From Demand for an Islamic State to the Boko Haram Insurgency: Historical Analysis of Nigeria’s Experience with Islamism (original) (raw)

This article examines the relationship between militant Islamism and political Islamism. By observing Nigeria’s experience with Islamism, it attempts to put into context the motives and goals of political Islamism and militant Islamism. The article starts by recalling pre-colonial Islamic movements in the northern part of Nigeria and how Islamism once represented the people’s political expression. While British colonialism laid the political foundation and legal framework for secularism in Nigeria, what began as an Islamist anti-colonial resistance during colonisation became a de-Nigerialisation movement when Islamic leaders pressed for the jurisdiction of sharia law after the country’s independent. The article further examines whether militant Islamism escalates as a result of the sharia’s institution in the country’s constitution. It shows that although the Sharia movement in Nigeria was generally non-violent except under the legal sanctions of the strict aspects of Islamic law, the fulcrum of militant Islamism is terrorism. However, while not mutually exclusive, the occurrence of political Islamism presented a backdrop to the occurrence of the militant Islamism.