The Chibok Girls
The abduction of over three hundred female secondary school students
from Government Girls Secondary School (GGSS), Chibok, Borno State,
Nigeria on April 14, 2014 has elicited consternation all over the world.
This is not the first time that Boko Haram has abducted female
students. This is, however, its biggest haul. Chibok is a predominantly
Christian community and the bulk of the abductees reflect this
predominance in the ratio of 9:1. A few facts have since arisen about
the abduction saga:
- The Sambisa Forest is some 60 kilometers from Chibok, Borno State;
- The Federal Minister of Education
had advised the state Governor, Alhaji Kashim Shettima, to relocate all
students sitting for this year’s West Africa School Certificate
Examination (WASCE) to Maiduguri the state capital of Borno State,
Nigeria for adequate protection, because the examination body, West
Africa Examination Council lost three invigilators to Boko Haram in 2013. The advice was implemented everywhere in Borno State except as it relates to GGSS Chibok;
- Muslims in Chibok cooperated with the insurgents when they invaded to carry out the abduction. As a matter of fact, a son of the former Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Chibok ward was the supplier of petrol to Boko Haram. He was arrested by the community and handed over to the military;
- Chibok is a bastion of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Borno
State, though the state is an All Progressive Congress (APC) Party ruled
state;
- Boko Haram was generally avoiding Chibok after a former Chairman of
the LGA, Hon. Wanangu Kachuwa, was gunned down in front of his house,
shortly after returning from a Church service;
- Boko Haram invaded Chibok with fighters dressed in military fatigues in 25 pick-up vans and operated from 11 p.m to 3 a.m;
- The invaders burnt down some houses belonging to Christians in
Chibok town while a detachment proceeded to the school premises, where
they told the students that they were soldiers who had come to rescue
them;
- Two of the vehicles that were used to transport the female students were commandeered from the local motor park;
- Boko Haram insurgents looted the school’s food store before burning the school down;
- The school’s Principal and Vice Principal, Administration, (both
Muslims) and their families, and other teachers were nowhere around the
school on the night of the abduction, suggesting some foreknowledge. The
Principal is new to the school having just been appointed to take over
from the former Christian Principal in keeping with the unwritten policy
in Borno State to not allow Christians head any state government
institution;
- The Governor of the state claimed that he alerted the military of
the pendency of an attack on the school four hours before the attack
took place, yet made no attempt to evacuate the students from the
school. In any case, Boko Haram does not require four hours to
travel to Chibok from the Sambisa Forest, their believed embarkation
point. As such, anyone with foreknowledge of four hours before the
attack must be a Boko Haram insider;
- The state Governor kept contradicting the Defence Headquarters spokesman, and the Principal repeats whatever the Governor says;
- Certain individuals are in cahoots with the insurgents. For
instance, Governor Shettima of Borno State announced to the media that
the girls abducted in Chibok had been forcibly converted to Islam and
married off to Boko Haram fighters. A day later, Abubakar
Shekau, the sect’s leader released a video clip making the same claim.
Shehu Sani, an “activist”, claimed that the sect wanted to exchange the
girls with members of the sect arrested by the Nigerian authorities. A
day later, another clip emanated from Shekau making the same demand;
- Notable northern and opposition leaders have voiced opposition to
international assistance to help bring back the Chibok girls and to
fight terrorism in Nigeria.
As shocking as the Chibok incident is it is not a
happenstance. Non-Muslim females have historically been preyed upon by
Muslims in Northern Nigeria. The obvious conclusion is that the Chibok
girls were abducted because of their faith. Also:
- In May 2013 Boko Haram attacked a police barracks in Bama,
Borno State, and abducted 12 Christian women and children. Shekau took
responsibility for the attack and abductions on May 7 2013;
- Hajja, a 19 year old Christian was abducted from the Gwoza, Borno
State area. She was forced to convert to Islam, forced to involve
herself in the sect’s operations and was set to be married to one of her
captors when she managed to escape;
- In August 2013 a Christian student reported an attack on her
university accommodation. The men were murdered, the women segregated
into Muslim and non-Muslim and the Christian women were systematically
raped;
- Mid-February 2014, Boko Haram murdered 51 persons in Konduga, Borno State, and abducted 20 young women;
- In Buni Yadi, Yobe State, earlier in 2014, 76 students of Federal
Government College were murdered in cold blood and 16 female students
abducted. They have not been heard of ever since.
