CIVIL WAR WITHIN NIGERIAN ISLAM – By John Campbell.

There is a leadership struggle underway within Boko Haram, the violent, extremist movement that has claimed more than 20,000 lives since 2011 and destabilized the secular Nigerian state and its neighbors. The personal struggle between Abubakar Shekau and Abu Musab al-Barnawi reflects in part the rivalry between Boko Haram and a splinter group, “Ansaru,” and are part of a complex, intra-Muslim conflict across the Sahel, including competition between rival al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and the Islamic State.

Reflecting their extreme poverty and marginalization, many Northern Nigerian Muslims are deeply hostile toward the secular state. They see the current secular state as a continuation of British colonialism, with indigenous masters merely replacing the British and with values and behavior antithetical to Islam. This fundamental disaffection is a constant even when, as now, the official security services are having success against radical insurgents.

Opposition to the secular state is cyclical and assumes the form and vocabulary of radical Islamic movements. The Maitatsine was a popular revolt in the 1980s, followed by the “Nigerian Taliban” in the early 2000s, and now by Boko Haram. When seemingly crushed by the security services, such movements go underground, only to re-emerge. In 2009, Nigerian security services killed Boko Haram founder Mohammed Yusuf and 800 of his followers. The movement went underground, reorganized, and re-emerged, stronger and more violent in 2011 under Shekau’s leadership. That is likely to be the ongoing pattern, absent profound changes in Nigeria’s political economy. Even now, there are other non-violent movements that reject the state. Security service abuse could transform them into violent movements, as happened with Boko Haram.