Excerpts from Boko Haram’s rage against Western Education.

Background

Boko Haram, means ‘western education is sin’.

As at 2004, authorities said hundreds of youths some reading medicine, pharmacy, engineering, agriculture and humanities dropped out of universities and other tertiary institutions from across Nigeria and join the group with the hope of strategising on how to wipe out government and Western education in all its ramifications. To them, anything Western is against Islam, a claim many Islamic clerics condemn as false.

Boko Haram’’s Preffered School System...

When a director of School Services from the Taraba State Ministry of Education undertook an inspection visit to a school sometime ago, the conduct and attitude of both the pupils and the teachers were strange and unconventional. He was neither accorded courtesies nor protocols as a visiting official from the education Ministry.

Rather than welcome the visitor, both the teachers and pupils watched in silence and suspicion as the director and his inspecting team moved from class to class. “Nobody uttered a word to us; rather we were looked at as strangers whose presence at the school premises was prohibited”, said the director who simply gave his name as Hussaini.

Located at Angwan Lariya in Jalingo, the Taraba State capital, Alfurquan Islamic School is said to have been operating secretly over the years before it was recently discovered to be owned by a disciple of the Maiduguri-based leader of the controversial Islamic sect that is opposed to Western education.

Investigations by Weekly Trust show that the ethics taught at the Islamic school are in consonance with the radical philosophy of the Boko Haram Islamic sect which prohibits its adherents from having anything to do with Western education.

For instance pupils of the strange school are said to be forbidden from bathing with soap, eating meat, as well as consuming any food prepared with seasoning cubes. It was in realisation of the unusual traits exhibited by pupils of the schools in their various homes that some parents became uncomfortable and started withdrawing them from the school.

Alhaji Inuwa Jauro Manu Mafindi who, incidentally, is the Taraba State Chairman of the Muslim Council of Nigeria, is one of those parents that have withdrawn their wards from the Alfurquan Islamic School in Jalingo.

“Nobody wants to leave their children in that school anymore. I personally had three of my grandchildren withdrawn from the school when they started exhibiting unusual traits,” Mafindi said.

Reactions....

Authorities of the Taraba State ministry of education have confirmed that the school is “illegal” and has not been registered with the ministry. Anthony Adda, the state Commissioner of Education said it was in this regard and the complaints raised by some parents regarding the unconventional activities at the school that prompted its closure.

“We have written a letter to the Commissioner of Police, Director SSS and the acting Governor of the state notifying them of the discovery and closure of the “illegal” school”, Adda said.

Weekly Trust checks revealed that authorities of the Ministry of Education in the state were foot dragging over the existence of the illegal school until the recent outbreak of attacks by the Boko Haram sect that started in Bauchi and spread to other states, particularly in the north-east.

Meanwhile, following the closure, the school has now been deserted by both teachers and students, even as security operatives have been detailed to keep vigil over it to avert any possible outbreak of crisis.

Taraba State Police command Public Relations Officer, Sani Babaina confirmed to Weekly Trust that men of the State Police command were maintaining surveillance at the school premises.

Boko haram’s Rage....

Boko Haram includes members from neighboring Chad and are said to not only oppose Western education, but Western culture as well. Abdulmuni Ibrahim Mohammed, a senior member of the group arrested on Monday, told the media that “We do not believe in Western education. It corrupts our ideas and beliefs. That is why we are standing up to defend our religion.”

Mohammed Yusuf in a media interview said, “Democracy and the current system of education must change, otherwise this war that is yet to start will continue for long.”

Many members of this group tore their degree certificates, while others dropped out from schools as a way of renouncing western education.

Speaking to Saturday Vanguard, one of the members of the group arrested by security men in Bauchi, 18 years old Adamu Adbullahi, who dropped out of school, said he disobeyed his mother in order to join Boko Haram.

The Contradictions…..

According to an AIG “ They forbid anything western yet their leader has an array of western materials in his possession ..Even the phones, Jeep cars. I wonder if they were made by him…

Compiled by

Wale Samuel

Policy Advisor

CSACEFA