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Abstract
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The Jama'atul Alhul Sunnah Lidda'wati wal jihad (People Committed to the Propagation of the Prophet's Teachings and Jihad), popularly called Boko Haram, which literally means 'Western Education is Sin' was established in 2002 with the objective of restoring Islamic legal system (Sharia) in Northern Nigeria. It, therefore, started as a fundamental Islamic sect intended to supplant government structures that allegedly politicised, corrupted and bastardised proper implementation of Sharia in the North.
In place of those structures, it will install an Islamic theocratic regime, in which Sharia law would be applied to the fullest. The sect carried out series of attacks on government facilities, security forces and later churches. In 2009, massive clampdown on the group by federal forcesled to the death of one of its founders, Mohammed Yusuf. Boko Haram regrouped under a new leader, Abubakar Shekau, in 2011 and embarked on a revenge mission for Yusuf's murder, leading to suicide bomb attacks on police, military and civilian targets. Although the Boko Haram violence occurs mostly in the Northeastern region of Nigeria, bringing the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Abuja (the seat of the Federal Government of Nigeria) within its orbit raises the profile of the terror group. Attack on the FCT would also taunt the state over the vulnerability of the capital city as it also projects the state as incapable of fulfilling its primary responsibility of security of the lives and property of residents.
The sect's violence on the FCT and its environs thus successfully imposed a climate of fear over the city and on the residents. In order to assess how residents of the FCT and its environs responded and are responding to the Boko Haram violence, this study adopts an eclectic blend of both survey and descriptive research methodologies.
The study found out that the responses of residents of FCT to Boko Haram violence is spatio-temporal relating to space (area) or time. Areas (city centre or satellite towns) where residents lived or worked played a role in contributing to feeling of vulnerability and the fear of the sect was heightened among residents after the high-profile attack of the UN House Abuja in August 2011. However, with the inauguration mid 2015 of a new government headed by a Northern Muslim, the fear of potential Boko Haram attacks in the FCT and its environs has significantly abated.
Language: en |