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How Northern Nigeria's Violent History Explains Boko Haram by GworoChewinMaga: 8:25pm On Feb 25, 2016
[size=18pt]How Northern Nigeria's Violent History Explains Boko Haram[/size]
Long before this extremist group arose, other radicals terrorized the region, British former administrator says.

By John Hare, National Geographic
PUBLISHED MARCH 14, 2015




Muslim Kanuri horsemen ride in the independence day durbar in Kaduna, the regional capital of northern Nigeria at the time. Nigeria gained its independence from the U.K. in 1960.


In the northern Nigerian town of Gombe, I became a registered alcoholic at the age of 22.
The year was 1957, and I was starting out as a district officer (the last to be recruited by the British government for service in northern Nigeria) just three years before the country won its independence.

The only way I could enjoy a "drink" in Gombe—a sleepy mud-brick township, laid out by the British in the 1920s, where Islamic laws were in force—was to issue myself an "addict's license." That document allowed me to obtain liquor from the "pagan" city of Jos, 175 miles (280 kilometers) away.

In my administrative capacity, I also had the authority to issue addict's licenses to the 12 other expatriate Europeans who lived in Gombe. I doubt many other towns in the world can claim the distinction of having their entire expatriate community registered as alcoholics.

I lived in a circular, thatched mud house and rode to work on my horse, which I hitched to a rail outside my office.

Gombe was essentially a happy place, presided over by a benign and astute Muslim emir of the Fulani tribe and a team of enlightened councillors. Apart from the odd dispute over a woman or land, there was little violence. Gambling was frowned on, but a blind eye was turned toward the drumming and dancing that in a pre-television age carried on throughout the year, except during the month of Ramadan.

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Re: How Northern Nigeria's Violent History Explains Boko Haram by GworoChewinMaga: 8:31pm On Feb 25, 2016
But today Gombe is on the front lines of the obscene and bloody battle waged by Boko Haram to impose an extreme interpretation of Islam on the whole of northern Nigeria.

How has it come to pass that 55 years after Nigeria's independence, peaceful towns are being terrorized, attracting suicide bombers and an invading army of fundamentalist Islamists? 

The answers lie in Nigeria's northeasternmost state, Borno—a 27,000-square-mile (70,000-square-kilometer) territory south and west of Lake Chad whose prominent inhabitants are the Muslim Kanuri tribe and where radical dissent led by brutal, fanatical men goes back well over a century.

In one burst of violence last month, Boko Haram attacked Gombe and Dadin Kowa, another sleepy town in my former administrative orbit, on the banks of the Gongola River. 

Boko Haram invaded Dadin Kowa, which translates as "tranquility for everybody," in 30-some Toyota HiLux vehicles from Borno State to the east, setting fire to houses and government offices.

In Gombe, 60 miles (95 kilometers) to the south, the Nigerian army repelled the attack and called in the air force, which strafed and bombed the militant Islamists. There were numerous casualties on both sides—possibly as many as 50—but the exact number of dead has not been reported.

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Re: How Northern Nigeria's Violent History Explains Boko Haram by Progressive01(m): 8:41pm On Feb 25, 2016
Ali Modu Sheriff is the founder of Boko Haram- Goodluck Jonathan.

Boko Haram are my siblings- Goodluck Jonathan.

Ali Modu Sheriff founded Boko Haram- Femi Fani Kayode.

Boko Haram is PDP and PDP is Boko Haram- Andrew Awoye Azazi.

Ali Modu Sheriff, founder of Boko Haram, is today, the PDP national Chairman. gringrin

Re: How Northern Nigeria's Violent History Explains Boko Haram by GworoChewinMaga: 8:48pm On Feb 25, 2016
I still have a strong personal link to these troubled areas. One town in Borno I knew, Kukawa, was my jumping-off point in October 2001 for a trek that took me on a 1,500-mile (2,400-kilometer), three-and-a-half-month journey by camel across the Sahara to Tripoli, in Libya. It's saddening to realize that this trek would be impossible to undertake today.

