Boko Haram (11 page)

In a sign of the tensions that had been building by the early 2000s, a comment in a newspaper column helped lead to rioting in the northern city of Kaduna that killed around 250 people. The column had suggested that the Prophet Muhammad would have been happy to have selected a wife from a Miss World pageant that was to be held in Nigeria. Many saw the column as blasphemous, exacerbating already existing ethnic and religious divisions in Kaduna.
⁵¹

Mohammed Yusuf came of age within this ferment. Crudely educated but evidently curious, he would become a student of the more learned and disciplined Sheikh Ja'far, who was about a decade older. Some have called him his ‘intern' or protégé, and one imam has said that Adam had labelled him the ‘leader of young people'.
⁵²
It seems, however, that their master–student relationship was always doomed. Adam, at least publicly, was a much more practical man, advocating for Muslims to work within
the system to bring change. Rather than opposing Western-style education, he instead argued that Muslims must be equipped with such knowledge in order to be in a better position to face their opponents and transform society. He also did not believe Muslims should refuse to accept positions within a secular government since doing so would leave them powerless and dominated by non-believers.
⁵³
Yusuf would turn out to be far more radical on both of those points, plus a range of others, and that would set the two men on a collision course. They seemed to have split by around 2003, and the beginnings of what would later become known as Boko Haram were emerging.

It was that year when another radical named Mohammed Ali, said to be a Borno native who may have studied in Saudi Arabia, led a group of young people who had been followers of Yusuf on an imitation of the Prophet Mohammad's withdrawal to Medina, or hijra.
⁵⁴
Ali and Yusuf had fallen out for unclear reasons. The group set up a camp in a remote part of Yobe called Kanamma, and by one account, it included 50 to 60 members who lived in tents and mud huts. Other accounts put the number at as many as 200. As described in a US diplomatic cable, they were said to have initially been unarmed, trading peacefully with local residents, but a dispute erupted when a local chief insisted they pay for fishing rights at a pond. Locals then demanded that the group leave the area, and the police were said to have arrested some of them on 20 December 2003. Less than two weeks later, on 31 December, the group launched a series of attacks on police stations, stealing weapons along the way, including at least five AK-47s from police in Kanamma.
⁵⁵
The wave of violence lasted four days, and Ali was said to have been among those killed in the unrest. More attacks would occur in September 2004 in Borno state, leading to a clash with soldiers near the border with Cameroon. It was also around this time when a certain number of Nigerian extremists would seek training in northern Mali with the group that would later become known as Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

It is unclear whether Yusuf played any role in the violence at the time and he would later deny it. In any case, he was already known to the authorities through his preaching in Maiduguri and was suspected of being involved. In a 2006 interview with two of my AFP colleagues, Yusuf said that he had not advocated the 2003–4 violence. ‘These youths studied the Qur'an with me and with others', Yusuf would say, referring to the group that left for Kanamma:

The group began to be known as the Nigerian Taliban around the time of the 2003–4 attacks. There were claims that the name was given to them by local officials because they had called their camp in Kanamma ‘Afghanistan', though that story has been disputed and different versions have been offered.

Yusuf would again perform the hajj in Mecca in 2004; he would himself say that he travelled to Saudi Arabia for pilgrimage in 2000, 2002, 2003 and 2004.
⁵⁷
His return home this time, however, was delayed because he was wanted back home over the Nigerian Taliban violence. A negotiation would be required to allow him to fly back, and the then deputy governor of Borno state would step in to mediate. The deputy governor, Adamu Dibal, would say later that Yusuf approached him in Saudi Arabia, where Dibal had been leading a pilgrimage, and asked for assistance in getting home, telling him that he was non-violent and had been wrongly accused. Dibal reasoned that intelligence officers could gain important information from Yusuf if he were back in Nigeria.

‘Through my discussions with him [...] and through my contacts with the security agencies, he was allowed back in', Dibal said in a 2009 interview with Reuters news agency.
⁵⁸
‘It is true he was brilliant. He had this kind of monopoly in convincing the youth about the Holy Qur'an and Islam.'

It was apparently not the only meeting Yusuf would have during his extended stay in Saudi Arabia. Another important discussion would occur in which Yusuf would be confronted by his old master. Sheikh Ja'far Adam and several others met with Yusuf to try to convince him to renounce his radical beliefs. During the meeting in Saudi Arabia, Yusuf is said to have promised to change his ways and tell his followers he had been wrong. He would return home in 2005, but would not keep his promise to Adam.
⁵⁹

Back in Nigeria, Yusuf had become isolated from more mainstream Muslim leaders, having been kicked out of Indimi mosque after angering its hierarchy. Members of Indimi were reluctant to speak in detail about Yusuf during my two visits there out of fear of retaliation by Boko Haram, as well as not wanting to be associated with the notorious sect leader, though they have provided a general idea of what led to his expulsion. In October 2013, I spoke to a small group of men gathered in a room at the back of the mosque, including one who identified himself as an imam. Dressed in loose-fitting robes and wearing no shoes in accordance with Muslim tradition as they sat casually on the floor, they recalled that Yusuf had been there around 2002 and 2003.

‘He was trying to mislead people', said one of the men, adding that he attended the mosque at the time and remembered seeing Yusuf. ‘He was saying that, automatically, people must leave Western education. He was emphasising that anything in government is bad, that any uniformed man should not be accepted.'

