The Urban Public Space and Religious Extremism in Northern Nigeria
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Date
2019
Authors
Albert, I.O
Lawanson, T.
Journal Title
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Publisher
Pan-African University press
Abstract
The postcolonial history of Northern Nigeria is replete with deft cases of violent religious extremism. While some of the conflict episodes were mass-based and spontaneous such as the Sharia crises of 2000 in Kaduna, as a result of which hundreds of innocent people were killed, a few others were well organised and resulted from the activities of some charismatic religious leaders demanding a radical change of their society. This chapter is on the latter. The role of urbanism in the activities of three of such radical preachers is considered. The first is Mohammadu Marwa, the leader of the Maitatsine sect that caused hundreds of deaths in Kano and a few northern Nigerian states from 1980 to 1999. The second is Sheikh Ibrahim El-Zakzaky, the leader of the Islamic Movement of Nigerian (a group popularly known as the “Nigerian Shiites”). The third is Muhammed Yusuf, the founder of the Boko Haram sect now causing havoc in the Northeast of Nigeria, Cameroun, Chad and Niger. This chapter challenges the existing literature that presents these insurgencies as purely a religious matter. It argues that at the formative stage of the crises, the main issues had to do with the use of the urban space. In other words, the chapter tries to present the city as a site for power and resistance between the insurgents and the Nigerian state. The nature of this conflict is explained and recommendations made on their future prevention and management. In the three cases studied in this paper, the government challenged how the extremist religious leaders used the urban space and the latter reacted violently: leading to thousands of deaths and displacement of persons.
Description
Staff publications
Keywords
public space , Religious Extremism , urban space , Northern Nigeria , Research Subject Categories::FORESTRY, AGRICULTURAL SCIENCES and LANDSCAPE PLANNING
Citation
Albert. A, & Lawanson.T (2019). The Urban Public Space and Religious Extremism in Northern Nigeria; in Albert.I and Lawanson. T (eds) Urban Crisis and management in Africa. Houston: PanAfrican University press, 565 - 581.