The Kanuri Empire
After my time in Gombe, I was posted to Mubi 145 miles east (233 kilometers) on the border between Nigeria and Cameroon. One of my main tasks was to follow the old maps and confirm the international border between Nigeria and Cameroon just prior to independence. (See "Geography in the News: Nigeria's Boko Haram Terrorists."wink

This involved walking 170 miles (275 kilometers) along the top of the Mandara Mountains—great bosses of granite sticking more than 3,000 feet (915 meters) into the air, strewn with rounded boulders the size of houses and stretching between Lake Chad in the far northeast of Nigeria to just beyond Yola in the south.

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Re: How Northern Nigeria's Violent History Explains Boko Haram by GworoChewinMaga: 8:51pm On Feb 25, 2016


Scarification on the back of this female member of the Fali tribe, in the Mandara Mountains, has been done to enhance her beauty. But scarification on the face was done to ensure that if a person were captured, his or her tribal origin would be clearly identifiable.
In precolonial times the mountains formed a central backbone in the vast Kanuri tribal empire, which extended eastward into today's Cameroon and Chad and north to the Fezzan, in southwestern Libya.
For centuries the Marghi, Hithe, Gwoza, Fali, and Matakam tribes—some of the wildest in Nigeria—had secured this mountainous fortress, fending off raids by mounted Muslim Kanuri slavers from Borno.

The tribesmen developed a deadly throwing knife, which spun through the air and sliced through the tendons of the raiders' horses

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Re: How Northern Nigeria's Violent History Explains Boko Haram by GworoChewinMaga: 8:52pm On Feb 25, 2016
In 1900, the British and the Fulani emirs agreed to establish the Protectorate of Northern Nigeria. The north was divided into provinces, one of which, Borno, was excised from the former Kanuri-inhabited Borno Empire. The agreement stated that Christian missionaries would be allowed to proselytize only among pagan tribes—not Muslims.

When I traversed the Mandara Mountains, about 30 percent of the people I encountered were Christians, 65 percent pagans, and 5 percent Muslims.

But since independence, missionizing has proceeded apace. Today nearly all the inhabitants are Christians, and they—especially the youth—are the targets of forced conversion to Islam by the followers of Boko Haram.

But even these conversions aren't entirely new. In 1964, the northern Nigerian government sent "Islamic missionaries" to forcibly circumcise and convert pagan tribesmen to the Muslim faith.

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Re: How Northern Nigeria's Violent History Explains Boko Haram by GworoChewinMaga: 8:53pm On Feb 25, 2016
Today Boko Haram insurgents—headquartered in the town of Gwoza—are in complete control of the Mandara Mountains, where they've driven out and slaughtered tribespeople and forced others to adopt Islam.

These new killers didn't come on horseback but in armored cars, with ample supplies of sophisticated modern military equipment. The throwing knives were obsolete.

History Repeats
Boko Haram's form of violent dissent, which is particularly horrific, has an exact historical precedent 125 years ago in precisely the same part of what is now Nigeria and Cameroon.

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Re: How Northern Nigeria's Violent History Explains Boko Haram by GworoChewinMaga: 8:55pm On Feb 25, 2016


To repel mounted Muslim raiders from the east, the Gwoza and other fierce tribes in the Mandara Mountains invented a throwing knife that could slice the tendons of invaders' horses.

1 Like

Re: How Northern Nigeria's Violent History Explains Boko Haram by Nobody: 9:00pm On Feb 25, 2016
Lol this OP is fond of penning rubbish grin Very unintelligent cheesy .Only God knows where he gets his jargons from

This is the same fo.ol that got me banned so responding to him isn't even neccessary
Re: How Northern Nigeria's Violent History Explains Boko Haram by Progressive01(m): 9:04pm On Feb 25, 2016
kaakulator3:
Lol this OP is fond of penning rubbish grin Very unintelligent cheesy .Only God knows where he gets his jargons from

This is the same fo.ol that got me banned so responding to him isn't even neccessary
Just remark about PDP and their military arm Boko Haram, then walk away jejely. cheesy

1 Like

Re: How Northern Nigeria's Violent History Explains Boko Haram by GworoChewinMaga: 9:25pm On Feb 25, 2016
In 1893, a renegade Islamic fanatic, Rabih Fadi Allah, invaded the region from Darfur, in western Sudan.

