By Richard Joseph
Militant Islamism has expanded in northern Nigeria over decades. Its trajectory can be traced because of the central role played by Wahhabi religious institutions in Saudi Arabia in the propagation of Salafist Islam. This process has included the training of clerics, the funding of mosques and schools, and the cultivation of dynamic leaders. The gifted scholar and preacher, Ja’far Mahmoud Adam, became the prime propagator in this network in the mid-2000s. He was killed on April 13, 2007 after virulently denouncing the more extreme views of his protégé, Mohammed Yusuf. When Yusuf and hundreds of his followers were killed by Nigerian police forces in July 2009, the movement went underground. It re-emerged in 2010, popularly referred to as Boko Haram, ready to wage jihadist war against the Nigerian state, Western education, and national and international institutions. It has since adopted every tactic available to contemporary insurgent and terrorist organizations. There are no limits to its brutality as it has targeted school children and very ordinary folk. Its vociferous leader, Abubakar Shekau, taunts the Nigerian government for its inability to crush his movement. [1]
New and sustained reflections are needed about a movement that now poses a dire threat to the Nigerian nation, its federal democracy, and neighboring countries. It has become part and parcel of militant global Islamism. To this end, AfricaPlus makes available the second and final part of a November 3 interview of Richard Joseph by Jerome McDonnell of WBEZ, Chicago, followed by a commentary on American and Nigerian collaboration.