How Zulum is fighting Boko Haram with Boko Halal, By Majeed Dahiru

Borno State, North-East Nigeria has been the epic centre of Nigeria’s longest running war between the Islamist terror group, Jama’at Ahl as-Sunnah lid-Da’wah wa’l-Jihad, commonly known as Boko Haram and the Nigerian state. Founded by Mohammed Yusuf, a radical Salafi cleric in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state around 2002, Boko Haram, an anti-western civilisation and violent extremist group has as its main objective the supplanting of Nigeria’s plural secular constitutional democratic order with an Islamic theocracy through armed struggle [Jihad]. Starting first with a most virulent form of preaching against western education, democracy and pluralism while calling for a complete imposition of Sharia law over Borno state, the Boko Haram group will step up its demand with civil disobedience of law and order and defiance of constituted authority; all which it considers as not Islamic hence ‘’haram’’.

For its religious disobedience of law and order and defiance of constituted authority, the government of Borno state designated the Boko Haram sect as an outlaw group of extremist and with the help of federal law enforcement agents carried out a crackdown on its members sometime in 2010. In reaction to this crackdown, which resulted into the loss of lives of some of his members, Mohammed Yusuf, the leader of the Boko Haram sect declared a holy war [Jihad] against the Nigerian state thus heralding an armed uprising by the group. The response of the federal government was swift and decisive.

Within days, the Boko Haram uprising was brutally crushed leaving scores of the Boko Haram sect including its leader, Mohammed Yusuf dead. The killing of Mohammed Yusuf will set off a chain of deadly reactions that will result into the transformation of the Boko Haram radical Islamist sect into an insurgent group that has been trying to realise its objective of an Islamic theocracy through a most violent form of Jihad in the last ten years since 2010. The Boko Haram insurgency has resulted into over 20,000 deaths with millions of Nigerians displaced from their homes into camps in Nigeria and Neighbouring countries like Niger and Cameroon.

Contrary to entrenched narrative by some pundits, Boko Haram was not born in 2010 just as its ideological conception was not in 2002. The Boko Haram insurgency was a long time coming and some of its ideological components predate modern Nigeria while the physical component has softly manifested in the form of religious domination of power through the instrumentality of political Islam in the Muslim north of Nigeria since the formation of modern Nigeria. The immediate precursor of the current Boko Haram insurgency is the Sharia movement of 70s, 80s and 90s, which was eventually consummated in the early 2000s when a number of states adopted the full implementation of the Sharia jurisprudence in Muslim north of Nigeria. A notable exception to this was Borno state, the earliest known site of Islam in Nigeria.

Although Islam reached Kanem-Borno Empire as early as the 11th century under the reign of Mai Hummai, from North Africa, Borno state as presently reconstituted in modern Nigeria is a religiously plural entity with a significant minority Christian population. In apparent consideration of this religious plurality, Mala Kachalla, a Muslim and governor of Borno State between 1999 and 2003, resisted the pressure from religious extremists to impose sharia law on his state.

Mala Kachalla was a devout Muslim who was also well known for his peaceful and accommodating disposition to all sundry. But his refusal to impose the Sharia law over Borno state will prove to be his political albatross. Alli Modu Sheriff, his major challenger for the 2003 gubernatorial will take advantage of Kachalla’s commitment to a secular and plural Borno state to enter into a pact with Mohammed Yusuf and his Islamist group. And in exchange for their massive political support, Alli Modu Sheriff pledged to impose Sharia law in the state. The failure of political Islam to usher in the ideal Islamic state in Borno as espoused by Modu Sheriff resulted into a situation where Boko Haram insurgents are now using the force of arms to pull down and rebuild Nigeria into a Muslim theocracy starting the north east of Nigeria.

Whereas, the Nigerian state has been battling the Boko Haram insurgency with bullets for over a decade, the war on terror has become somewhat intractable because the ideology behind the insurgency has not been combated ideologically collectively by the governments at all levels in collaboration with the leadership of the Muslim community in Nigeria. However, Umara Babagana Zulum, the current governor of Borno appears to be making a lot of progress in his individual capacity in this direction. A professor and former commissioner in the administration of his predecessor, Kashim Shettima, governor Zulum has evolved a strategy to combat Boko Haram with Boko Halal in a number of ways.

First and most importantly, Zulum, a devout Muslim but unlike some other members of the political establishment of northern Nigeria is neither an Islamist nor a purveyor of political Islam. Zulum has made the development of the land and people of Borno the focus of his politics just as their security and welfare the priority of his administration. In his two years as governor, Zulum has not indulged in promoting one ethnic or religious group over another but has actually been running a fairly inclusive, just and equitable governance style that has given a sense of belonging to all the people of Borno irrespective of religious or ethnic backgrounds. Zulum has made deliberate efforts to roll back any vestiges of religious domination in Borno state through an inclusive leadership style. For example, Zulum appointed Simon Malgwi, a Christian from Borno as head of service despite stiff opposition from some quarters. Despite the raging war in his state, Zulum has given assurances to Nigerians of southern origin that are resident in Borno of their protection and safety by the state government.