Nobody wakes up and picks up a knife, sword, or gun to start doing anything in Northern Nigeria; it’s a product of teaching and learning that happens at home, in the community, at school, and in mosques.
By Abduaziz Dawet
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Published on September 14, 2026
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3 min read
Behind most of the major atrocities committed in the North is an Imam, Sheikh, or Mallam, aided by an Emir, Sultan, or King.
Before you see the foot soldier, there is a mastermind, a strategist, and a planner who has crafted, mastered, and designed the art of psychological manipulation.
Nobody wakes up and picks up a knife, sword, or gun to start doing anything in Northern Nigeria; it’s a product of teaching and learning that happens at home, in the community, at school, and in mosques.
Let’s dive into examples: regarding these Fulani bandits carrying out kidnappings and massacres, Islamic clerics have assured them that if they die in the process, they attain martyrdom.
Let me put it this way: those clerics have promised them heaven if they die doing what they are doing. Why? Because paradoxically, if you die fighting injustice, you die a Jihadist (whatever the meaning of the word is these days, na them know).
They have been told by their Imams and Mallam Kachallas that they have been unjustly treated in Nigeria, so they must fight to defend their ethnic group and pastoralists.
That is why you see they do not fear death. They believe taking captives is permissible (halal) and that they are simply treating them as slaves under religious doctrine. The Mallams teach them this.
This is why they shout Allahu Akbar whenever they execute their attacks. In fact, clerics have convinced them that fighting anyone who submits to the constitution and democracy is entirely legitimate (this is mostly applicable to Boko Haram, ISWAP, Lakurawa, and others).
It is precisely these teachings by radical clerics that birthed both religious terrorism like Boko Haram and ethnic militias like Fulani bandits.
Whichever way you look at it, clerics are the ultimate source of most of the terrorism in Northern Nigeria.
This is why I keep preaching that we must deradicalize Northern Nigeria. Preachers and clerics are the source of the problem; when we tame them and religion is regulated, these problems will inevitably disappear.
But as long as we allow the factory to keep producing these violent extremists and terrorists, we are just going to keep losing our soldiers to foot soldiers on a mission to heaven, brainwashed searchers of martyrdom, and fake virgins in heaven.
A nation that continuously fights foot soldiers while ignoring the architects of their ideology is merely waging a war against shadows.
You cannot defeat an army of brainwashed men by killing them faster than the pulpit can manufacture them.
True security is never achieved on the battlefield; it is won when the state reclaims the human mind from those who weaponize heaven to turn earth into hell.
Abduaziz Dawet is a political analyst, social critic, secularist and anti-extremist. He writes from the United Kingdom.
CAVEAT: Views expressed in this opinion are those of the author and not of Daily Lamp and or its staff.
