As the Boko Haram insurgency has intensified over the last few years, it has risen to the top of the priority list of problems most Nigerians expect the government to address. And in this election season, the Boko Haram terrorism problem has dominated conversations between the campaigns and among Nigerians. President Jonathan’s supporters acknowledge that … Continue reading
Tag Archives: Northern Nigeria
On Secular Education and Boko Haram
Since publishing my essay, Toward a Better Understanding of Boko Haram, I have received some feedback, with respondents raising questions and issues they feel merit further exploration, explanation, context, and elaboration. One of these issues is the question of whether or not Boko Haram rose out of societal problems supposedly caused by Western education — corruption, poverty, and poor governance, or whether in fact these problems are traceable to Western education as Boko Haram claims. In this post, I respond to these and other issues. Continue reading
Toward a Better Understanding of Boko Haram
Since they kidnapped more than two hundred schoolgirls from Chibok, Northeastern Nigeria, Nigerian Islamist militant group, Boko Haram, have become the object of global outrage. Anti-Boko Haram activism, although justified and commendable, is often animated by a facile understanding of the group and its entwinements in deeper societal realities. To understand Boko Haram and the foundations of its rage, one has to understand two phenomena associated with the group’s rise. Continue reading