Rabih had fallen out with the Islamic reformer and self-proclaimed al-Mahdi, or holy man, Muhammad Ahmad, whose presence on Earth was thought to presage the end of the world and whose troops in 1885 killed the British general known as Gordon of Khartoum.

Rabih's horde of Islamic fighters swept in on horseback, beheading, looting, and enslaving in the name of Allah in a manner similar to Boko Haram today.

Nothing has been remembered more faithfully about Rabih than his violent temper, a passion that could be aroused for no apparent reason and not infrequently led to his inflicting savage beatings with his sword or killing people either by slitting their throats or cutting off their heads.

Rabih's favorite curse was Allah rektar rasak—may God cut off your head.

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Re: How Northern Nigeria's Violent History Explains Boko Haram by GworoChewinMaga: 9:27pm On Feb 25, 2016
Abubakar Shekau, the self-proclaimed leader of Boko Haram, is said to be a fearless loner, a complex and paradoxical man, part-theologian, part-gangster.

Since he assumed the insurgency's leadership in 2009, after the death of Mohammed Yusuf, the movement's founder, Boko Haram has become more radical. Abubakar Shekau has carried out even more appalling atrocities than his predecessor.

He achieved savage notoriety in a video clip that showed him laughing as he admitted having abducted more than 200 Christian schoolgirls, mainly of the Kibaku tribe, in April 2014.

"I abducted your girls," he jeered. "I will sell them in the market, by Allah. I will sell them off and marry them off."

The two men appear to be similar kinds of fanatical, psychopathic leaders with a shared appetite for enslavement and murder.

One habit of Rabih's has not as yet been imitated by Abubakar Shekau: Known as "Rabih's mark," it was his way of defining ownership of all his slaves, followers, and subject communities. The marks varied—three small cuts on either cheek, three lines at the corner of the mouth, or a notched cross on the face forming an enormous raised scar.

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Re: How Northern Nigeria's Violent History Explains Boko Haram by GworoChewinMaga: 9:28pm On Feb 25, 2016
In 1893, Rabih destroyed the Kanuri shehu (emir) of Borno's capital in Kukawa, killing more than 3,000 people and enslaving 3,800.

Rabih established his capital in Dikwa, 80 miles southeast of Kukawa, where his arbitrary rule was conducted in a sea of blood and horror. The remains of his house can still be seen today.

The parallel with Boko Haram is compelling. Kukawa is only 23 miles (37 kilometers) from Baga and a nearby town, where this year, on January 3, Abubakar Shekau's followers are alleged to have killed 300 people or more and destroyed 3,000 houses.

Abubakar Shekau established Boko Haram's Gwoza headquarters a hundred miles (160 kilometers) south of Dikwa, killing the incumbent emir of Gwoza in the process.

Rabih was finally killed on April 22, 1900, in a battle with the French, and the illustrious Borno Empire was divided among the French, Germans, and British.

Abubakar Shekau is still at large.

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Re: How Northern Nigeria's Violent History Explains Boko Haram by GworoChewinMaga: 9:30pm On Feb 25, 2016


After the 1960 raid by the Matakam, the British colonial administration handed out blankets, salt, and corn to the Hithe, whose houses had been set on fire and livestock and corn stolen.

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Re: How Northern Nigeria's Violent History Explains Boko Haram by GworoChewinMaga: 9:33pm On Feb 25, 2016
[size=18pt]Hamman Yaji: A Ruthless Slaver
[/size]
Malam Risku, of the Marghi tribe, was chief of the town of Madagali and a good friend when I was in northern Nigeria. A convert to Christianity, as a boy he'd been carried over the mountains to escape the depredations of an Islamic slave raider, the notorious Fulani tribesman Hamman Yaji.

