Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 30
resentment against education by the people of Ghwa'a, rooted in their experience and the fear
that it would alienate their children, was finally overcome, but it was only to raise its head
again in the devastating events of the takeover of Boko Haram and the declaration of Western
education as haram (forbidden). The contradicting local circumstances behind this are
complex and we have to go back into colonial history to unravel some of the likely underlying
causes.
Already, decades before the killing of lawan Buba, the British had declared the Gwoza hills
an Unsettled District. The mountain population was seen as having 'special needs' in terms of
their collective ability to develop self-governance, and special touring officers visited them to
address this. Later we will hear about some of their reports and roles in conflict situations.
The 1953 incident was the most recent and one of the more dramatic incidents demonstrating
the difficult relationships between the hill population and the newly emerging Gwoza district.
Before Independence in 1960/61, as a result of it being classed an Unsettled District,
Christian missionaries were neither allowed to enter the hills. All special colonial attempts to
establish successful self-governance failed and the mistrust between the by then established
elites in Gwoza town and large sections of the hill population prevailed.
Plate 3a: Funeral in Ghwa'a, with mainly younger local women now in Islamic dress code
Not only has resistance against Islamisation a long history in the Gwoza hills, but the history
of Islamic sectarianism also has a long history, and Boko Haram was not the first of that kind.
For example, when the earlier mentioned Hamman Yaji, who was already district head of
Madagali under the Germans, was arrested by the British in 1927, the official reasoning was
because of his links to Islamic sectarianism. It is interesting that the British found this more
important than the fact that for years he had raided many areas of the northwestern Mandara
Mountains for domestic slaves (many of them young females), sorghum and cattle. The
Dghweɗe remembered, as part of their narrative of his arrest, many of the names of those who
were kidnapped by his troops. The British never officially admitted that they might have
waited for too long to arrest him for his abusive raids against the hill populations.
It is a puzzling thought how it was possible for a local population with such a background
history of resistance against any religious conversion, to eventually become one of the places
of Boko Haram activity. In the four years between my last visits to Dghweɗe, between late
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