- Forceful marriages of Christians to Muslims
- Most the new attacks by Boko Haram, such as Algarmo (Mbulakuduga), Shima, Kimber and Ablam are all Christian villages
Forcible Conversion to Islam in Historical Context
- In 1804, Shehu Othman Danfodio led itinerant Fulani from the Futa
Jallon Heights in present day Gambia and Senegal to settle in present
day Northern Nigeria.
Danfodio led a revolt against the existing Habe
dynasties and supplanted them with Fulani emirs. The Hausa were forcibly
Islamized. The Fulani Jihad, and Islam made inroads into other areas
not inhabited by the Fulani or Hausa but were successfully resisted in
much of today’s Middle Belt.
It was British Colonial Rule that brought
non-Hausa/Fulani peoples who were never conquered by the latter under
the rule of the emirates. Called Indirect Rule, it suited British
colonial design to bring the different ethnic nationalities under the
rather developed emirate system for the purposes of maintaining law and
order, recruiting for forced labour and exacting taxes to run the colony
with.
After power was transferred to nationals and Sir Ahmadu Bello, the late sardauna of
Sokoto, became Premier of the Northern Region, non-Muslim communities
were denied potable water, roads, post offices, schools, hospitals and
access to civil service absorption. Under the premiership of the late
Sir Ahmadu Bello, forcible conversions were effected. From 1961, till he
died in 1966, Sir Ahmadu Bello went on annual Islamisation drives all
over the Northern Region. Traditional rulership of communities became a
preserve of only Muslims. The resistance against Muslim traditional
rulers led to the Tiv Riots 1960-64, and restiveness in old Gongola
(today’s Adamawa and Taraba states), Southern Kaduna (Kafanchan), Tafawa
Balewa (Bauchi State), and Plateau State. Promotion in the civil
service depended on if a candidate had converted to Islam. The late Sardauna promised
to “dip the Koran into the sea meaning he will spread Islam from the
far North across the country to the Atlantic Ocean before he was done.
This agenda of “dipping the Koran to the sea”has continued unabated till
date by consistent terror attacks and killings in the middle belt
followed by mass movement of new communities of Hausa Fulani into the
middle belt all the way down to the south states near the Atlantic
Ocean.
In 1960, the late Sir Ahmadu Bello said “The new nation
called Nigeria should be an estate of our great-grandfather, Uthman Dan
Fodio. We must ruthlessly prevent a change of power. We use the
minorities of the North as willing tools and the South as a conquered
territory and never allow them to rule over us, and never allow them to
have control over their future. (Parrot Newspaper, 12th Oct. 1960; republished on November 13, 2002, by the Tribune Newspaper, Ibadan.);
- The Conference of Northern Chiefs, in response to a letter from the
UK-based West African Students Union (WASU) to the Northern emirs asking
them to support the constitutional evolution of Nigeria into an
independent nation, had declared “holding this country together is not
possible except by means of the religion of the Prophet. If they want political unity let them follow our religion. (Obafemi Awolowo, Path to Nigerian Freedom, London: Faber and Faber, 1947, p.51.);
- During military rule in the 1970s Christian missionary schools were
forcibly taken over by government, and in many instances their names
changed to Islamic ones;
- As late as 1997 under General Sani Abacha’s rule, all Police Commissioners in Nigeria were Muslims;
- In 1990, all members of the Armed Forces Ruling Council (AFRC) were
Muslims except General Ike Nwachukwu, an Igbo, whose mother was a Fulani
Muslim;
- During military rule, General Ibrahim Babangida surreptitiously
registered Nigeria as a member state of the Organisation of Islamic
Conference (OIC) without tabling the issue before the AFRC. The then
second in command, Rear Admiral Ebitu Ukiwe told the world that he heard
about Nigeria’s membership of OIC like everybody else in the media. He
was promptly removed and retired from the Navy;
- Babangida hosted the first Islam in Africa conference in Abuja and
donated Federal Government funds to its operations, including its vision
of transforming Nigeria to an Islamic state and enthroning the Sultan
of Sokoto as its “supreme ruler”. (The communiqué released after the
conference is herewith attached as appendix 1);
Under the presidency of General Olusegun Obasanjo,
1999-2007, the Sharia code of Islamic law was re-introduced in the North
in an expanded
format. Islamic Police (Hisbah) was introduced and
Christian girls were abducted, forcibly converted and married off to
Muslims in Bauchi, Kaduna, Niger and Zamfara states. The Sharia
Commissions of the states merely write parents informing them that their
daughters had converted and had been given out in marriage;
- In a show of utter contempt, indigenous Hausa and Fulani Christians
in Kaduna State are given “certificates of non-indigeneship”, meaning
that they would not have access to rights and privileges accruable to
indigenes of the state;
Islamisation is carried out not only by Muslim rulers.
