Full Length Research Paper
Britain Colonial Root of Islamic Insurgency and the Politics of Boko Haram Emergence
Nwankwo T. Nwaezeigwe
Article Number - 62286506AC5A4 | Vol. 2(1), pp. 1-13, March 2022 |
Received: 23 August 2021 | Accepted: 15 February 2022 | Published: 31 March 2022
Copyright © 2024 Author(s) retain the copyright of this article.
This article is published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0.
Abstract
This work traces the historical root of
the on-going Islamic insurgency in Nigeria code-named Boko Haram to the emergence of British Colonial administration. It
also looks at how the British biased policy of accommodation with the
Islamic-driven Sokoto Caliphate became enabling ground for the growth of
Islamic fundamentalism within and outside State system and subsequently the
rise of present day Islamic insurgency. From the inception of the modern
Nigeria, Islam has remained the fundamental problem militating against the
unity Nigerian. But for fear of external Arab influence, both the British
colonial administration and successive Nigerian leaders attempted to cover up
its undermining propensity. This paper shows that the Boko Haram insurgency
forms part of a web of historical process of political power struggles between
the mainly Muslim Hausa-Fulani in the North and the mainly Christian groups in
the South and what is today referred to as the Middle Belt. Its script has
always been there as a policy of last resort, only to be applied when the
occasion demanded. In its contemporary definition therefore and against the
popular thesis of socio-economic basis of its cause, the origin of Boko Haram is thus traceable to the
organic historical process of the modern Nigerian nation, in which the Muslim
Fulani have always strove to maintain an all-time political supremacy through
the ideological pedestal of Islam, over the other mainly Christian constituent
ethnic groups. Keywords: British Colonial Policy, Nigeria,
Sokoto Caliphate, Islam, Insurgency.
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Authors
Nwankwo T. Nwaezeigwe
Senior Research Fellow-exile@Rwanda, Institute of African Studies
University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Nigeria. E-mail: [email protected]
How to Cite this Article
Nwaezeigwe, N.
T. (2022). Britain Colonial Root of Islamic Insurgency and the Politics of Boko
Haram Emergence. Journal of Culture,
History and Archaeology, 2(1), 1-13.
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