Mohammed Marwa: Grandfather of Boko Haram.

On the 18th of December, 1980, Shehu Shagari was the first civilian executive Nigerian President but the nation was in flames, set alight by a skinny but energetic Cameroonian who spoke high-pitched Fulani; MAITATSINE.

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MAITATSINE was originally from Marwa in northern Cameroon. After his education he moved to Kano, Nigeria where he became known for his controversial preachings on the Qur'an.

His militant followers are known as the "Yan Tatsine".

Maitatsine spoke against the use of radios, watches, bicycles, cars and the possession of more money than necessary.

The group's mission under Maitatsine was the "purification" of Islam which, according to them, was corrupted by the West, and its modernization.

As Maitatsine's support increased, so did the number of confrontations between "Yan Tatsine" and the Nigerian police.

By December 1980, Yan Tatsine continue attacks on other religious figures and police forced the Nigerian army to become involved.

The security forces were helpless and even the Commander-in-Chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces seemed confused.

The violence, the horror and the terror that ensued from the wild ideas of whom was not even a Nigerian was about to consume the nation.

Maitatsine had become a terror and a fast-growing one, with 12,000 followers ready to march to the death on the vehement orders of their much-revered spiritual leader.

For the first time in the history of Nigeria, religious differences would lead to the loss of many lives.

Sheer madness was mixed with agonizing destruction as major cities burned.

The Nigerian President, Shehu Shagari called for all the foreigners to leave Nigeria.

This created the worst international crisis since the end of the civil war in January 1970.

This president order, implemented a search of commercial, industrial and residential buildings to ensure their departure which caused tension with neighboring countries and international allies.

The hypocrite, US Department of States described Nigeria's actions as "shocking and violation of every imaginable human right".

Pope John Paul II called it "a grave, incredible drama producing the largest single, and worst human exodus in the 20th century".

A senseless British Labour Party politician "Michael Foot" sent a letter to the Nigerian High Commissioner in London, saying "an act of heartlessness, and a failure of common humanity".

British newspapers also commented with The Guardian saying it was "inhumanity, high-handedness and irresponsibility" while the Daily Mail said Shagari was defying world opinion despite alarming television pictures of misery, destruction and deaths among the fleeing aliens.

The last prime minister of South Africa, Pieter Willem Botha also criticized Shagari in the situation, comparing him to Adolf Hitler and other white right-wing groups said Shagari's decision was worse than apartheid in South Africa.

Jeune Afrique (a French media) ran a front page story "The Shame", saying the situation was "an act of barbarism unparalled in the world".

Ghanaian Times said it was an "electoral gimmick" by the National Party of Nigeria controlled government to deflect attention from its failures so it could win the 1983 election.

Ghanaian Times also said the illegal alien expulsion was "to create mass hysteria by infiltrating Sudan trained mercenaries into Ghana to subvert the Ghanaian Government".

Jerry Rawlings said it was a "calculated plot" against the Ghanaian government.

....Ghana Must Go....

All this was aftermath of an armed clash that led to the deaths of around 5,000 people, including MAITATSINE himself.

Maitatsine died shortly after sustaining injuries in the clashes either from his wounds or from a heart attack.

Valar Morghulis, Valar Dohaeris.

In October 1982, riots erupted in Bulumkuttu, near Maidaguri and in Kaduna, to where many Yan Tatsine adherents had moved after 1980.

Over 3,000 people died. Some survivors of these altercations moved to Yola, and in early 1984 more violent uprisings occurred in that city.

In this round of rioting, "Musa Makaniki", a close disciple of MAITATSINE, emerged as a leader and Marwa's successor.

Ultimately more than 1,000 people died in Yola and roughly half of the city's 60,000 inhabitants were left homeless.

Makaniki fled to his hometown of Gombe, where more Yan Tatsine riots occurred in April 1985.

A final riot occurred in FUNTUA, Kaduna state in 1987.

I will tell you a shocking story someday about the FUNTUA family especially the one that married Bubu's daughter, Sefinatu.

After the deaths of several hundreds of people, Makaniki retreated to Cameroon, where he remained until 2004 when he was arrested in Nigeria, where he was sentenced in 2006, but later released.

Fear the FULA.

I almost forgot, MAITATSINE was a noble scholar and an expert in the interpretation and commentary of the Holy Qu’ran.

He was so good at it that he was named "Mai Tafsiri".

In 1960, Nigeria gained independence but the politics that would follow in Kano was far from peaceful.

"Yan Tatsine" was banned by the Nigerian government, they took refuge in Cameroon and then re-emerged in the limelight around 1995 and changed their name to SAHABA.

Another leader of the "Yan Tatsine", Malam Badamasi, was killed in 2009 after a series of armed insurrections, while another had been arrested in connection with the killings of several members of the Sunni salafist group; Jamā'at Ahl as-Sunnah lid-Da'wah wa'l-Jihād known as BH.

Bomb-making tools, explosives, AK-47 rifles with several rounds of ammunition were recovered from the leader's home, according to the police, along with a number of swords, daggers and gunpowder.

