Boko Haram by Mike Smith Page A

Propagation and Jihad). I have done this because the world knows the group as Boko Haram, and Nigerians, including the security forces, continue to refer to it as such. In addition, as a result of the shadowy nature of the insurgency, several different groups or cells may in fact be operating beyond Abubakar Shekau’s faction. Boko Haram serves as a catch-all phrase encompassing the entire insurgency.
    The description of what happened on the day of the UN attack in Chapter 1 is mainly based on my phone interviews with UN staffers Geoffrey Njoku and Soji Adeniyi as well as a personal account written by Vinod Alkari that was distributed to his colleagues internally. He agreed to allow me to quote from it, and I have in some cases corrected minor typos or grammatical errors that would otherwise distract the reader. I also spoke in detail withAlkari by phone. A separate, anonymous source who has seen the video surveillance footage of the attack described to me details from it, and I have also visited the site to see the layout.
    I have included a select bibliography, but it is worth pointing out several books that were especially helpful. For my research for Chapter 1 , the late Mervyn Hiskett’s books on Islam in West Africa and the life of Usman Dan Fodio were invaluable. Murray Last’s history of the Sokoto Caliphate also provided me with great insight on the period, and Toyin Falola and Matthew Heaton’s A History of Nigeria served as a useful overview along with Michael Crowder’s The Story of Nigeria . For the section on the British conquest of northern Nigeria, I relied heavily on Frederick Lugard’s papers, archived at the Bodleian Library of Commonwealth and African Studies at Oxford, as well as his annual reports.
    I have drawn from a wide range of sources to piece together Mohammed Yusuf’s rise, as specified in the endnotes, but I am particularly grateful to an academic who has carried out an extensive analysis of the Boko Haram leader’s recorded sermons and speeches. The academic, to whom I spoke by phone, has asked to remain anonymous out of fears for his own safety, and I agreed to abide by his wishes.
    For translations of Boko Haram videos and statements from Hausa to English, I often relied on Aminu Abubakar, AFP’s correspondent in northern Nigeria who in most cases was the first journalist for an international news agency to obtain them. Aminu translated many of the videos on deadline as we worked together to prepare stories on them for our news agency and I have stuck for the most part with those original translations. Professor Abubakar Aliyu Liman of Ahmadu Bello University in Nigeria worked on two translations at my request and specifically for this book: Yusuf’s interrogation before his death and his ‘tafsir’ quoted in Chapter 2 .
    The vital work by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and Nigeria’s National Human Rights Commission led by civilsociety activist Chidi Odinkalu, among others, documenting alleged abuses committed by the security forces has also served as an important source, as reflected in the endnotes.
    As specified in the epilogue and prologue, I interviewed Wellington Asiayei in person both in the hospital in Kano after the 2012 attacks there as well as in Warri in 2013. I also spoke by phone with Wellington in addition to speaking with his wife, his brother, his son and his doctors in Kano, India and Warri.
    I repeatedly requested interviews with Nigerian government and military officials to allow them to respond to allegations and criticisms. Requests made specifically in connection with this book were not granted; however, I did carry out interviews with officials as part of my work for AFP in Nigeria. I have included details from those interviews, such as the military’s denials of abuses, and relied on public statements from officials when necessary.

A timeline of key events in northern Nigerian history and the Boko