Nigeria has just witnessed a number of attacks carried out by a radical Islamic group that has styled itself on Afghanistan's ousted Taliban regime. Around 40 members of the group raided two police stations in the northeast of the country early this week, killing four police and taking four hostages while shouting "Allahu Akbar" (Allah is great).
| Sounds vaguely familiar, doesn't it? |
So how seriously should we take the comparison with the Taliban? In this interview with Radio Netherlands, Professor Peter Lewis, an expert on Nigerian affairs with the Council on International Relations in Washington, says the Nigerian Taliban are a violent but marginal group. "In many instances, Islamist movements in Nigeria have adopted the name or the style of other Islamic movements around the world. Sheikh Ibrahim al-Zak Zaki, in the northern Nigerian town of Kaduna, has been called a Shi'ite, because he spent some time in Iraq, even though religiously, he is not a Shi'ite. So, this group calling themselves the Nigerian Taliban have adopted the name for provocative reasons, but there is no real evidence that they have any links with either the Taliban of Afghanistan or al-Qaeda."
| Y'mean they're wannabe's? We'd never have guessed... Uhhh... I guess we already did. Go ahead. |
"But I do think that it's true that radical groups in Nigeria can easily gain access to international news and information on the Internet and so forth, and they can get a pretty ready idea of the strategies, the tactics, the activities of like-minded groups around the world, and so there could be a copycat element there, yes."
| Kind of like play acting, only with live ammunition and real corpses... |
RN: "But, to what extent does their rise and their activity underline the emergence of revolutionary radical Islamic thinking in Nigeria."
"Well, revolutionary radical Islamic thinking has been around in Nigeria for a long time, but it's important to emphasise that it's been a very small and very marginal element, and that it's been present in a few cities. It rises periodically, and from time to time there are violent incidents, but it is not a major tendency or a fundamental threat to security or stability in Nigeria."
| At least not yet. Nigeria's been on Islam's bloody border for awhile, with the bloodletting and the loopiness growing incrementally. The problem has been that Nigeria has a naturally high background noise of bloodletting and loopiness, so it's not as easily noticed... |
"It certainly is a threat to security in the places where it erupts, but the first attacks by people who call themselves the Nigerian Taliban were last January and that involved around 200 people. The latest attacks that occurred in the last few days seem to have involved around 60 people. So, we're talking about up to 300 possible members of this type of group in a country of 130 million people. That gives you some perspective on the relative size of this group."
| That's assuming that rough headcount reflects the actual numbers. How many are sitting at home, sharpening their knives and casting sidelong glances at their less-pure neighbors? |
RN: "How about the local reasons for these attacks and for the activities of these Nigerian Taliban. The latest attacks are said to be in revenge for the suppression of an armed uprising in Yobe state earlier this year
"
"The local reasons are not hard to find. Nigeria is a good recruiting ground for Islamic radicals. It is approximately half Muslim. Most of those are poor, they have been poorly educated, they have been ruled by corrupt authoritarian governments for most of the past 40 years and employment opportunities are scarce. So, you have a large group of poorly educated, unemployed young men in the Muslim majority states of northern Nigeria and that is a ripe recruiting ground for radicals."
| Widespread ignorance, a culture that accepts casual brutality, and a government that's noteworthy for its corruption. Makes for fertile ground for the growth of Islamism... |
"However, most of the so-called radicals in the north have really tried to pursue their activities through peaceful protests, through establishing independent mosques and social services. And they have often spoken in an inflammatory way, but they have not typically tried to pursue their aims through armed violence. So, the Nigerian Taliban that we have seen in the last year or so is a relatively extraordinary group of people." |