By John Amoda
IN the second essay in these three series on the Boko Haram, I listed the 26 questions which were scholarly addressed by in the August 2009 Minna Meeting by 40 representatives of the Da’wah Coordination Council of Nigeria, DCCN. I did not review the answers of the DCCN to questions it asserted were among those frequently asked by devoted Muslims about the Boko Haram.

I forbore from such an exercise because of my lack of competence to do so. However, some of the questions and answers that are important to the useful address of issues raised in this third and concluding essay of the three parts appraisal of the DCCN’s monograph titled: “The Boko Haram Tragedy”, are examined for the light they may throw on the present course of the BH group.

In this essay I address those facts and commitments that are pertinent to the transformation of the Boko Haram into a Nigerian National Security Interest Group, NNSIG. As Boko Haram concerned with reform of Islamic doctrine and practices in Nigeria, the BH group could be treated as an intra-Muslim matter.

With the transformation of the BH into a Nigerian National Security Interest Group, NNSIG, in the course of its pursuits of its reformist moral and theological purposes the BH has become a concern for all Nigerians, Muslims and Christians, the two majority religious communities. Among the 26 questions and answers to these questions there are issues that suggest the possible politicisation of the BH group.

These are the questions and answers that I now address. The questions are quoted and portion of answers important to the intent of this essay are also quoted. Readers can obtain the monograph from the DCCN for complete appraisal of the DCCN positions.

Below are the questions and answers reviewed:

*What does the “Boko Haram group call itself?

*Where did the name “Boko Haram come from?

*What is the meaning of the word “Boko”?

*How do people view BH?

*What is the organisational structure of the BH group?

12.What is the BH alternative to Western secular education (Boko)?

*How do BH members regard other Muslims?

*How should we face or resolve the BH challenge?

Questions and Answers of the DCCN

*What does the “Boko Haram” group call itself?

“The group calls itself “Aw as-Sunnah wa al-Jama’a ala Minhaj as-Salaf”, which means: People of the way of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and the community of Muslims in line with the earliest generation of Muslims”. This name has a positive meaning that is acceptable to nearly all Muslims.

*Where did the name “Boko Haram come from?

“The popular name “Boko Haram” has its origin in media and public/community coinage”.

*What is the meaning of the word “Boko”?

“The word ‘boko’ in Hausa is popularly used to refer to the formal public or private educational system in Nigeria also referred to as Western secular education. The word is also used to refer to Western education in all its ramifications along with anything it is associated with. During the colonial period in Nigeria, most of those promoting Western education were Christian missionaries, most of whom used their schools to also propagate Christianity and convert Muslim children. It was and in some quarters, is still seen as evangelism in the guise of Western education. Western education were therefore seen by some local Muslim scholars as deceptive.

The word “boko” in classical Hausa language literally means deception or deceit as used in the Hausa term “amaryar boko”, which means “fake bride” or literally “bride of deception”… “Haram” is a Hausa word adapted from Arabic.

It means Islamically unacceptable, forbidden or prohibited. “Boko Haram” may, therefore, be interpreted as meaning that the Western secular education is Islamically prohibited; it could also be interpreted to mean that evangelism deceptively camouflaged as Western education is Islamically unacceptable.

The first two questions about what the group is called and the origin of its name are informational. The meaning of the name is, however, a message, an oppositional message of cultural, civilisational and religious importance. It is a political message and a purpose.

It implies a rejection of a way of life, of the technology of the prevailing economy- technology being used to describe the training of the mind and socialisation for proficiency in assigned roles with ascertained privileging of values that sustain the economy. Boko Haram thus intimates the replacing of that which is both a deception in itself and a harmful deception in its societal consequence.

For the Islamic community, what is Islamically unacceptable must be replaced by that which is acceptable. Boko Haram is thus more than descriptive; it is analysis with prescriptions.

The question is does the replacement of “cultural religious ‘Boko’ established in the Islamic communities of Nigeria call for revolutionary change in the structure and nature of the Nigerian society and of its constitutional Federal Government?

Can Boko Haram philosophy and its ethical critique of colonial and post-colonial socio-economy be relevant to the Nigerian Islamic community without the state power politicisation of the Boko Haram group? Is the name Boko Haram thus an ideology-laden name as it is the case of “communism” and socialism?. How do people view BH?

“People have differing views of the BH group and how their case was handled by the leadership, its security personnel and the rest of the Muslim community”.

There is further elaboration of this statement in the answer. What is clear is that the question deals with perception and not description, which is presenting what is the case. Responses to the group are matters both of the conduct of the BH and the impact of their conduct on positions and interests of significant stakeholders. Boko Haram has become of importance to Nigeria and Nigerians not primarily because of the cause championed by the BH group but because of the policy chosen by the group to actualise its purposes.