Hamman Yaji recorded his activities in a diary in Arabic script:

1913, May 12: I sent my soldiers to Sukur, and they destroyed the house of the arnardo [the pagan chieftain] and took a horse and seven slave girls and burned the house.


1917, August 16: I sent Fad-el-Allah with his men to raid Sukur. They captured 80 slaves, of whom I gave away 40. We killed 27 men and women and 17 children.

1 Like

Re: How Northern Nigeria's Violent History Explains Boko Haram by GworoChewinMaga: 9:36pm On Feb 25, 2016
[size=18pt]Hamman Yaji: A Ruthless Slaver
[/size]
Malam Risku, of the Marghi tribe, was chief of the town of Madagali and a good friend when I was in northern Nigeria. A convert to Christianity, as a boy he'd been carried over the mountains to escape the depredations of an Islamic slave raider, the notorious Fulani tribesman Hamman Yaji.

Hamman Yaji recorded his activities in a diary in Arabic script:

1913, May 12: I sent my soldiers to Sukur, and they destroyed the house of the arnardo [the pagan chieftain] and took a horse and seven slave girls and burned the house.


1917, August 16: I sent Fad-el-Allah with his men to raid Sukur. They captured 80 slaves, of whom I gave away 40. We killed 27 men and women and 17 children.


An eyewitness account relates that "on one raid, Hamman Yaji's soldiers cut off the heads of the dead pagans in front of the chief of Sukur's house, threw them into a hole in the ground, set them alight, and cooked their food over the flames."

The wives of dead Sukur men were reported as being ordered to come forward and collect their husband's heads in a calabash. Children were said to have had wire hammered through their ears and jaws by the soldiers.

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Re: How Northern Nigeria's Violent History Explains Boko Haram by GworoChewinMaga: 9:42pm On Feb 25, 2016
The author, John Hare was a district officer for the British and Nigerian governments and worked for the United Nations Environment Programme. He then established the Wild Camel Protection Foundation to save the critically endangered wild double-humped camel in Central Asia from extinction. A Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, Hare has received numerous awards for his exploratory and conservation activities.

kaakulator3:
Lol this OP is fond of penning rubbish grin Very unintelligent cheesy .Only God knows where he gets his jargons from
This is the same fo.ol that got me banned so responding to him isn't even neccessary


Yoruba bok winch slave girl

4 Likes

Re: How Northern Nigeria's Violent History Explains Boko Haram by GworoChewinMaga: 9:45pm On Feb 25, 2016
Progressive01:
Ali Modu Sheriff is the founder of Boko Haram- Goodluck Jonathan.

Boko Haram are my siblings- Goodluck Jonathan.

Ali Modu Sheriff founded Boko Haram- Femi Fani Kayode.

Boko Haram is PDP and PDP is Boko Haram- Andrew Awoye Azazi.

Ali Modu Sheriff, founder of Boko Haram, is today, the PDP national Chairman. gringrin

An attack on boko haram jihadist is an attack on the Muslim north - Mohammedu bin fcking-Aisha-since-she-was-13 Buhari

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Re: How Northern Nigeria's Violent History Explains Boko Haram by Omololu007(m): 9:53pm On Feb 25, 2016
GworoChewinMaga:


After the 1960 raid by the Matakam, the British colonial administration handed out blankets, salt, and corn to the Hithe, whose houses had been set on fire and livestock and corn stolen.
I wonder how northern Nigeria would be by now,if it was not for we southerners...it might be on the same level with chad and Niger republic

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Re: How Northern Nigeria's Violent History Explains Boko Haram by GworoChewinMaga: 9:55pm On Feb 25, 2016
Progressive01:
Just remark about PDP and their military arm Boko Haram, then walk away jejely. cheesy




Amodu sherif is a founding father of Allah Ped0phile Congress.

