Buhari And Conspiracy Theories: Mahmud Jega Is Right

By Moses Ochonu

I study Northern Nigeria for a living. I am a Lugardian Northerner. I grew up in and schooled in Northern Nigeria. I know that conspiracy theories have a high resonance in the region. I know that implausible and sometimes ridiculous alternative explanations and alternative facts circulate in the region to devastating effect.

*Buhari 

Conspiracy theories led to non-Muslim fellow Nigerians being killed in Kano shortly after the beginning of the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. The ignorant interpretation of cosmic and climatic events as recompense for sin by some Muslim clerics led to Christians being attacked in Maiduguri when there was a solar eclipse--years before Boko Haram emerged.

Conspiracy theories and outright fabrication about insults and plots against Islam got Gideon Akuluka and Grace Usha beheaded in Kano and Gombe respectively. I know several northerners who are Truthers, believers in the theory that the 9/11 attacks were the work of the US government and/or Jews. I have seen posts written by Northern Nigerians on my Facebook timeline alleging that jews and/or Americans created ISIS to destroy Islam. Such posts garner many likes from Northern Nigerians.

Until Buhari's election, there was a cottage industry of conspiracy theories about Boko Haram being the work of the CIA or of being a plot by then President Jonathan to destabilize the North. Former Governor Murtala Nyako of Adamawa State even went to Washington DC to spout this nonsensical theory, lending executive credence to a previously fringy contemplation. Some Northern Nigerians alleged that the US and French governments were supplying weapons to Boko Haram to destroy Islamic solidarity and pit Muslims against one another.

One interlocutor even told me that his village people had seen some Baturai (white people) among the terrorists, insinuating that that was proof of Western backing for Boko Haram. The abiding power of this particular conspiracy theory is the reason that when stories circulated in the wake of the capture of Camp Zairo in Sambisa about a "white man" being among the captured insurgents" the stories was a particularly enduring sensation in Northern Nigeria. In fact, Northern Nigerians dug up and widely circulated photos of the moment Cameroonian soldiers rescued a German hostage released by Boko Haram several years ago. The fake photo gave the story even more resonance in Northern Nigerian social media circles. The story found a primed audience in Northern Nigerians because it confirmed what many already believed. Its spread was aided by the existence of confirmatory bias in the region.