Content area
Full Text
Despite the time gap between the Maitatsine riots and the Boko Haram insurrection, the socioeconomic conditions that sustained the risings in 1980 are relevant to the Boko Haram situation.
Nigeria has a long history of religious conflicts, some of the most virulent being those of the Maitatsine (1980s) and Boko Haram (July 2009). The latter matched the former in intensity, organization, and spread. Given the international attention to global terrorism, there is the likelihood that fundamentalist groups receive motivation, material, and ideological support or influence from a global jihadist movement. Unresolved national issues, including the weak economy, weak security and intelligence apparatuses, and the failure to define what the national culture and identity is, are critical factors. The precedent of Maitatsine and the government's handling of it suggest that government incapacity and lack of political will have served to encourage recurrence and question the state's capacity. This paper discusses the resurgence of violence under the guise of religious revivalism and draws parallels between the Maitatsine uprisings and the Boko Haram uprising. It examines the Nigerian state response to these uprisings. It concludes that unless the state addresses concretely and tackles bravely the conditions that can aid or fuel violent religious revivalism, uprisings may recur.
Introduction
Nigerians are a highly religious people, or so it seems. Religious sentiments and explanations, beyond being seen as the lifeblood of the people's fundamental reality and daily experience, have been offered to justify even mundane or politically motivated situations (Enwerem 1999:123). More worrisome is the gradual but steady growth of religious fundamentalism or extremism beginning in the 1980s (Suberu 1997:477-508). Although the politicization of religion became stronger in the late 1970s, religious fears and the use of religion for propaganda have been important features of Nigeria. This was evident in the attempt at allaying the fear of "religious minorities" in the old northern and western regions by the Henry Willink Commission (Nigeria 1958:11, 26, 63), as well as in the Biafran secession of 1967-1970 (Laitin 1986:134). The Sharia debate in the Constituent Assembly during 1977-1978 was perhaps the first major conflict to polarize Nigeria along religious lines. At the heart of the conflict was the struggle for and against the provision for a Federal Sharia Court of Appeal in...