Unsuspecting southern rulers are unwittingly used to drive some aspects
of the Islamisation agenda:
- Under President Goodluck Jonathan, erstwhile Central Bank Governor Sanusi Lamido Sanusi introduced Islamic Banking;
- President Jonathan has set up Almajiri schools for the
exclusive benefit of Muslims in spite of robust protest by the Christian
community, whose schools were taken over;
- In many Northern states like Kano, Sokoto, Zamfara, Katsina, Bauchi,
Borno, Yobe and Gombe state governments refuse to give building permits
for the erection of churches. As a matter of fact, a disclaimer
contained in building permits in Kano State specifies that the building
permit is not to be used to erect bars, brothels and churches thereby
classifying churches among undesirable establishments like bars and
brothels;
- In places where churches have been destroyed in the past three
decades state governments in several states in the North refuse the
owners permit to rebuild. In Borno, Kaduna, Kano, Niger, Bauchi, Yobe,
Sokoto, Katsina and Gombe states Christian churches numbering over five
thousand have been lost this way. None of the owners were compensated;
The Hausa/Fulani insist that they are the largest
ethnic group yet when former president, General Obasanjo wanted to
include ethnicity and religion as issues to be disaggregated in the
Census exercise of 2006, the
Hausa/Fulani elite pressurized him to drop the idea because doing so would expose the lie.
- The Hausa International Media outfits e.g. BBC, VOA, Germany etc.
usually employ Moslem Hausa Fulani and they tend to propagate the
Islamic views of events in Nigeria in line with their religious perception of not identifying with any government not ruled by a Moslem.
The Boko Haram insurgency is only the latest in
the history of Islamist insurgencies in the North and they have vowed
to drive away, if unable to kill all Christian and non-Moslems from
northern Nigeria:
- There was the Maitatsine Rebellion in Kano, in 1980, that sought to bring to pass an Islamic fundamentalist order;
- There was the Bulumkutu Rebellion in the North East that sought to do the same thing in Maiduguri, Borno State; Jimeta, Yola; and Bauchi, Bauchi State.;
- There was the Kala Kato Rebellion in Bauchi State in the 1980s;
- The eighties and nineties also witnessed riots perpetrated by Muslims in Kano, Zaria, Kafanchan, Maiduguri and Bauchi;
- Since the return to civilian democracy, Jos has witnessed four major
religious riots perpetrated by Muslims including the murder of more
than 500 indigenes of Dogo Nahawa in the dead of the night in 2010. Boko Haram claimed responsibility for that attack;
Each time something irks the Muslim world anywhere in
the world Nigerian Christians are made to pay for it. In 2003 a Danish
newspaper published a cartoon that Muslims felt painted Prophet Mohammed
in a bad light. Nigerian Christians were slaughtered in cold blood in
Maiduguri, Kano and Bauchi and their property looted and vandalized.
