Ungoverned or Alternatively Governed Spaces in North-Eastern Nigeria

Abstract

The whole question of what was happening to us, which is now called Boko Haram, has never been subjected to any critical intellectual analysis. We’ve just been interested in the burning of houses, suicide bombers and so on, but we have never attempted to ask what is the moral economy or what really predisposes people to this kind of attitude, where did this come from? Beyond thinking of intelligence as gathering gossip and information from people, there are intellectual views. It is possible to trace the historical processes that have produced what we have now in the name of Boko Haram. Is there any connection between Boko Haram and other forms of violent protests that precede it, whether it’s Maitatsine or whatever? Can we explain why this Boko Haram is dominant in Maiduguri, Yobe and not Sokoto or Kebbi? These are questions that only intellectual analyses, dispassionate, taken away from politics, can help us to come to the conclusion because there must be a reason and it may be sociological, cultural, religious or historical, as to why certain things happen where they do. If this was about religion, and Muslims are trying to expand the frontiers of Islam, which kind of a stupid man will be fighting inside his own house and hope to conquer other people? Kukah 2013: 39–40