Boko Haram, Religious Violence, and the Crisis of National Identity in Nigeria

Abstract

Since Nigeria’s return to democratic rule in 1999, more than 10,000 people have died in the wake of identity-based violence mostly fought along ethno-religious lines. In 2009, a radical Islamist sect from north-eastern Nigeria, Boko Haram, started a campaign of terror that has so far intensified the apprehensive religious atmosphere in the country. While the Boko Haram crisis cannot be said to be strictly religious, this article will locate the group within the context of the mobilization and politicization of religion in Nigeria, which along with the heavy-handedness of Nigeria’s conflict management processes, informs religious militancy and sectarian violence in the country. We argue that a process of transition from a killing society to a non-killing society is needed to provide an alternative perspective to the existing pedagogy of violence for which northern Nigeria is notorious.