After US planes attacked Tripoli, Libya in the 1990s Nigerian Christians
were attacked and killed in Northern Nigeria. After the bombing of the
Twin Towers in New York on September 11 2001 Muslims celebrated in
Northern Nigeria. After US forces started its war on Iraq Nigerian
Christians were attacked and killed. After late President Umaru Musa
Yar’adua fell ill in 2009, there were concerted efforts by the northern
political elite to prevent the then Vice President, Goodluck Jonathan,
from being elevated to the position of Acting President. The then Vice
President was made to take an undertaking that he would not vie for
election in 2011 before northern governors gave their members in the
National Assembly the green light to elevate Jonathan. Before he was
elevated to Acting President, Nigeria had no leader. As a matter of
fact, the 2010 Appropriation Act allegedly signed by Yar’adua in Saudi
Arabia was procured through forgery. Yar’adua was not in a position to
sign anything!
Highly visible northerners in the ruling PDP (including
former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, former NSA General Aliyu Gusau,
former military President General Ibrahim Babangida and former Kwara
State Governor Bukola Saraki) banded together to fight Jonathan under
the “consensus arrangement”. One of those leaders, Aliyu Gusau, is today
Minister of Defence and this complicates the fight against Boko Haram because Gusau is a dye-in-the-wool Islamist.
The post 2011-election violence was orchestrated in
places where Goodluck Jonathan did not win the required 25% (Kano,
Bauchi, Maiduguri, Yobe). The spike in Boko Haram violence is a continuation of that episode. Boko Haram has
not hidden its ambition to drive away if unable to kill all non-muslims
from Northern Nigeria. The inspiration for the current insurgency of Boko Haram and
the murderous activities of the Fulani Militia on rampage in the Middle
Belt is about the desperation of the Muslim North to have power at the
center returned to it, whether the Nigerian electorate say so or not. In
Gombe State where President Jonathan got over the 25% votes, post
election violence was unleashed against the southern Gombe Christians
who gave President Jonathan 70% of their votes compared to the few votes
he got in Gombe North. This violence led to the house of the State PDP
Chairman being burnt and he was never compensated until his untimely
death.
Six northern governors namely: Alhaji Rabiu Kwankwaso of
Kano State; Alhaji Magatakarda Wamako of Sokoto State; Alhaji Muazu
Babangida Aliyu of Niger State; Alhaji Sule Lamido of Jigawa State;
Alhaji Murtala Nyako of Adamawa State and Alhaji Abdufattah Ahmed of
Kwara State banded together with Rivers State Rotimi Amaechi to demand
that the sitting President, Goodluck Jonathan, should undertake not to
partake in the forthcoming 2015 Presidential Election. The refusal of
the President to give such an undertaking led to an orchestrated crisis
in the PDP, and led to the willful abandonment of the party by five of
the aforementioned governors. Members of the National Assembly, states
houses of assembly and other party faithfuls in those states also exited
PDP. Such is the desperation with which northern muslims want power at
the center in Nigeria.
The military campaign against Boko Haram in the North East has not been the spectacular success that would normally be expected of the Nigerian Armed Forces because:
- The armed Forces and other security agencies are divided along
religious lines. There are instances where Muslim soldiers have fired
their rifles in the air rather than take aim because they do not want to
harm fellow Muslims;
- Muslims in the rank and file of the Armed Forces and other security agencies serve as active moles for Boko Haram in
their different organizations. Recently, soldiers of the division in
Maiduguri mutinied against their General Officer Commanding, a Muslim,
because they perceived that he ordered fallen colleagues into a Boko Haram ambush;
- Corruption is a pernicious problem in Nigeria, and the Armed Forces
and other security agencies are not immune to it. There are allegations
that funds meant for purchase of hardware, operations and troop welfare
are diverted to the private coffers of the brass.
Conclusions
There is an active agenda of Jihad and much of the rest
of the country, especially the South, are sleep-walking into what could
be a fait accompli. This agenda is being actively pursued with
the imprimatur of the authorities in several states; The Federal
Government seems incapable of appreciating the true dimensions of the
problem and is often a facilitator of the Jihad agenda.
