Boko Haram (6 page)

Dan Fodio would begin preaching himself when he was 20 years old as a travelling holy man, which was common at the time. According to one biography, he deliberately lived an austere life, with ‘only one pair of trousers, one turban, and one gown. He ate abstemiously and was uninterested in wealth and possessions, which he regarded as corrupting. He is said to have earned his food by twisting rope, an occupation he could carry on while reading or teaching.' He would also compose books and poems, both in Arabic and Fulfulde, the Fulani language. He would not, however, make it on pilgrimage to Mecca despite attempting when he was younger, when his father reeled him back.
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As the number of his followers expanded and a tide of Muslim reformers joined with him, Gobir's leaders would become increasingly worried. The balance between the Shehu's formal religious preachings and his sermons criticising the injustices of the day is difficult to determine, but both were part of his movement. It allowed the reformists to gain backers from those who were at the time still believers in the ancient religions, helping to usher in a profound change in the culture and history of what is today northern Nigeria. Dan Fodio also would have benefited from ‘Mahdist' beliefs at the time – the idea among some Muslims that, when the end of the world is near, a messenger will appear, similar to Christian ‘end times' beliefs. Many likely saw the Shehu as the ‘Mahdi', though he never claimed to be. The turn of the Islamic century in 1200 (1785 in the Gregorian calendar) would have added to such speculation, since Mahdist prophecies have often been associated with the end of the century.
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Gobir's rulers would seek to crack down on the growing reform movement as they began to feel threatened by it. Around 1788, the sultan at the time, Bawa, hatched a plot to end the threat once and for all. He invited all of the Muslim reformists to his palace under the guise of a goodwill gesture to commemorate
the Eid al-Adha holiday, but instead planned to kill them when they arrived. He thought better of it and abandoned the idea after seeing the large number of reformers who showed up – and instead offered the Shehu a gift. The Shehu, unbowed, refused the gift and used the occasion to demand better treatment for his followers.
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Bawa, in a sign of the Shehu's growing power, would agree to five important concessions: the Shehu would be allowed to convert people; those who wished to convert would be allowed to do so; that ‘any man with a turban' – a Muslim, that is – should not be harassed; prisoners should be freed; and Gobir residents should not be unfairly taxed.
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That was, however, by no means the end of the struggle. Sultan Nafata reversed Bawa's earlier commitments, issuing a number of proclamations aimed at cutting off the reform movement. They included outlawing anyone from preaching except the Shehu and the banning of turbans and veils. Sons would also not be allowed to abandon their father's faith, and converts were ordered to return to their ancestors' beliefs. Such blanket restrictions were unlikely to ever work in practice, and the laws were a failure, prompting an even harsher response from Nafata, who later had members of the Shehu's family detained.
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The Shehu would begin having what he described as mystic visions in 1789, when he was 36, and these experiences would have a major effect on him and his movement. As he wrote himself in his Wird, or Litany, the Shehu believed that the Prophet Muhammad had appeared to him along with Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani, the founder of the Sufi order to which he belonged, the Qadirriyi. A key vision would appear to him in 1794, when the Shehu would see al-Jilani handing him the
saif al-haqq
– the ‘sword of truth' or ‘sword of God'.
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When Yunfa came to the throne in Gobir, it would appear the Shehu would have an ally in him. He had by some accounts been his student, and the Shehu may have used his influence to help him become sultan. The turbulence of the day would, however,
bring them into direct conflict despite the fact that both had initially seemed intent on avoiding war. The assassination attempt at Yunfa's palace involving the misfiring musket may be at least partly legend – at least two versions of the story exist, including one where the Shehu used magical powers to avoid death – but the fighting that would break out later shows that the situation had intensified to the point where a compromise may have no longer been possible.
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A confrontation would provide the spark for the jihad. There are once again varying interpretations on what exactly happened in the incident, but it seems to have started with a Gobir raid on a Muslim community in Kebbi. Yunfa then took the drastic step of ordering the Shehu and his family to leave Degel, which he initially refused to do. Instead, the Shehu decided that the time had come for ‘hijra', an imitation of the Prophet Muhammad's migration with his followers from Mecca to Medina. The community packed the few supplies it had and left for Gudu in February 1804, the books belonging to the ever-scholarly Shehu transported on the back of a camel.
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Their journey marked the start of a rebellion – an armed jihad, to the Shehu's followers.