Lest I forget, MAITATSINE was just one of the many sects of Islam in northern Nigeria as at that time. Others included the Shiites, Izala and the Tariqa.

These other sects are still active and there is a precarious swing of harmony and violence.

"Sheikh Ibraheem Zakzaky".

Maitatsine was absolutely against the government and anything that represent constituted authority.

Even the Emir of Kano as at that time, Muhammadu Sanusi (grandfather of Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi and now the Emir of Kano) was shocked at Maitatsine’s audacity.

Maitatsine spoke with anger and instructed his followers that:

... WESTERN EDUCATION is a SIN...

He preached that sleeping with more than ONE NAIRA was lack of trust in Allah.

He encouraged his followers to dress simply and they were engaged in low-paying occupations such as BEGGING, transient labourers, CART PUSHERS, petty traders and tea sellers (suya is added).

He instructed them to do away with all tools of modernity such as wristwatches, radios, television sets, cars, bicycles and the rest.

Considering the fact that many of his followers were even already too poor to afford such luxuries, the teaching was quite easy to follow and enforce.

Even those of his followers who had these items gladly smashed their black and white Philips television sets.

You remember?

MAITATSINE declared all the hadiths and sunnah as false and that no one should follow them.

He ban his followers from facing Mecca, Saudi Arabia while praying.

He said no one must say Allahu Akbar while praying and whoever said so was condemned to Hellfire.

He declared himself the NABEEY after initially making demands to be addressed as a prophet in 1976.

His excited followers happily shouted his praise and truly believed in his new gift of prophethood.

He also stated that Muslims in Northern Nigeria should not mention the name of Prophet Muhammad again, as they regarded him as any other Arab.

See madness.

After MAITATSINE's death, copies of the Qu’ran found in his home were already altered.

Prophet Muhammad’s name was replaced with Mohammed Marwa.

Prior to his death, a vast majority of his followers were street beggars and destitute, called ALMAJIRIS or GARDAWAS in the local dialect.

Does the capitalized words sound familiar?.

He told his enthusiastic followers that he was the forerunner of the much awaited MAHDI who would wipe away all their tears and take them to the much desired Promised Land.

He said he would banish the infidels, erase their wheelbarrow pushing suffering and water hawking stress.

He declared that while the Holy Qu’ran was indeed the true word of God, NO ONE BUT HIM was in the right position to interpret and explain the contents of the Qu’ran and issue new proclamations in his new status as a prophet.

Have I mentioned that in 1973, General Yakubu Gowon started a wave of arrests and incarceration of religious leaders who were brainwashing kids for anti-social activities. Maitatsine was one of those that they picked up in Kano and he was jailed.

But when Gowon was overthrown in July 1975 by Murtala Muhammed, Maitatsine regained his freedom and once again, he was on his way to Kano, this time around, with some really new and devastatingly efficient strategies to ultimately wreak maximum havoc.

MM was also FULANI.

After his release, MAITATSINE quickly rallied his lieutenants and divided them into three wings for recruitment of new members, each for one sector of Kano City.

The first wing was to recruit members from the railway stations and public transport garages.

The other two wings are to focus on public parks and parking lots, the most ideal location to see the constant troops of ambitious but jobless youths streaming into the commercial city of Kano in search of the greener pasture.

Many of these naive boys would soon be ensnared to become fighters for Maitatsine.

Some of them were refugees from Chad, Niger and Cameroon who joined simply because they would be guaranteed food, clothing and a roof over their dusty heads.

On April 1978, he was arrested again spend one horrible year in prison with hard labour before he was released.

Following his release, he stopped making public appearances, seemed to melt into the background but his followers became noticeably more outspoken and violent.

By October 1979, the military regime of General Olusegun Obasanjo handed over to the civilian President, Shehu Shagari.

With the iron-fisted military gone and a less repressive civilian government in power, MAITATSINE became bolder and expanded his colony.

MAITATSINE forcefully took the property of neighbours and erected illegal structures on it. He even had a kangaroo court in his Yan Awaki colony where offenders, infidels kidnapped by sect members and disloyal members were made to face ‘justice’.

He was a law unto himself and built his own ‘state within a state’.

In 1980, the Kano State House of Assembly summoned courage to introduce a bill that would clearly combat abusive religious preaching. But you know the amusing thing?. The bill did not pass.

On the 26th of November, 1980, the Governor of Kano state, Late Alhaji Muhammadu Abubakar Rimi, fired an instruction that Maitatsine’s illegal enclave in the Yan Awaki area be broken up or Maitatsine and his followers would regret the day they were born.

Before the Governor's order, between October and November 1980, the Kano State Commissioner of Police had asked for reinforcements and approval to use lethal force against Maitatsine but his requests were declined.

The order from Governor Rimi stated that

"Maitatsine should vacate the premises, disband his sect and demolish all illegal structures within two weeks or face ‘appropriate action’".

The stage was set for what was to be described as the second most violent incident in Nigeria, second only to the civil war.