All Nigerians must be prepared to play by the rules. The
country is practicing democracy and in any democracy, power issues from
the ballot. The international community should not allow itself to be
hoodwinked into supporting the attempt by Islamists to conquer Nigeria,
because that is what Boko Haram and the Fulani Militia are attempting.
The West, including the United States of America, United
Kingdom, France etc. should be wary of information they get about
Nigeria if they do not want to be guilty of helping the Islamist agenda.
The comments coming out of the West alleging that President Jonathan’s
government was anti-North reflects flawed intelligence about Nigeria and
misinformation.
The Nigerian public must begin to ask questions
concerning how humongous amounts given to the Armed Forces and other
security agencies in the past three years were expended. The National
Assembly of Nigeria ought to be very interested in how funds it
appropriated were spent.
- The Nigerian public should go beyond the façade erected by
contemporary politicians to tease out what they are not saying publicly.
That is the way out of sleepwalking into the Islamist agenda that we
are faced with.
ISLAMIC CONFERENCE: COMMUNIQUE (JOINTLY ISSUED BY THE ISLAMIC
COUNCIL, LONDON; THE ORGANISATION OF ISLAMIC CONFERENCE, OIC; AND THE
NEWLY FOUNDED ISLAM IN AFRICA ORGANISATION, IAO)
FURTHER DETERMINED to evolve a permanent Islamic body which has firm roots in and is securely
anchored to the long-standing ideals, and values of Islam, designed to articulate the hopes and
aspirations of Muslims in Africa and coordinate Islamic work variously undertaken by Muslim
communities and organizations and to initiate projects which would assist in improving the lives of
Muslims on the continent and the Muslim world as a whole; We, the delegates assembled here in
ABUJA, this 1st day of Jumada al Awwal, 1410 (28/11/89), DO HEREBY RESOLVE:
To call on Muslims throughout Africa to unite as an important part of the Ummah which is blessed with
the guidanceand mercy brought by the messenger of Allah, Muhammad (PBUN);
To urge Muslims, who have been separated by imposed barriers of artificial boundaries drawn up by
imperialists to serve colonial and anti-Islamic interests, to cooperate with their brethren throughout the
Muslim world with a view to reinstating a strong and united Ummah which is determined to fulfill the
commands of Allah, the Almighty;
To call upon the Ulama to close ranks and thereby facilitate among the Ummah and to urge them to
unite and to strive to remove all barriers between them and the general Muslim populace especially the
youth;
To call on Muslims to review the syllabi in the various educational institutions with a view to bringing
them into conformity with Islamic ideals, goals and principles and to serve the needs of their
community;
To urge Muslims to pay special attention to the education of women at all levels;
To encourage the teaching of Arabic language which is the language of the Quran as well as the lingua
franca of the continent and to strive for the restoration of the use of Arabic script in vernacular;
The conference salutes and highly commends the efforts which the Muslim youth are making in the
service of Islam and pledges its full support for them in this worthwhile endeavour;
To urge Muslims to establish strong economic ties between African Islamic countries and other parts of
the Muslim world in order to facilitate mutual assistance and cooperation in commerce, industry, and
finance with a view to evolving a sound economic system based on Islamic principles;
The Conference notes the yearnings of Muslims everywhere on the continent who have been deprived
of their rights to be governed by the Shari'a and urges them to intensify efforts in the struggle to
reinstate the application of the Shari'a;
The Conference notes that modalities for the establishment of the African Muslim Media Practitioners
Association in Nigeria has been set in motion. It appreciates this noble move and urges Muslims in the
media organizations to offer it all the support it needs to succeed;
To form a permanent body to be known as Islam in Africa Organisation
under the trusteeship of representatives to be selected from among
participating countries; to perform, among other functions the stated
activities and seek to attain the goals and objectives as provided for
in the annexe to this communiqu;
The Conference unanimously expresses its gratitude and appreciation to the government and people of
Nigeria for the interest shown in the Conference and in particular, extends its thanks to the President,
Commander-in- Chief of the Armed Forces of Nigeria, General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida for the
stimulating inaugural address which he sent to the Conference and was delivered by General Sani
Abacha, the Chief of Army Staff of Nigeria;
