The Writer & the Environment in Times of Crises: The Creative Talent in the Face of Boko Haram

Summary

This article examines the resilience of the writer in the face of the Boko Haram crisis in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital in Nigeria. Before the advent of the notorious Boko Haram (BH), Maiduguri was a peaceful cosmopolitan city that was growing steadily after its first brush over two decades earlier, with the Maitatsine Islamic sect of the early 1980s. After the Nigerian Army squelched the Maitatsine threat, Maiduguri had experienced pockets of crises linked to religious intolerance amongst its population. However, the BH insurgency, whose show of might began on 26 August 2009, has wielded powers beyond the common imagination of residents. How have academic activities and, indeed, creative writing faired during the heat of battle with faceless enemies? Using the Ecocritical Theory (see Barry ‘Ecocriticism’), this article seeks to examine the extent to which the writer/academic in the university is laden by untold difficulties as the crisis rages on.

There was always the belief that any visitor who tasted the water in Maiduguri and slept for three nights in the city will always yearn to return to the place because of its hospitality, variety of people with vibrant cultures and religious freedom. The indigenes and settlers alike were simple people who lived in harmony with one another. During festive occasions, Muslims and Christians celebrated by eating and drinking together. It was indeed, the home of peace. However, the peaceful city of Maiduguri had its major brush with religious fanaticism in the early 1980s with the rise of the notorious Mohammed Marwa popularly known as Maitatsine which in Hausa means, ‘The one who damns or curses’. He was an Islamic preacher who kicked against Muslims getting comfortable with the use of technologies like watches (when they can tell the time by simply looking at the position of the sun); bicycles, radios and even cars were among things considered haram (sinful) because all of these and many more have been invented by the Western world (Adamu, ‘Maitatsine: 30 Years after Kano's Most Deadly Violence’ and Isichei ‘The Maitatsine Risings in Nigeria 1980- 1985’). In October 1982, in Bulumkutu, then an outskirt of Maiduguri, and a new area occupied by Yan Tatsine (disciples of Maitatsine) a riot erupted and many people lost their lives (Adesoji ‘Between Maitatsine and Boko Haram: Islamic Fundamentalism and the Response of the Nigerian State’).