go to YouTube and watch short videos of how these drones are used on the battlefield. The drone tracks down a detachment of Russian soldiers, and while filming them, it begins to aim bullets and bombs at them. There is usually nowhere for the soldiers to hide. After evading the drone for a little bit, the soldiers end up being killed. One of the ways they succeed against these drone attacks is to distract them with one soldier, who chooses to lay down his life for his colleagues, while others flee to safety. Well, the Nigerian public needs to be aware that Boko Haram is now in possession of these same drones, and they have been using them against Nigerian soldiers. In fact, the recent resurgence of these evil men and the increased successes they have had in Borno State are largely owed to this fact. The issue has become such an urgent matter that the Nigerian military reported that its core leadership have now moved to Maiduguri to find lasting solutions to the Boko Haram problem, which has successfully made itself into Nigeria’s chief nemesis.
The beginning of Boko Haram must be traced to a young man called Mohammed Yusuf, who at the beginning of this millennium began to teach an unorthodox Islamic doctrine that the white man’s civilisation was “haram” – not permitted by God. Those who study a bit of sociology say that there is an inevitable clash that will arise between the Western bloc in the world and the Eastern parts of our world. The West was built essentially upon Christian values, while most of the East is Muslim. When the British came to Nigeria to colonise it, their main concern was not to spread their religion. The British needed raw materials to feed their ever-growing industries. They found, however, that they could not separate their mission from the missionaries who had come to bring the light of the gospel to the local people. The British would eventually see the missionaries as allies. The British provided the missionaries with military cover for their work, while the missionaries aided the colonisers to reach the local populace. All of these were happening in the backdrop of a simmering conflict that had just concluded. An Islamic scholar and warlord had only just concluded his missions in Northern Nigeria when the British arrived in the country through the coastal areas in the 1830s. Uthman Dan Fodio was born in 1754 and died in 1817. Dan Fodio was a Fulani who helped to spread Sunni Islam throughout Northern Nigeria. His movement was regarded as a revolution because it took over most of the areas we now regard as North West and North East Nigeria. His hopes were to bring Islam to the coastal areas of Nigeria, but his followers’ crusade in Southwest Nigeria was stopped at Ilorin. This is why the Sokoto Caliphate still lays claim to Ilorin. Another thing that is generally known about Dan Fodio was that he spread his religion with the force of the sword. If Nigeria had a constitutional government at his time, Dan Fodio could easily have been likened to an old-time Boko Haram. Boko Haram and Dan Fodio quite easily could find justification for their actions from the Muslims’ holy book – the Qu’ran. There is nothing within the Qu’ran that commands Muslims today to pay allegiance to the constitution of Nigeria. In fact, there is everything within their sacred texts that tells them to wage war against unbelievers and bring the government of Nigeria under the rule of Islam. This is the justification that Boko Haram has for its actions.
As we continue to consider the real dangers that Boko Haram and other terror groups pose for the continuous existence of Nigeria, we must also come to grasp with another real fact: which is that our boys in the army are dying en-masse in a war that naturally should not take the nation any time to bring an end to. I am friends with a few soldiers on Facebook, and you cannot imagine the horrors that our boys must endure in a war that I consider needless, and that this country should have ended a long time ago. Perhaps at the heart of the failure of the army to rein in the Boko Haram insurgency is the endemic corruption in many public institutions in Nigeria. Many people are spending blood money in this country. It appears that what propels a lot of Nigerians into action is never love for country or for their fellow men, but love for themselves, their families, and their communities – in that order. One way or the other, Nigerians missed the lesson that a country is only as strong as the people in it band together. The foremost reason people enter public office is almost never to serve the populace, but to serve themselves, their families, and their communities. Corruption is killing Nigeria, and the army is not immune to this epidemic. Perhaps one day this country will find military men who will occupy office to bring an end to the violence in the North East.
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As Nigeria battles the evil of corruption in its midst, there is also the challenge of foreign influence on the country. David Hundeyin has been positing a conspiracy theory for a long time, but very few people are paying attention to the young man. He has been saying that the Western world realises the potential Nigeria has not only in the mass of natural resources beneath her soil, but also in the sheer number of its population. Nigeria has simply not gone under because Nigerian women continue to give birth to children in record numbers. When you compare this fact with the Western world, where women are having an average of one of one child to a family, and our women here are having at least three children to a family, you understand why the Western world fear Africa and Asia’s domination of the world scene through sheer population growth. The conspiracy theory is that the West will continue to support insurgency activities in the country that will cause chaos, anarchy, and killings, just so that our numbers can be reduced. When you also realise that the drones that the Boko Haram terrorists use are Western-made, in fact, American-produced, you begin to give some thought to this conspiracy theory. Finally, there have been reports that Boko Haram and other Islamic insurgent groups continue to receive mysterious military supplies and food, delivered to the terrorists in their hideouts in the bush with helicopters, etc. You then begin to realise that these conspiracy theories may have elements of truth in them. America’s chief concern has never been the good of the world. The American fundamental theory is “America first”, and Donald Trump has only come to strengthen that philosophy. If anyone will save Nigeria, we may need to stop looking less to the Western world, and also consider a similar philosophy of “Nigeria first”.
