More on the latest Sharia-related violence in Nigeria: “At least six people were killed when soldiers and police quelled an uprising by Muslim extremists who had attacked several police stations in Northeastern Nigeria over the past two weeks, a government spokesman said.” This from AllAfrica.com, with thanks to Nicolei.
“Ibrahim Jirgi, the spokesman for Yobe statement goverment, said on Sunday that the group of about 200 militants belonged to a Muslim sect known as Al Sunna Wal Jamma or ‘Followers of the Prophet.’ This group has been active for the past two years in northeastern Nigeria and demands the establishment of an Islamic state in the country. It professes admiration for the Taliban movement in Afghanistan.
“Jirgi said the militants first attacked police stations in the towns of Geidam and Kanamma near the northern border with Niger, where they siezed guns and ammunition. The militants subsequently occupied a primary school in Kanamma, where they raised flags with ‘Afghanistan’ written on them.
“Residents in Kanamma said the militants appeared mainly to be . . . university students from Maiduguri, the capital of neighbouring Borno state.”
University students? Didn’t they learn at school that the Qur’an teaches peace?
“The Al Sunna Wal Jamma group has been active in Borno and Yobe states over the past two years, preaching strict adherence to Islamic Shari’ah law and expressing admiration for the Taliban movement in Afghanistan. However, this is the first time they have been known to take up arms.
“Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation of over 120 million people, has a majority Muslim population concentrated in the north and a minority Christian population resident in the South, with a significant number of followers of traditional African faiths. Tension between Muslims and Christians has risen over the past four years – periodically erupting into violence that has killed thousands of people.
“The scale of clashes has increased since a dozen northern states, including Yobe, began to adopt strict Shari’ah law. Radical Muslim groups often accused the state governments of not being sufficiently zealous in the implementation of Shari’ah law, which prescribes harsh and controversial penalties, including the amputation of limbs for stealing, public flogging for drinking alcohol and stoning to death for adultery.”
For more background, see “Taliban of Nigeria: Who Are They?” (Thanks again to Nicolei.) Note especially this: the group is known as “the Hijrah movement.” It is “composed of young graduates and post-graduates most of whom were from highly placed and influential families with an understanding of the Islamic religion that completely denounces sin, corruption and immorality.” In other words, educated people, not poor folk manipulated by canny preachers spouting revolutionary rhetoric. If anyone in Nigeria is familiar with the teachings of the Qur’an and Islam in general, it should be these young men. How did they become jihadis?