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Nigeria military launches military crackdown on Muslim sect behind deadly attacks
“It’s showing that it hasn’t really got a tight grip of security,” Ero said.
There’s a large political component at play as well. Boko Haram, whose name means “Western education is sacrilege” in the local Hausa language, rejects Western ideals like Nigeria’s U.S.-styled democracy. Followers believe that democracy has destroyed the country with corrupt politicians.
That puts President Goodluck Jonathan, a Christian who took power after the 2010 death of an elected Muslim leader, in a tight spot politically. The April election that saw Jonathan cement his hold on the presidency also sparked political and religious rioting across Nigeria’s largely Muslim north that left 800 people dead.
While Jonathan is still supported in Nigeria’s Christian south, he has never won the full trust of the predominantly Muslim north.
“For domestic political purposes, they do need to use a strong hand and have the military do what they can up there. If they don’t, it’s going to come back to Jonathan being seen as being really in over his head,” said Mark Schroeder, the director of sub-Saharan Africa analysis for the U.S. security think tank STRATFOR. “If he doesn’t do that, his political enemies are really going to throw down on him.”
Muslims across Nigeria, a multiethnic nation of more than 160 million, have rejected the violence carried out by Boko Haram. Still, the group has drawn followers by calling Nigeria’s government illegitimate and calling for strict implementation of Shariah law.
Calls for change have happened before in the history of the Muslim north, with revolutionaries drawing support from the people to overthrow corrupt leaders, said Murray Last, a professor emeritus of anthropology at the University College of London who studies Nigeria’s north.
However, Murray wrote in a recent essay that Boko Haram instead has forced its holy war on the populace, giving Nigeria a chance to combat the threat.
Still, he offered a stark warning: Boko Haram “is not an arcane throwback: It is modern and dangerous.”
Copyright 2011. The Associated Press.
