Aftermath: a bomb blast outside Abuja, Nigeria, Dec 201
One day in 2011, a young Nigerian auto-mechanic stared down the lens of a video camera. As he began to read out a message, the voice of a child could be heard in the background along with the distinctive clank of someone clearing away the dishes.
It seemed as if Mohammed Abul Barra, 27, had chosen to record his performance
in a living room while his wife did the housework. In this mundane setting,
Barra shyly announced that he was going to “shed my blood” in the name of
Allah. He calmly voiced the hope that his son would “do what I am about to
do now, which is called suicide attack”.
Barra then rammed a car packed with explosives into the United Nations headquarters in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, killing himself and 23 other people.
This incident brought a Nigerian Islamist movement popularly known as Boko
Haram to world attention for the first time. Later, the gunmen would briefly
dominate the headlines when they raided a school in the town of Chibok in
April 2014 and captured more than 200 girls, who have never been seen since.
In Boko Haram: Inside Nigeria’s Unholy War, Mike Smith sets out
to explain this murderous movement to a general audience. His eminently
readable book charts Boko Haram’s transformation from a marginal sect to a
blood-soaked insurgency that now controls thousands of square miles of
northern Nigeria.
Smith’s achievement is to demonstrate how Boko Haram arose from the particular
conditions of northern Nigeria, where brutal security forces, a corrupt and
predatory state, and a long tradition of Islamist radicalism all combine to
create a perfect breeding ground for terrorism.
Boko Haram was founded in 2002 by Mohammed Yusuf, a travelling preacher. In his mosque, he bluntly declared the Earth to be flat, condemned Western education and announced that salvation would only come through his eccentric and puritan definition of Islam. Yusuf’s movement came to be known as Boko Haram – or “Western education is banned” in the local Hausa tongue – but he himself adopted the more grandiose title of: “People committed to the Prophet’s Teachings for Propagation and Jihad”.
None of this was particularly unusual: fundamentalist sects and preachers were common in northern Nigeria, where 11 states formally adopted Sharia in 1999. But in 2009, Yusuf led an armed uprising – and the security forces responded with their customary combination of ham-fistedness and brutality.
Hundreds of Boko Haram’s supporters were killed; Yusuf himself was captured and then murdered by the authorities. One of the most fascinating passages in Smith’s book is his account of Yusuf’s interrogation, during which the preacher and his questioner engage in a bizarre Socratic dialogue.
“Any type of knowledge that contradicts Islam, Allah does not allow you to acquire it,” declares Yusuf. His interrogator objects: “When they went to your house, they saw computers, other equipment, hospital facilities. Are these things not products of knowledge?” Yusuf replies: “These are technological products. Western education is different.”
This contradictory miasma – rejecting everything Western, save for its technology; denouncing the brutality of the state, while inflicting terrible violence – had an appeal in the particular setting of northern Nigeria that persisted after Yusuf’s death.
His killing brought only a temporary respite and Boko Haram re-emerged in 2010 under the leadership of Abubakar Shekau. This maniacal figure organised the capture of the Chibok schoolgirls last year; afterwards he released a video message stating that all would be sold into slavery.
Smith spent three years in Nigeria as West Africa bureau chief for the Agence France-Presse news agency. This book is based on his own reporting, lending it genuine authority. Occasionally, Smith lapses into the kind of jargon beloved of news agency journalism, but in general he writes with perception, clarity and fair-mindedness.
Instead of lumping in Boko Haram with al-Qaeda, the movement is best understood as a product of Nigeria’s own failings and the wanton theft of the country’s wealth by a venal elite. As Smith writes: “The problem is nothing less than the current state of Nigeria and the way it is being robbed daily – certainly of its riches, but more importantly, of its dignity.”
Boko Haram: Inside Nigeria’s Unholy War by Mike Smith
320pp, IB Tauris, Telegraph offer price: £16.99 (PLUS £1.95 p&p) (RRP £18.99, ebook £18.04). Call 0844 871 1515 or see books.telegraph.co.uk
Boko Haram was founded in 2002 by Mohammed Yusuf, a travelling preacher. In his mosque, he bluntly declared the Earth to be flat, condemned Western education and announced that salvation would only come through his eccentric and puritan definition of Islam. Yusuf’s movement came to be known as Boko Haram – or “Western education is banned” in the local Hausa tongue – but he himself adopted the more grandiose title of: “People committed to the Prophet’s Teachings for Propagation and Jihad”.
None of this was particularly unusual: fundamentalist sects and preachers were common in northern Nigeria, where 11 states formally adopted Sharia in 1999. But in 2009, Yusuf led an armed uprising – and the security forces responded with their customary combination of ham-fistedness and brutality.
Hundreds of Boko Haram’s supporters were killed; Yusuf himself was captured and then murdered by the authorities. One of the most fascinating passages in Smith’s book is his account of Yusuf’s interrogation, during which the preacher and his questioner engage in a bizarre Socratic dialogue.
“Any type of knowledge that contradicts Islam, Allah does not allow you to acquire it,” declares Yusuf. His interrogator objects: “When they went to your house, they saw computers, other equipment, hospital facilities. Are these things not products of knowledge?” Yusuf replies: “These are technological products. Western education is different.”
This contradictory miasma – rejecting everything Western, save for its technology; denouncing the brutality of the state, while inflicting terrible violence – had an appeal in the particular setting of northern Nigeria that persisted after Yusuf’s death.
His killing brought only a temporary respite and Boko Haram re-emerged in 2010 under the leadership of Abubakar Shekau. This maniacal figure organised the capture of the Chibok schoolgirls last year; afterwards he released a video message stating that all would be sold into slavery.
Smith spent three years in Nigeria as West Africa bureau chief for the Agence France-Presse news agency. This book is based on his own reporting, lending it genuine authority. Occasionally, Smith lapses into the kind of jargon beloved of news agency journalism, but in general he writes with perception, clarity and fair-mindedness.
Instead of lumping in Boko Haram with al-Qaeda, the movement is best understood as a product of Nigeria’s own failings and the wanton theft of the country’s wealth by a venal elite. As Smith writes: “The problem is nothing less than the current state of Nigeria and the way it is being robbed daily – certainly of its riches, but more importantly, of its dignity.”
Boko Haram: Inside Nigeria’s Unholy War by Mike Smith
320pp, IB Tauris, Telegraph offer price: £16.99 (PLUS £1.95 p&p) (RRP £18.99, ebook £18.04). Call 0844 871 1515 or see books.telegraph.co.uk
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