Yet, Another Week Of Religious Madness
By Godwin Ijediogor
RELIGIOUS-related violence and killing is certainly not a new phenomenon in Nigeria, especially the northern part of the country, although it is equally not a cheerful thing.
There have been religious riots and disturbances in virtually all states of the north in the past, including the hitherto peaceful Middle Bet of North Central zone, leading to loss of lives and property running into billions of naira.
But none equates to the latest, led by one Mohammed Yusuf, which started last Sunday in Borno State and soon spread to other states. Unlike in the past, this one was everything against Western education and culture. It was against the mainstream Islamic teachings, hence condemned by even Islamic clerics and teachers.
The militants, seeking to impose Sharia throughout Nigeria started by attacking police stations, churches, prisons and government buildings, and the violence soon spread to other states.
Only last week, police in Borno State raided militant hideouts and discovered some arms and explosives.
Some government officials refer to the militants as Taliban, although there is no known affiliation with the mainstream Taliban fighters in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Boko Haram membership is reported to include many members of the elite, including university lecturers and others, who abandoned their posts and sold their homes to join the sect.
Ironically, Yusuf is Western-educated and went about with cell phones and other Western items, while urging his followers to rid themselves of all material wealth and war against Western education. He went about chauffeur-driven in a Mercedes all-terrain vehicle, with vehicles in his compound.
Officials on Thursday that he was found in a goat pen at his in-law's home in Kernawa. Authorities initially said he had been wounded, arrested and in police custody. But he was later announced dead in controversial circumstances, prompting an international human rights group to call for an immediate investigation into his fatal shooting and death in police custody.
New York-based Human Rights Watch called the reports of Yusuf's death "extremely worrying," while urging a thorough investigation into circumstances surrounding his death.
"The Nigerian authorities must act immediately to investigate and hold to account all those responsible for this unlawful killing and any others associated with the recent violence in northern Nigeria," Corinne Dufka, the group's senior West Africa researcher insisted.
Yusuf is said to have had four wives and 12 children, whose whereabouts remain unknown.
Though Yusuf has been captured and killed, but that might not be the end of his teachings, which have permeated some parts of the north over the years. The activities of the sect may have been curbed, but certainly not extinguished, as his followers who have not been arrested might only go under ground and might resurface in the same or another form.
The big questions remaining border on security lapses. For example, the sect had been in existence for long and the activities of its members were not hidden, that much had been admitted by the police, which said they once arrested Yusuf. So what prevented the security agencies from nipping their activities in the bud before they went haywire on Sunday?
What prevented the Borno and other states government from taking action against the sect and their activities, particularly when Yusuf had been accusing the government of misappropriation of public funds and inability to provide basic infrastructure in the last six years?
The sect had since 2000 been targeting government and security agents, killing and maiming many and destroying properties in Borno, Yobe, Sokoto, Katsina, Bauchi and Kano states in their stead.
These and other issues raised must be addressed one way or the other, especially those bordering on good governance.