War would result, and the Muslim reformers would use their knowledge of classical Arab battle manoeuvres, religious conviction, skilled archers and a motley collection of fighters willing to join the cause for various reasons – Fulani, Hausa and Tuareg – to defeat the Gobir army. The Shehu, who was 50 at the time the jihad began, would be in charge, but he did not participate directly in the fighting. His son Muhammad Bello and his brother, Abdullahi, would be commanders in the field. Those fighting would include a large number of Islamic scholars, an indication of the idealistic community the Shehu had fostered. As Murray Last points out in his book
The Sokoto Caliphate
, when 2,000 fighters from the Muslim side were killed in one battle, 200 were said to have known the Qur'an by heart.
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Not all of those fighting were as well intentioned, though. At one point during the trying campaign,
the Shehu's brother Abdullahi grew weary as many of his fighters abandoned the movement's ideals and engaged in outright plunder. He tried to leave for Mecca, but was talked into remaining. In his biography of the Shehu, Mervyn Hiskett quotes from one of Abdullahi's poems, where he laments their thievery and lack of morals:When my companions passed away and my aims went awryI was left behind among the remainder, the liarswho say that which they do not do and follow their own desires.
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By October 1808, the Muslims, despite having begun the war under-equipped and with few supplies, would have the Gobir army on the run. A final assault would occur that month, when Yunfa's men were unable to stop an invasion of the capital, Alkalawa. Yunfa himself was among those killed.
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The Shehu had encouraged Muslim leaders in other Hausa states to also rise up and fight for the cause, and many did, extending the jihad beyond what Dan Fodio's army could have accomplished on its own. What would result over the following years would be what we now call the Sokoto Caliphate. It would last nearly a century, at one point including much of today's northern Nigeria and beyond.
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It would be wrong to think of it as a cohesive and united nation state; it was instead a very loose collection of allied ‘emirates', with the caliph in Sokoto as the central power.

Sokoto's history should not be romanticised. The war that led to it was brutal, leaving behind destroyed villages and scores of dead. There has also been evidence of extreme, barbaric punishments during the time of the caliphate, including impaling prisoners or burying them alive. It is not clear how common such punishments were. Slavery and slave-raiding were also widespread and an integral part of society, and all of these practices must be factored into any judgement about the caliphate's place in history.

At the same time, its positive aspects must not be cast aside, either. It was a relatively stable society throughout its century-long existence, and in some ways could be considered a natural outgrowth of the region's history, or at least a more natural process than what was soon to follow. Its emphasis on education and literacy also stands in stark contrast to the nihilistic violence of Boko Haram, whose kidnappings of girls and slaughtering of boys in their school dormitories show it to be a very different and perverse movement – a betrayal of the Shehu's vision.

‘As an example of state-building, it was truly remarkable', Murray Last, author of
The Sokoto Caliphate
, wrote recently, while also cautioning that its dark side must not be overlooked:

The late Mervyn Hiskett, who wrote extensively on Islam's advance into West Africa and particularly northern Nigeria, has written that the region's nineteenth-century jihads set in motion a wave of social change. ‘Not only were they military and political victories for literates over non-literates, to a large extent; they also intensified literate activity in areas where Islam was already established and they introduced it into areas where it had never before existed.' Such an emphasis on literacy included education for women,
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and Dan Fodio's daughter became a renowned poet and scholar, following in her father's learned footsteps.

