Fanaticism, Masussuka and the Rot Eating Up the North

The most dangerous thing about fanaticism is not always the man carrying a gun. Sometimes, it is the child taught to admire one, the preacher who supplies the justification, the politician who looks away, and the neighbour who celebrates when violence claims someone whose opinions he dislikes.

That is why the viral video showing teenagers in JIBWIS uniforms performing militarised drills while chanting about obtaining AK-47 rifles to attack “infidels” in Enugu and Jos should trouble every responsible Northerner.

The reported killing of Sheikh Yahaya Masussuka, a controversial religious voice and advocate of tolerance, makes the moment even more sobering. His death demands an impartial investigation, not speculation about his killers. But the reactions to it expose a deeper crisis: a society increasingly struggling to distinguish religious conviction from the permission to hate.

The North must confront this rot before it consumes what remains of its social fabric.
For too long, we have treated religious extremism as an inconvenience to be managed rather than a danger to be dismantled. Governments hesitate because religious authorities command followers. Politicians fear losing constituencies. Communities excuse inflammatory preaching when it targets ideological opponents.

The result is an intellectual vacuum in which the loudest voice can masquerade as the most authoritative, and the most intolerant interpretation can pass for religious purity.
The consequences are already visible. Insecurity has devastated communities, banditry has displaced families, and young people face a future narrowed by poverty, unemployment and inadequate education.

Yet we are also nurturing attitudes that make violence easier to justify. What happens when a child learns to chant about killing unbelievers before learning how to question the person who taught him? What happens when the death of a fellow human being becomes an occasion for theological point-scoring?

These are not merely questions about religion. They concern the kind of society we are preparing for the next generation.
The first task is to reclaim scholarship as the proper response to disagreement. In a healthy intellectual culture, an argument invites a counterargument, a disputed interpretation demands evidence, and a scholar must tolerate scrutiny. In too many Northern Nigerian public spaces, however, alternative opinions provoke fatalism, denunciation and declarations about who belongs to the faith and who does not.

This is anti-scholarship. It assumes that an idea becomes untouchable simply because someone invokes religion to defend it.
Masussuka’s critics were entitled to challenge his interpretations. They were entitled to consider his arguments misguided or even dangerous. But disagreement should have been an invitation to rigorous debate, not a reason to celebrate his violent death. I disagreed with his ideas, yet I would rather have seen him face the slow, demanding jury of evidence, argument and time. A flawed idea should be defeated by a better argument, not by a bullet.

Indeed, killing a person does not kill an idea. It can give that idea a second life, transforming an ordinary advocate into a martyr and a marginal argument into a permanent subject of public fascination. Those who celebrate the death of ideological opponents may be helping to immortalise the very ideas they wish to erase.

We must be careful, however, not to assume that Masussuka was killed because of his beliefs. Until investigators establish the facts, ideological assassination remains a possibility, not a proven explanation. Bandits, political actors or other assailants cannot be ruled in or out without evidence. Justice requires us to resist the temptation to turn suspicion into certainty.

The second task is to confront extremism within our own communities with the same urgency we demand when violence comes from outside them. Terrorism thrives not only on weapons but also on the moral permission that communities grant to cruelty. When people excuse threats against fellow Muslims over differences in theology, dismiss the suffering of victims they consider undeserving, or applaud a death because the deceased held unpopular views, they weaken the boundaries that protect everyone.

Not every enemy of a community comes from outside it. Sometimes, the gravest danger comes from those who claim to defend its values while stripping those values of compassion, restraint and humanity.

The third task belongs to governments, religious institutions, schools and families. Authorities must investigate violent rhetoric, enforce laws impartially and prosecute incitement where the evidence supports it. Religious scholars must challenge dangerous teachings publicly, with knowledge rather than counter-abuse. Schools and communities must cultivate critical thinking, civic responsibility and the confidence to question authority. Politicians must stop treating influential extremists as electoral assets.

This requires more than condemning a disturbing video after it goes viral. It demands sustained investment in education, credible religious instruction, public debate and institutions capable of distinguishing legitimate dissent from incitement to violence.

The strongest counterargument is that religious reform risks becoming an excuse for state interference in matters of faith, or that critics of extremism may be exploiting tragedy to attack Islam. Those concerns deserve serious consideration. Governments should not dictate theology, and criticism must not become a cover for religious prejudice. Islam is not synonymous with fanaticism, just as religious devotion is not evidence of violent intent.

But protecting religious freedom does not require tolerating threats against human life. Reform should emerge through scholarship, community leadership and the impartial enforcement of laws against violence. Silence is not religious freedom, and impunity is not respect for faith.

Northern Nigeria does not lack intelligent people, learned scholars or traditions of intellectual inquiry. What it lacks, in too many places, is the collective courage to give those traditions greater authority than demagoguery.

If religious extremism will not end the North, the North must end religious extremism. That begins by refusing to surrender our judgement to men who demand unquestioning obedience, and by building a society where no argument is beyond scrutiny and no human life becomes expendable because of an ideological disagreement.

The rot will not disappear by itself. It survives wherever responsible people remain silent, powerful people look away, and ordinary people mistake fanaticism for faith.

The North must fill its intellectual vacuum before someone else fills it with hatred. A society that cannot tolerate a different opinion will eventually struggle to protect a different life.