THE UNWANTED METAMORPHOSES OF THE USMAN DAN FODIO’S JIHAD AND SHARIA IMPLEMENTATION IN NIGERIA
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Background to the Study
It is the view of some scholars and authors like Danjibo (2012), that in the middle years of the twentieth century, it was assumed that secularism would make religion irrelevant in the politics of mankind. This is because human beings were expected to be more rational which would make them have no further need for religion. Similarly, great social thinkers such as Nietzsche and Hume have postulated the “death” of religion in the face of philosophy, economy and improved standard of living condition of human beings. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, religious movements began to rebel against what they considered secularist hegemony and religion once again became a force that nobody or government could safely ignore (p.5). One of the results of this awakening is the modern dimension of religious militancy known as jihad which possessed its own fundamentalist activities. By the nineteenth century, this religious flavour had hit Nigeria, Africa and the entire world badly. The militant dimension of this religious awakening took place in Northern Nigeria with the expedition carried out in 1804 by an Islamic scholar, Usman dan Fodio. According to Sulaiman (1986), the armies of Usman dan Fodio met at Gurdam-a lake known as Tabkin Kwatto, on Thursday, 21st June, 1804 (12 Rabi al-Awwal 1219) and drew up their swords against the king of Gobir, Yunfa and his armies. The war arose probably because Usman dan Fodio and his followers had considered the king of Gobir, Yunfa and his armies as their enemies and oppressors. It was an expedition undertaken with the intension to free themselves from the oppressors and ensure the people’s liberty. The war made the late nineteenth century Hausa land 2 witness a remarkable event that has come to be a point of reference for many generations after. Anyanele (1987) said that before the 1804 jihad, which instituted the Fulani emirates and laid the foundation for the Fulani Empires, there were about fourteen independent kingdoms under the rule of Hausa kingdom. After the war, Usman dan Fodio created many emirate councils with their political and religious headquarters at Gwandu and Sokoto respectively (p.29). According to Abiola (1984), Usman dan Fodio replaced all the conquered kingdoms in the northern Nigeria and beyond with Fulani emirs (p.107). Meanwhile, Tamuno (1999) notes that a remarkable event occurred in the world’s history in the year 1914 when Lord Frederick Lugard, who was the colonial Governor in the northern protectorate muddled up a marriage between the Northern and the Southern parts of Nigeria. It was a marriage that took the shape and resemblance of a pair of shears so joined that it appears inseparable. The marriage often moves in opposite directions yet manages to remember its essential unity. Nevertheless, on 1st October, 1960, the union took another memorable dimension when the country got her political independence from the British amidst high hope of one common society. He elucidates that before October, 1960, especially in that memorable midnight when the Union Jack (British Flag) was being lowered and Nigerian flag hoisted, Nigerians were full of greater expectations of a nation where nobody should be oppressed, a nation where peace and abundant economic prosperity would determine its dancing tune (p.2). The events under review took place over fifty-five years ago and regrettably, all the expectations and dreams of sustaining the amalgamation have seems to be on its way to destructive collision. This is because just like Usman dan Fodio took up arms against the king of Gobir and the entire Hausa land in 1804, that has been how other deadly movements have arisen with the claims of fighting against evils of some people in the society. Abiodun (2009) argues 3 that the offshoots of the Usman dan Fodio’s 1804 jihad began notably with the Maitaisine’s militancy in the 1980s, down to the period from 1999 and until date. He said that all these movements have witnessed a dramatic turn of events in their quest to enforce Sharia in the northern states of the country but the deadly group among them, Jama’atu Ahlil Sunna Lidawati wal Jihad known as Boko Haram has through their jihadist activities unleashed unbearable terrors on Nigerians (p.47). Perhaps the dizzy heights of these misgivings were recorded on 30th May, 1967, when Odimegwu Ojukwu, the then military Governor of the Eastern Region declared the independence of Biafra, the then Eastern Region from Nigeria. According to Ojukwu (1969), the main reason for taking up that secessionist move was because the Hausa Muslims have gruesomely massacred over fifty thousand Igbo Christians living in northern Nigeria and it was followed by the gruesome Civil War (p.28). As if the civil war was not enough, other crises which arguably look more deadly than civil war have arisen and notably among them has been the incessant moves to enthrone Sharia on the heterogeneous Nigerian state. These crises have resulted in the maiming, looting and psychologically wounding of Nigerian state and her citizenry. In these seemingly colossal frustrations, many people and groups have sharply criticized the amalgamation of Nigeria as a country. Many other groups and individuals have had causes to question Nigeria's Sovereignty. Some of them continue to agitate for a review of the terms that bound the country. Indeed, a deeply worrying trend emerging from this ugly situation is that a pervasive cynicism is beginning to set in especially when some sections of the country rise in the midst of this cacophony of agitations to declare self-rule or political autonomy and theocratic caliphates. Amidst all these quagmires, Akinwale and Oyeleke (2012) state that in 2006, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), an American Military spy group made a disturbing 4 prediction that Nigeria risks disintegration by 2015 (p.4). In the same way Olusola (2012) reports that two former Nigerian Military Heads of State, Generals Olusegun Obasanjo and Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida joined many other Nigerians to express anxiety over the degeneration of Nigerian Statehood. They decried the unabated spate of violence, insecurity and ethnic clashes which are already threatening the century-old aspirations of the country's founding fathers (p.10). Indeed the internecine crises are raging unabated with its damaging consequences on the social, political and economic lives of the country. In that process, unbearable loss of innocent lives and untold hardships are often meted out to the citizens.
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