During a brief visit three years earlier in 2010, a security worker at the mosque told me that elders there had tried to convince Yusuf
to follow a different path. ‘We did all we could', the 65-year-old said. ‘Muslim clerics had spoken with him [about his views].'

*   *   *

Yusuf started his own mosque by at first preaching in a makeshift set-up outside his home before using his father-in-law's land to build his own complex nearby in the Maiduguri neighbourhood known as Railway Quarters.
⁶⁰
While it was widely known simply as the Markaz – Arabic for centre – Yusuf named it after Ibn Taymiyyah, the Islamic cleric born in the thirteenth century in Mesopotamia, in an area that is today part of Turkey. Ibn Taymiyyah's movement sought a more austere form of Islam, as it existed at the time of the Prophet, and his ideas would later have a major influence on Wahabbism and Salafism.
⁶¹

Yusuf's group gradually came to be known as ‘Boko Haram', not necessarily by its members, but by local residents and the news media who picked up on the idea that its leader was opposed to Western education. The most commonly accepted translation of the Hausa-language phrase is ‘Western education is forbidden', though it can have wider meanings as well.
⁶²
The group would eventually refer to itself as Jama'atu Ahlus Sunnah Lid Da'awati Wal Jihad, or People Committed to the Prophet's Teachings for Propagation and Jihad.

While Yusuf became notorious for opposing Western education, his underlying beliefs and the reasons why he attracted followers were somewhat more nuanced. His knowledge of the Qur'an and Islamic learning were believed to be sufficient, and he certainly knew enough to win over and preach convincingly to a small army of recruits. He felt that British colonialism and the creation of Nigeria had imposed an un-Islamic way of life on Muslims through all the various layers of a modern state – Western schools, a Western legal system, Western democracy, and on and on. He advocated the development of an Islamic state where Muslim principles and sharia law would be obeyed, and denounced northern Nigeria's traditional leaders, including the sultan of Sokoto, the country's
highest Muslim spiritual figure.
⁶³
He is said to have expressed similar such ideas in a book he wrote, apparently all in Arabic.
⁶⁴

Whether he specifically emulated Usman Dan Fodio, the nineteenth-century jihad leader in what is today northern Nigeria, is up for debate. One Nigerian journalist who knew him contends that he did, saying Yusuf spoke of returning the lands of Dan Fodio's Sokoto Caliphate to what he perceived as their former Islamic glory. Others are not so sure, saying Dan Fodio did not seem to feature prominently in his sermons. Some also point to ethnic differences, since Dan Fodio was Fulani while Yusuf was Kanuri. It is clear, however, that Yusuf admired a number of hardline clerics from elsewhere, as his decision to name his mosque for Ibn Taymiyyah and his references to various texts showed. His teachings were in line with Salafist thought, and those who have studied him label him as such.

He was a fundamentalist in the strictest sense of the word, believing very literally in all of what he took away from the Qur'an. He seems to have lacked, if not the capacity, then at least the will for metaphorical understanding and a practical approach to his beliefs. Like many other extremist leaders, he took verses of the Qur'an and the teachings of the Prophet out of context and bent them to fit his arguments. Describing Yusuf's thoughts on education according to his sermons, an academic who analysed his rhetoric, based on dozens of recorded sermons, wrote:

His theories outside of education included an insistence that the world was flat.

Yusuf would espouse similar views during a 2009 interview with the BBC, whose Hausa-language broadcasts are widely listened to across northern Nigeria. In the interview, he would also dispute the theory of evolution.

‘There are prominent Islamic preachers who have seen and understood that the present Western-style education is mixed with issues that run contrary to our beliefs in Islam', he was quoted as saying. ‘Like rain. We believe it is a creation of God rather than an evaporation caused by the sun that condenses and becomes rain. Like saying the world is a sphere. If it runs contrary to the teachings of Allah, we reject it. We also reject the theory of Darwinism.'
⁶⁶

Yusuf may have lacked the learning of Sheikh Ja'far and other Nigerian Muslim leaders, but his charisma and ability to win over followers was not in doubt. Judged from videos of him, his chubby face and inviting speaking style gave him the air of a kind older
brother who knew something you did not and was willing to help you by sharing it. He was able to attract followers both through his charisma and because hopelessness among the region's young men made them open to hearing his call. He painted an image of his followers standing firm in the midst of an evil world, with him as the enlightened leader – a cult of personality in many ways. While he may not have always directly spoken about government corruption, he was certainly anti-establishment and his attacks on Nigeria's secular and traditional authorities were set against the backdrop of crushing poverty that were the everyday reality of his followers. Strict sharia law may seem like a promising option to those in such circumstances.

Even some non-Muslims found themselves agreeing with what they interpreted as Yusuf's anti-government rhetoric. Anayo Adibe, the lawyer for Yusuf's father-in-law Baba Fugu Mohammed and a Christian born in Lagos, was living in Maiduguri at the time, running his law practice. He would meet regularly with Mohammed at his home and would sometimes cross paths with Yusuf, though he said they did not know each other and never had conversations. He was, however, familiar with some of his preachings, or at least second-hand versions of it, with talk of his rise having spread throughout Maiduguri. He said he understood Yusuf's anti-government sentiment since corruption was, and remains, maddening, though he stressed he did not support his decision to pursue violence.