Deadly Diversity

Nigeria’sIslamist war on Christianity.

Paul Marshall

March19, 2012, Vol. 17, No. 26

In Nigeria , thousands of people havebeen killed in recent months, and tens of thousands in the last decade. It is afissiparous country whose conflicts have been exacerbated by the increasedinfluence of radical Islam​—​beginning withattempts to apply Islamic law, then the growth of militias, and now thedepredations of the vicious al Qaeda-linked Boko Haram movement.

Nigeria has by far the largest population in Africa ,some 150 million people, comprising hundreds of ethnic groups, which producesdangerous tensions even without the religious differences. The country is aboutequally divided between Muslims and Christians, with another 10 percentfollowing indigenous practices. Christians are the majority throughout theSouth, and Muslims in the North, though with substantial Muslim and Christianminorities in each area, and the two are more mixed in the middle belt, thescene of frequent violence. These conflicts often involve disputes overresources and land use as well as ethnicity, but the religious dimension isincreasing.

Olusegun Obasanjo was elected president in 1999,ending 16 years of military rule, but, as elsewhere, the transition todemocracy has released animosities hitherto brutally repressed bydictators.

Nigeria remains intensely corrupt​—​it ranked 143rdout of 183 countries in Transparency International’s 2011 corruption index​—​but federalpoliticians have usually tried to avoid exacerbating regional, ethnic, andreligious tensions. Obasanjo was a Yoruba, but drew much support fromnon-Yorubas, and his bloated cabinet was carefully composed to include at leastone minister from each of the country’s 36 states. The parties usually choosetheir presidential candidates alternately from North and South, Muslim andChristian, and pair them with vice presidential candidates of a differentreligion and region.

Recently this system suffered a partialbreakdown. In 2010, President Umaru Yar’Adua, a Muslim, died in office and wassucceeded by his Christian vice president, the charmingly named GoodluckJonathan. In the 2011 presidential election, Jonathan, paired with Muslimvice-presidential candidate Namadi Sambo, beat his Muslim opponent, MuhammaduBuhari, whose running mate was a Christian.

Despite Jonathan’s convincing victory​—​and reports frominternational observers pronouncing the election the fairest in Nigeria fordecades (admittedly not a high standard)​—​many Muslimnortherners, especially the young, claimed they had been cheated. When theresults were announced, there were riots throughout the North, with hundredskilled. Most victims were Christians, but Sambo’s house was burned, andtraditional Muslim leaders, especially those who counseled restraint, werethreatened.

At the state level, politicians have been lesscareful. Zamfara State governor Ahmed Sani introduced a draconian version of sharia in 1999, and 11 of Nigeria ’s 36states followed suit. Muslims, especially women, suffered, but much of thebrunt was borne by Christians. Their taxes pay for Islamic preachers, whilestate governments have closed hundreds of churches. Conflicts over sharia haveproduced the largest death toll since the Biafra civil war in the 1960s.

The more inchoate mob violence has now beensupplemented by Islamist militias. In 2004, a man calling himself Mullah Omarled an uprising in Yobe by a militia called al-Sunna Wal Jamma, nicknamed “theTaliban.” While their names had a comic-opera quality, their actions werebrutal. Demanding an Islamic state governed by sharia law, they stormedpolice stations and other government buildings, pulled down the Nigerian flag,raised the old Afghan flag, stole large quantities of weapons, and vowed tokill all non-Muslims. Tens of thousands of people were displaced.

This Taliban has spawned even more viciousoffspring. One group is Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati wal-Jihad (AssociationAdvancing the Prophet’s Teachings and Jihad), usually known as Boko Haram, whichtranslates roughly as “Western civilization/education is forbidden.” Theshorthand name is well chosen since it points to a source of Boko Haram’sstrength and Nigeria ’sweakness. Many Muslim children in the North receive no education that couldgive them work skills. If they go to school, they often attend Islamiyyaschools, where they learn to recite the Koran, though in many instances withoutbeing able to read or understand it. No one should begrudge young Muslims theopportunity to learn their sacred texts, but many learn little else. Since theyhave few practical skills and live in an economically depressed area, millionsend up unemployed and vagrant. In turn, these angry youths become the radicals’recruits. They attack schools and government offices, and so the cycle repeats.

Boko Haram attacks anyone, Christian or Muslim,who rejects its views. In July 2009, it attacked police stations, prisons,schools, churches, and homes, burning everything in its path. Its violencespread through Borno, Kano ,and Yobe states, particularly targeting Christians. Many were forced, underthreat of death, to renounce their faith; 700 people were killed in the town of Maiduguri alone.

In August 2011, Boko Haram bombed the U.N.headquarters in Abuja , Nigeria ’s capital, and killed 23people. Christmas is a focal time for attacks by Islamic extremists. This pastChristmas, churches were bombed in Jos, Kano ,Damaturu, and Gadaka. A blast at St. Theresa Catholic Church in Abuja killed 35 andwounded many others. These coordinated attacks, in the Northeast, North, andcenter of the country, reveal an increased sophistication.

In January, Boko Haram warned the millions ofChristians living in the North that they had three days to leave or would beattacked. Gun and bomb attacks in Kano killed at least 186 people and put thousands to flight. In 2011, Boko Haramkilled about 500 people; in just the first month of 2012, it killed over halfthat many.

Nigeria’s conflicts are complex, but Boko Haram’s explicittargeting of Christians is undeniable. Leader Abubakar Shekau has declared:“Everyone knows that democracy and the constitution is paganism. .  .  . You Christiansshould know that Jesus .  .  . is not the Son of God. This religion of Christianity you arepracticing is not a religion of God​—​it is paganism. .  .  . We are tryingto coerce you to embrace Islam, because that is what God instructed us to do.”

Boko Haram has many layers, from a disciplinedcore to a stable of alienated youth, but its center is now linked to otherterrorists. On August 9, 2009, the group explicitly aligned itself with alQaeda, and reportedly some of its personnel have trained in Mali with AlQaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). In turn, AQIM says it will give Boko Haram“whatever support we can in men, arms, and munitions to enable you to defendour people in Nigeria .”Boko Haram is now morphing into something like Somalia ’s al-Shebaab.

Still, for all its problems, Nigeria is not Somalia . Moreover, since thePersian Gulf is looking ever more precarious, and Nigeria lies near the center of oneof the world’s most significant hydrocarbon areas, it should draw the attentionof even the most flinty-eyed realists.

Fortunately, the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM),especially its program of regional counterterrorism partnerships, was formedwith such situations in mind. Nigeria ’ssecurity forces need equipping to counter Boko Haram and its imitators, andtraining to do so without the brutality that would feed their recruitment.While it is facile to link international terrorism with poverty, Nigeria ’s-millions of marginalized Muslim youth are easy recruits to violence.Supporters of both hard and soft power can find common cause in this effort​—​and together hopethat a president named Goodluck will live up to his name.

Paul Marshall is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute’s Center forReligious Freedom and coauthor, with Nina Shea ,of the just-released Silenced:How Apostasy and Blasphemy Codes are Choking Freedoms Worldwide.