A year ago, Islamist terrorist group Boko Haram kidnapped 276 schoolgirls in northern Nigeria. Then-President Goodluck Jonathan did little to find them. He was judged on this in the elections at the end of March:Nigerians from the north voted en masse for the Islamic former general Muhammadu Buhari. How did this division between north and south come about and what does that have to do with Boko Haram?
The north of Nigeria is poor and Muslim and the south is more prosperous, Christian and has a better educated population. In the north of the country, Boko Haram has kidnapped children and turned them into soldiers and sex slaves, used women in suicide bombings and killed many civilians and looted their villages. But why exactly there? Kennislink delves into the history of this divided country and asks David Ehrhardt, Leiden researcher into conflicts in Nigeria, for an explanation.
Ehrhardt:“The violence of Boko Haram took place among the Muslim population and in the north. President Jonathan, a Christian from the south, ignored the problem. The political will was lacking to really do something about the situation in the far north. Jonathan failed not only in tackling Boko Haram, but also in fighting corruption.” The reluctance to intervene has to do not only with religion but also with ethnicity and the consequences of British imperialism.
Shepherds and traders
The differences between the Muslim north and the Christian south arose centuries ago and still play an important role today. It is not only about the differences in religion, the ethnic origin is more important. When you belong to the right ethnic group, you have access to land, resources and power. In the north, the main population groups are the Muslim Hausa and Fulbe. They are originally migrants living in the 12 e and 13 e century in Nigeria.
The Fulbe were herders and the Hausa traders. The Hausa founded trading cities and gained more and more control over the trade in salt, gold and slavery. They spread not only Islam in Nigeria but also the culture and ideas from North Africa and the Middle East. Until the 18 e century this usually went without violence, but this changed with the arrival of the caliphate.
Shehu Usman dan Fodio, a Fulbe cleric, started a jihad in 1804 to purge the trades of the Muslims in the northern region. This jihad resulted in the fall of the then dominant Hausa elite. They were replaced by emirs from Fulbe tribes and the Sokoto Caliphate was established in 1808. Besides the Fulbe and the Hausa, many more ethnic groups lived in the region. In order to achieve cohesion in the new caliphate, the emirs strove for a common Islamic culture. They introduced Sharia law, which was not enforced as strictly outside of Saudi Arabia as in the Sokoto Caliphate. But in addition, they also adopted various elements from Hausa culture, creating a mixed Hausa-Fulbe identity. Prosperity reigned in the Caliphate, but the Hausa-Fulbe oppressed the other ethnic groups:their soldiers plundered the regions on the periphery and sold the inhabitants into slavery.
Colonial rulers retained Sharia
With the arrival of the British a century later, much changed, although this was not the intention of the imperialists. They wanted to control Nigeria through obedient frontmen who did the work, collected taxes and controlled the population. The caliphate was to remain, but the caliph was replaced. The British assassinated the original Caliph Attahiru I during his flight in 1903. This ended the caliphate's political role, although the existing structures suited the British, but its religious role remained.
The British also took missionaries with them. The coastal towns in the south had been e . since the 15th e century came into contact with Christianity, when the Portuguese established their trading posts there. The British missionaries now founded schools here and taught the population in a Western way. These southern regions did not fall under the caliphate and the missionaries had to stay away from the north to avoid unrest among the Muslim population.
In the north, the population was mainly educated in Islam and learned little about the technical innovations from the west. Looking from Europe, the north started to lag behind:it lacked the knowledge to operate economically. The arrival of British railways expanded the sales area of the northern agricultural areas, but it also brought Christian southerners in search of agricultural work. Religiously there were few problems and everyone lived peacefully side by side. The original inhabitants did make a distinction between themselves and the socially inferior import population. This separation is still there.
Independence shows dividing line
The British merged the Nigerian regions into one country, despite the ethnic and religious differences. They enforced Sharia law in the north, though they limited the law to civil matters. Just before Nigeria's independence (1960), however, they abolished Sharia altogether because it would conflict with the rights of all citizens in the religiously mixed society.
After their departure, the British left a power vacuum that had major consequences:the first independent republic of Nigeria was characterized by intense competition between the regions. Political leaders privileged their own people within regional and local government. In the north, people feared that the better-educated migrants from the south would take all the jobs. In addition, they saw the caliphate as their cultural and religious legacy, which had been disrupted by the English and the abolition of Sharia. The militarily stronger northerners took power and until 1999 several generals succeeded each other in Nigeria, often by violent takeovers, resulting in much bloodshed and civil war. The recently elected president Buhari was also briefly in power as general in 1983.
With the oil discoveries in the Niger Delta in the late 1960s, prosperity grew in the south of the country, as did the gap with the north. Both domestic and foreign companies preferred to invest in the south and the economic situation in the low-skilled north deteriorated rapidly without modern industries. The state, with its extensive civil service, could thus become the most important employer in the north.
Corruption by government officials increased dramatically. They had the power to distribute land and the oil revenues received from the national government. The population grew rapidly and young people in particular left for the cities in search of work, where the slums sprang up like mushrooms. The authorities there had little control in the slums. That is why crime and social tensions between different population groups and between Christians and Muslims rose sharply in the late 1990s. Politicians fueled these tensions for their own gain, aided by the media, thus creating an ever-increasing us-them feeling.
Emergence of Boko Haram
Things went wrong in many areas, especially in northern Nigeria. In the late 1970s, Islamic reformists saw the solution in pure Islam, reintroducing Sharia and establishing an Islamic state. They gained many supporters in the north because of the displeasure with the political and religious leaders of the time. Sharia was an instrument for them against regular corruption.
Boko Haram (literally:'ban on Western education') started early 21 e century as a peace-loving movement that promoted pure Islam within the Muslim community. The radical leader, Mohammed Yusuf, quickly found many supporters among the young unemployed in the northeast. He tried to achieve a further implementation of Sharia through politics, but the promises of the politicians turned out to be worthless. After a violent clash with the police in 2004, Boko Haram began carrying out attacks and in 2009 the security service killed Yusuf. Boko Haram radicalized further and went underground. According to Ehrhardt, the movement today consists mainly of mercenaries and has little legitimacy or support among the population, as all people, Muslims and Christians, are victims.
In the last two years, the violence has escalated further, with thousands of people killed and more than a million Nigerians displaced. Religion or ethnicity of the victims no longer matters. Current leader Abubakar Shekau recently pledged allegiance to IS to make his dream of a new Islamic state come true.
Ehrhardt:“During his tenure (2010-2015), President Jonathan has underinvested in weapons and training for the military. Soldiers are afraid to fight against Boko Haram and mutiny. Progress has been made since the beginning of this year with the help of the better trained and armed armies of the neighboring countries of Cameroon and Tjaad, which also faced the violence of Boko Haram within their own borders. Boko Haram has been pushed back but not yet defeated.”
The hopes of Nigerians in the north are now pinned on the new president Buhari. The future will show whether he is indeed that strong man who will defeat Boko Haram and end the corruption. Because in Nigeria, the most important thing is who holds the power:they divide the land, the jobs and the wealth. Faith comes second.