To the Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs and the Islamic Council, London and the Organisation of
Islamic Conference, OIC for supporting and organizing the Conference;
To the planning committee and other officers of the Conference for all the efforts expended to ensure
the success of the Conference;
To scholars and other distinguished personalities who have presented papers and chaired sessions
during the Conference and to all those who have either erected stands at or otherwise helped in making
the exhibition a huge success;
INSPIRED by the Unity of Allah, the Creator and Lord of the Universe; MOTIVATED by the Quranic
declaration; `Verily, this year (Islamic) Ummah is oneÂ….' and DETERMINED to comply with Allah's
directive contained in the Quranic ayah `And hold fast to the rope of Allah, and do not break up into
factions,' the PARTICIPANTS at the Islam in Africa Conference on this First day of Jumada al Awwal, 1420
A.H., (28/11/89) RESOLVE to found the Islam in Africa Organisation (IAO) with the following as its
objectives, viz:
Undertake vigorous human resource development programmes;
To serve as a mouthpiece for the articulation of issues of common concern to Muslims in Africa and the
Muslim world generally;
Commission experts to write the history of Islam in Africa and of Muslims and the institutions from
authentic Islamic viewpoint and to retrieve literary works and artifacts designed to train workers who
will be trained to acquire trades and skills which equip them to be self-employed and productive;
To ensure the continuity of the noble work initiated at this Conference;
To cooperate with other national or international Islamic organizations for the attainment of its stated
objectives;
To promote unity, spiritually and materially, among Muslims all over the world, particularly in Africa;
To promote peace, harmony and general human development and strive to remove all forms of
discrimination;
To support, enhance and coordinate Da'wah work all over Africa and propagate the knowledge of Islam
throughout the continent;
To encourage
research efforts on Islamic matters and publicize the research findings;
To undertake and encourage the translation into various African languages of Islamic works, their
publication and distribution;
To support the establishment and application of the Sharia to all Muslims;
To encourage vigorous participation of Muslim youths in all spheres of its activities and to ensure that
women are accorded their due rights and roles in society in accordance with the Sharia;
To ensure the appointment of only Muslims into strategic national and international posts of membernations;
To eradicate in all its forms and ramifications all non-Muslim religions in member nations (such religions
shall include Christianity, Ahmadiyya and other tribal modes of worship unacceptable to Muslims.);
To ensure that only Muslims are elected to all political posts of member countries;
To ensure the declaration of Nigeria (the 24th African and World member of the OIC) a Federal Islamic
Sullanalo at a convention on any day from 28th March 1990, with the Sultan of Sokoto enthroned the
Sultan and Supreme Sovereign of Nigeria;
To ensure the ultimate replacement of all western forms of legal and judicial systems with the Shari'a in
all member nations before the next Islam in Africa Conference;
To organize an Islam in Africa Conference regularly as well seminars, symposia, conferences, workshops
and colloquia;
Towards the attainment of these ends, therefore, a Steering Committee, with membership drawn from
the following countries as well as the Islamic Council, London and the Organisation of Islamic
Conference, OIC, has been set up, viz:
1. Nigeria
2. Niger
3. The Gambia
4. Mauritania
5. Senegal
6. Libya
7. Tanzania
8. Sudan
9. Tunisia
The Permanent Headquarters of the Islam in Africa Organisation, IAO, shall be in Abuja, Nigeria. The Steering Committee has been assigned the special task of the details establishing the IAO in Nigeria, including structures and constitution within six (6) months. The Conference decided that the Steering Committee should also work out detailed plans for transforming a national political party in each member nation into a National Islamic Party, and that the National Republican Convention, NRC, of Nigeria should be made to serve this purpose in Nigeria as the only recognized National Islamic Party of Nigeria. These
parties so approved shall be the only ones to produce leading government (executive and legislative) functionaries. The NRC of Nigeria and other parties shall have their names changed to reflect Islamic nature of their purpose.
The Conference further agreed and decided that the IAO should for the time being, operate from the
facilities of the Islamic Council, London, and not from that of the OIC (that has become too controversial
in Nigeria.)