Governor Rimi did not immediately act on his threat even when the deadline came and passed.

RIMI was also FULANI.

Governor Rimi even sent emissaries to Maitatsine in the background that Maitatsine could ignore the order if he would negotiate, Rimi was clearly pandering to Maitatsine because of political reasons and Fulanism.

But something would later happen that would force Governor RIMI to invite the combined forces of the Nigerian Police officers, Nigerian Army soldiers and the heavy federal might of an angry President Shehu Shagari to crush the terrorist sect.

Kano residents knew trouble was going to explode soon but no one had any precise idea of where and when.

On 18th of December 1980, blood of Nigerians was flowing on the streets of Kano.

It remains one of the bloodiest days in Nigeria’s history.

For the next three days, the only thing that was visible on the skyline of Kano were plumes of thick, black smoke.

There were corpses everywhere, more fighters came in from outside Kano, six buses full of Maitatsine’s supporters coming all the way from Sokoto were intercepted.

Mohammed Marwa had taken the ancient city of Kano with its old mud walls by the storm in what he called JIHAD against the infidels and a direct ticket to paradise.

His army of crazed fighters was very excited to embark on the one-way trip to Heaven abi na Hell.

With over 5,000 Nigerians dead and Maitatsine still at large, there was palpable tension in the land.

The beautiful city of Kano had suddenly turned into a horrible scene of war, a theatre of speeding bullets, stabbing machetes and wheezing arrows.

There was confusion and the death toll continued to rise.

The Kano State government had to admit that they had under-estimated the strength of MAITATSINE and his sect, who responded with so much ferocity that the State Governor had to call on the Nigerian President to assist.

The state command of the Nigerian Police was totally overwhelmed by the raging Maitatsine and his sect.

An enforcement of more mobile police (MOPOL) units from neighboring states could not quench the fire too.

When the combined forces of the police and the mobile units could not tame the overwhelming force of Maitatsine, weapons were borrowed from the Nigerian Army arsenal but nothing tangible happened to reduce Maitatsine and his irate army.

It was time to call in the Federal troops

The Federal troop was led by Colonel Yohanna Yarima Kure.

The battle was bloody and Maitatsine met his end at the Rijiyar Zaki suburb of Kano (while some others believe it was at Rimin Abzinawa village).

The Nigerian Army met the band of his mourning followers who had just buried him hurriedly by a roadside grave but he was later exhumed by the government forces and kept at a local mortuary for several days before he was finally cremated.

His badly-burnt teeth and bone fragments are safely sealed in a bottle at the Nigerian Police laboratory in Kano State.

On the specimen bottle, is an official seal and an inscription that goes thus:

The remains of Late Malam Muhammadu Marwa alias Allah Ta-Tsine or Maitatsine

The surviving members of "Yan Tatsine" escaped from jail in Jimeta and launched a series of devastating and indiscriminate attacks on the Yola, the capital city of Adamawa State (then Gongola State) and they also made attempts to enforce their brand of Islam on everyone.

The military head of state, Major-General Muhammadu Buhari, who had barely spent two months in office, responded with a "deafening ferocity".

He moved in his forces to wipe off the "Yan Tatsine" with the same ruthlessness that he pursued Chadian forces under President Shagari.

General Buhari had flown into Yola to personally oversee the military offensive against the "Yan Tatsine", this includes the bombardment of the "Yan Tatsine" hideout at Rumde, a suburb of Yola.

The counter-attack was so brutal that the "Jimeta Main Market" was destroyed. Over 700 people had died and 30,000 were displaced from their homes by the time the smoke cleared.

With constant artillery, the unrest was finally controlled and Maitatsine was severely decimated.

In April 1985, the police made attempts to arrest Maitatsine’s successor under the Babangida regime in what is now Gombe State (then Bauchi State).

During the clash, over 100 people killed with three police officers and over 100k ammunition were discovered in Maitatsine caches.

After their attack in February 1984, the Buhari-led military regime set up its own panel headed by Justice Mohammed Lawal Uwais to investigate the causes, remedies and incidental matters of the crisis.

Same Lawal Uwais: the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court from 1995 to 2006.

Alhaji Haruna Danja (a real estate mogul) was the financier of the ‘Yan Izala". He was imprisoned under the charges of corruption during the Buhari regime.

However, this changed when Buhari was overthrown on the 27th of August, 1985 by Gen. Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida.

Gen. Ibrahim Babangida relaxed the rules and provided a broader political context for sects as the "Yan Izala" and others.

Babangida released the jailed "Yan Izala" members and supporters.

NOTE: Apart from OBJ, IBB is the greatest evil ever to befall any country in the world.

Sheikh Abubakar Gumi was reinstated to his old position as a religious adviser to the president and his sect resumed its controversial preaching and activities).

SAG died of Blood cancer on 11 September, 1992.

A thread for another day.

President Shagari signed into law the Unlawful Society Order of 1982 and it clearly prohibited the formation and operation of groups such as the Maitatsine under whatever name or form.

NOTE: Maitatsine’s house was converted to a magistrate court.