He was expelled after slapping Tinubu

6 Likes 2 Shares

Re: How Northern Nigeria's Violent History Explains Boko Haram by GworoChewinMaga: 10:01pm On Feb 25, 2016
Omololu007:
I wonder how northern Nigeria would be by now,if it was not for we southerners...it might be on the same level with chad and Niger republic


I thought your elders came out last week to state your cultural links to the north?

Your fellow Tajus are already going full boko retardo here attacking me for exposing their masters history of carnage and pillaging in the name of allah.


Enjoy your soon to be declared oduastan emirate.

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Re: How Northern Nigeria's Violent History Explains Boko Haram by Omololu007(m): 10:05pm On Feb 25, 2016
GworoChewinMaga:



I thought your elders came out last week to state your cultural links to the north?

Your fellow Tajus are already going full boko retardo here attacking me for exposing their masters history of carnage and pillaging in the name of allah.


Enjoy your soon to be declared oduastan emirate.
what a senseless comment

1 Like

Re: How Northern Nigeria's Violent History Explains Boko Haram by GworoChewinMaga: 10:06pm On Feb 25, 2016
GworoChewinMaga:
Hamman Yaji, a Fulbe{fulani} , was the last slave raider of the Northern Mandaras {northeast Nigeria, parts of cameroun and present day Chad }. He was arrested by the British in 1927 and montagnards from Sukur to Dughwede give explicite accounts on his relentless raiding. His diary was published in 1995 (Vaughan et al). It is historically unclear whether it was the suspicion of Mahdism or the complains from montagnards which led to his arrest (Muller-Kosack 1999).

The diary of Hamman Yaji is unique: a precious historical source, a fascinating social document. From September 1912 until the day before his arrest in August 19, an insider voice tells us of life in the early colonial period, on the furthest margin of European authority.

Madagali, in present-day northeastern Nigeria, was a tiny principality within the Adamawa emirate, itself a province of the Sokoto caliphate: all three were conquest states, ruled by Muslim Fulani. Hamman Yaji became ruler of Madagali in 1902, appointed by the Germans the day after they had killed the previous ruler, his father. He survived the change to French rule in 1916, to British in 1922. The British deposed him in August 19, allegedly for past slaving, but probably more for his Mahdist sympathies. From September 1912 until the day before his arrest, Hamman Yaji chronicled his activities, sometimes almost daily. Entries are generally sparse, but, read carefully, and with the helpful editorial material in this book, the ensemble is remarkable. The book is dedicated to all people of the Madagali district, with the hope that their future will be one of harmony and mutual cooperation.

A worthy hope, but sitting a little uneasily here, since Hamman Yaji was a dedicated slave raider.

The recurrent litany makes chilling reading:

May 12, 1913: "...I sent my soldiers to Sukur and they destroyed thehouse of the Arnado [village head] and took a horse and seven slave girls and burnt their houses."

May 21: "I captured 20 slave girls."

June 11th: "I captured six slave girls and ten cattle, and killed three men."

June 25: "I captured 48 slave girls and 26 cattle and I killed five persons."

July 6: "I captured 30 cattle and six slave girls."


All this (and more) on a single page. Exactly what such raids involved the diary itself does not say: traditions gathered later amongst the victimized populations are ghoulish indeed, comparable with another unique document, the eye-witness account of Bagirmi slaving a little further east and 40 years earlier, recorded by the German traveler Gustav Nachtigal in the third volume of his Sahara and Sudan.

Hamman Yaji's editors suggest, a little speculatively, that a word from a British officer in March 1924 sufficed to stop the raiding. The raiding did stop, and even the most tender liberal conscience, reflecting on colonialism, may take some comfort that a line was drawn under such entries as: "I sent Fadhl al Nar with his men to raid Sukur and they captured 80 slaves, of whom I gave away 40. We killed men and women and 17 children."

The troops were evidently out of control here: women and children were too valuable to be killed. The exploitation, often sexual, of women is clear: female slaves circulated as gifts, or in exchange (three for a horse, for instance). Hamman Yaji swapped female slaves with one of his men, even with his son, who objected that "he did not want a girl, he wanted a boy slave".