The biggest takeaway from my article should be this: how do we solve the Boko Haram problem? The solutions will not be easy, but the Nigerian government must be willing to consider them. The first thing I think the government of the day must come quickly to realise is that there are essentially two types of Islamic ideologies in Nigeria today: the first are agreeable to Western civilisation, and the second are gravely opposed to it. The challenge that I think this country has been having is that many Muslims who are agreeable to Western civilisation also give tacit support to Boko Haram. You find this support not in what they say or do, but in their complete silence about the carnage that this evil group is bringing on Nigeria. If Muslims regard Boko Haram as a terrorist group in truth and verity, organisations like MURIC should be at the forefront of condemning these animals. What you find is that MURIC and other Muslim organisations will complain about everything except the scores of people being killed daily in Borno State. It appears to me that Muslims have come to regard the activities of Boko Haram as normal. I also fear that it is also appears that there is a hope that some Muslims have that they will one day see Boko Haram overrun this country so that Nigeria would no longer be a secular state but a Muslim one. These allegations may sound extreme, but I believe the only way Muslims would convince some of us otherwise is when they begin to condemn Boko Haram with the strongest words possible.
Second. This country must pray and hope that God will send saviour military men to our army. Men who have the genuine good of this country at heart, and not men who are just in office to line their pockets. Some of the stories that emerge from the frontlines about the raging corruption in the military are really heartbreaking. Earlier this year, Fisayo Soyombo, an investigative journalist, unveiled corrupt practices in the military, where soldiers were aiding the smuggling of crude oil in Rivers State. That story was covered up, and nothing came out of it. Instead, poor Soyombo is doing everything today to not end up being killed by assassins for the work he does to save Nigeria. If the Nigerian military is giving cover to smugglers of crude, what else are these men doing in the face of insurgency attacks in the country? At some point, Nigerians will have to come to grips with the fact that there is such a thing as patriotism. Also, that God has created us to not only benefit our families and ourselves, but also to benefit humanity. And if charity must begin at home, we must all commit to helping this country solve its problems. All hands must be on deck. The potential of this country is way too much for us all to allow it to waste away. Most of us have ignored this Boko Haram subject because it appears to be hundreds of kilometres away from where we live. But the nature of insurgency is that no one knows what it can become tomorrow. The Boko Haram threatening to take Maiduguri today may begin to head to Abuja. And if those animals take the seat of power, this country is as good as finished.
Lastly, I must leave a word for our youths: What are you doing with your education? The nation has heard your cries for jobs, but you must understand that the greatest blessing that God might have given your generation is the absence of jobs in Nigeria. What education equips you with is the ability to solve problems. When you bring solutions to people’s problems, these people will pay you any amount for it. This is how jobs are created in working societies. Recently, a can of beans was being sold for N5,000 in Ibadan. Have you considered agriculture? Here we are talking about the menace of Boko Haram in our society. Have you considered gathering children together and teaching them lessons on patriotism? Instead of these endless skits you young people make, have you considered bringing yourself together and birthing another Nigerian Youth Movement (NYM)? Do you know that the NYM of the 1940s is what produced great nationalists like Obafemi Awolowo and Nnamdi Azikwe? Your education is meant more than to keep you in an office with air conditioning blowing over your face. It is meant for you to recognise societal problems and provide solutions to them. Yesterday, I met a young man who is planning to become a distributor of electric motorcycles in Ibadan. Another young man has started to build “okada Teslas” in the Eastern parts of Nigeria, and this young man will be selling that product in Ibadan soon. These boys saw that fuel is becoming too costly, and that Nigerians might begin to prefer motorcycles that run on batteries alone.
How Boko Haram became both a menace and a nemesis to Nigeria is a story that will still be properly told someday. For now, we must rest content with the fact that this country has a problem, and we must be brutally honest with ourselves enough to solve it.
Deji Yesufu is the pastor of Providence Reformed Baptist Church, Ibadan. He is the author of HUMANITY. He can be reached at [email protected]
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