Hiskett continued later: ‘What the final result of this process of change might have been, if Africans had been left to work things out for themselves, can only be guessed at; but they were not left to do this.'
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The letter stood as a final set of instructions, and it involved a mission of such audacity that considering it now evokes both awe at its daringness and disgust at its intent. Sir George Taubman Goldie, an intense but private man who enjoyed reading and who was doggedly committed to extending the British Empire, was the letter's author. He wrote forthrightly and clearly, setting down the mission's goals and some of its dangers. The recipient of the letter was Frederick Lugard, then a 36-year-old who had served various roles in Afghanistan, India, Burma and East Africa. He had been hired by Goldie to lead an expedition to an area of West Africa known as Borgu, located in parts of today's Benin and Nigeria. In one section, Goldie favourably described one of the men who was to be travelling with Lugard and touched on the problem of drinking.

‘You will find him docile and active, while his constitution is thoroughly acclimatized – an immense advantage in Western Africa', Goldie wrote. ‘I believe him to be thoroughly sober, but there are few men in West Africa whom I should trust too far with the care of liquors; the depressing climate predisposing the best men to take stimulants unduly.'
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The mission set out in the letter, written on 24 July 1894, was to be on behalf of the Royal Niger Company, and Lugard was due to travel soon to West Africa aboard a steamer leaving from Liverpool. The Royal Niger Company by then was officially chartered by Britain and had worked to open up the interior of what is today Nigeria to trade. The French and Germans had been at the same game, penetrating into African territory as far as possible to cut out coastal middlemen and lock up new markets. Goldie was particularly concerned about the French, who, according to him, had been entering into dubious treaties with local chiefs who did not have the authority to do so. To counter this, he called on Lugard, a restless former military officer and explorer who had been lauded for his work in East Africa. In the letter, Goldie told Lugard that he was to arrive at the port of Akassa in the Niger Delta region, journey upriver 550 miles to Jebba, then head westward on land
towards Borgu. In places where no treaties between the French and the local rulers existed, he was to do his best to obtain a declaration saying so and seek to sign his own. Goldie also warned Lugard ‘to remember, above all, that diplomacy and not conquest is the object of your expedition westwards'.

‘The French Press for the last six years have incessantly boasted that French officers and travellers, with (or even without) a single French companion and with very few native carriers and armed men, are able to cross new regions peacefully, and acquire valuable treaty rights where Englishmen can only make their way by force, leaving behind them a hatred and fear of Europeans. I do not for a moment admit the truth of this; but it is possible that, in regions where Europe has absolutely no military power, the gaiety, cajolery and sympathetic manner of the French have more effect in obtaining treaties than the sterner and colder manners of our countrymen.'

Goldie also told Lugard that he should try to collect as much information on the places he encountered as possible ‘and to bring home for investigation any specimens of rock or sand which the natives assure you contain gold. The gradual lightening of your loads as you proceed will enable you to do this on a considerable scale.' He was also informed to be on the lookout for gum trees, shea butter trees and rubber vines.
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Lugard was a natural choice to lead such an expedition. He had made his name in Uganda with the Imperial British East Africa Company. A month before receiving his instructions from Goldie, he had written to his brother saying that he was ‘pledged to W. Africa, and apart from W. Africa, my life is pledged to Africa. I would not chuck my life's work'.
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One should not take that to mean he had a bleeding heart of altruistic intentions. He, too, was committed to the British Empire, and what he was mainly pledged to seems to have been his government's mission on the
continent – though he would later call it the ‘dual mandate', or advancing the British cause while also improving the lives of Africans.
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At the same time, Lugard was also a complicated and curious man, and his life had up to that point taken drastic turns. His military career was derailed when he set off on a doomed pursuit of a woman, which left him distraught and in search of new adventures. As a result, he was to embark on his first of many missions into a region that would eventually come to define his life and legacy.
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As Lugard would later write, he would travel to areas where no European was believed to have been. In the thick of the Borgu expedition, he wrote to a friend in England in October 1894 from Camp Kiama in the ‘Niger Territories', frightened because he had been warned that he and his party were set to be attacked. Two weeks later, he wrote again, saying the attack did not happen and seeming to be embarrassed that he had panicked.