Even in such circumstances, a defiant female voice is audible: "I found that my slave girl in the absence of her fellow-slaves had said that she would not prepare my food for me. Why she would not cook my food I do not know, but anyway the result was that I got no food from her and was obliged to buy it."


Or again: "I my wife Umm Asta Belel said that in respect of her being a Muslim she was tired of it, and in respect of her being a pagan it would be better for her." Some passages are enigmatic, such as: "I fixed the penalty for every slave who leaves me without cause at four slave girls and if he is a poor man 200 lashes."

Is the implication here that slaves with cause could leave? How many slaves were rich enough to be able to pay a fine of four slave girls? What where the chances of surviving 200 lashes? Slavery is by far the most prominent single theme, but there are many others, such as local politics and power structures, the local practice of Islam, and the advance of colonialism. The diary ends on a homely note: "On the same day Sarkin Lifida ruined the onions."

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/books/deep-insight-on-an-african-despot/162186.article
Re: How Northern Nigeria's Violent History Explains Boko Haram by GworoChewinMaga: 10:11pm On Feb 25, 2016
GworoChewinMaga:
A European's account of Madagali during the years of Hamman Yaji

The … [northern districts of Madagali, Cubunawa. and Mubi] taken over by this province … are the most lawless, ill-governed places I have seen in Nigeria … Slave dealing and slave raiding are rampant … chiefs of minor importance were given rifles with which they were encouraged to attack the wretched pagans [who are] hiding like frightened monkeys on inaccessible hilltops … of course, everyone goes about fully armed: spears, shields, bows and arrows, clubs, etc. (The British Resident, Yola province, in 1920, cited by Anthony Kirk-Greene 1958: 84)
Re: How Northern Nigeria's Violent History Explains Boko Haram by Progressive01(m): 10:38pm On Feb 25, 2016
GworoChewinMaga:


An attack on boko haram jihadist is an attack on the Muslim north - Mohammedu bin fcking-Aisha-since-she-was-13 Buhari
Ahap. Na your own thread naw. Take your own hand pack shiit rub for ya own face, wetin concern me? gringrin
Re: How Northern Nigeria's Violent History Explains Boko Haram by GworoChewinMaga: 10:44pm On Feb 25, 2016
Progressive01:
Ahap. Na your own thread naw. Take your own hand pack shiit rub for ya own face, wetin concern me? gringrin


You voted a boko now go and prepeare for oduastan by brushing up on your Koran recitation


Yoruba slave

1 Like

Re: How Northern Nigeria's Violent History Explains Boko Haram by Nobody: 11:04pm On Feb 25, 2016
GworoChewinMaga:


Your slavery to the north is inevitable once we in the better south pull out.

The descendants of Dan Fodio will pick up from where he left off.

This is why you are all scared stiff of Niger Delta & Biafra Republic.


Very soon (within your life time) , you will witness first hand northern hospitality.


I'm sure you know you're the only one reading your jargons grin cheesy. I haven't read a single line.

Immediately I saw your name, I knew it wasn't neccessary

Even your fellow Ipod youths are uninterested grin. I'm sympathetic so I'll add just this comment grin grin

What you should have done is log in with the other accounts so you can chat with yourself and like comments

That's what most Ipod youths do and sometimes it works cheesy
Re: How Northern Nigeria's Violent History Explains Boko Haram by Nobody: 11:25pm On Feb 25, 2016
GworoChewinMaga:


Eyaah,

Keep defending your boko masters

Jihadi bride like you will make for a good bio bi-pedal ordinance deployer.


Yeye winch like you will have your oduastan and your filthy boko bastard children will forget their roots and embrace the ab0ki life


If you like keep a brave face but you and I know you have that crampy tense but moist feeling deep down similar to when you are expecting to get raped.

Boko


grin grin grin grin

Lmaooo replying you with profanity will only get me banned again like the last time and I don't have time
to be creating new accounts

You're not even good at it lol grin cheesy

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