RLS Research Papers on Security and Conflict Studies in West- and Central Africa Edited by Armin Osmanovic

MUSLIM STUDENT SOCIETY OF NIGERIA

VERSUS CAMEROON MUSLIM STUDENT

UNION – A COMPARISON

01 / 2020

RLS RESEARCH PAPERS ON PEACE AND CONFLICT STUDIES IN WEST AND CENTRAL AFRICA

OUSMANOU ADAMA, PHD MAROUA UNIVERSITY CAMEROON

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HIGHER EDUCATION AND

VIOLENT EXTREMISM IN

NIGERIA AND CAMEROON

MUSLIM STUDENT SOCIETY OF NIGERIA VERSUS CAMEROON MUSLIM STUDENT

UNION – A COMPARISON

OUSMANOU ADAMA, PhD MAROUA UNIVERSITY

CAMEROON

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Table of Contents

6 About the Author

7 Introduction

8 Doctrinal differences and divergences at the origin of

Boko Haram

11 Islam and Education

13 Nigeria’s higher education system – and Islam

16 Cameroon’s higher education system – and Islam

18 The Muslim Student Society of Nigeria

21 The Cameroon Muslim Student Union

26 Conclusion

27 Bibliography

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About the Author

Adama Ousmanou PhD is a Professor at Maroua University Cameroon. He specializes in the political, social and religious history of the Chad Basin. The focus of his present research, publications and teachings is on religions and ethnicity in the Chad Basin. He is a member of the Swiss Society for African Studies and former visiting fellow at the African Studies Centre, Basel University.

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Introduction

The aim and purpose of Muslim student associations in Cameroon and Nigeria is to serve the best interests of Islam by promoting unity and joint action. Islam is an essential element of the Chad Basin political societies in general and religious radicalization process in the region in particular. Since 2009 Northern Cameroon and Nigeria experienced a surge in terrorist violence instigated by the sectarian group known as Boko Haram. Poverty, longstanding economic disparities within Nigeria and Cameroon, and structural violence are considered by researchers as key factors underlying the crisis. However, the complex nature of the situation in Nigeria has at the same time caused some observers to characterize Boko Haram’s aggression as violent extremism beyond a domestic agenda. I argue that the effective formulation and implementation of a strategy against insurgency in Northern Cameroon and Nigeria requires an incisive understanding of the political, socio-economic and religious/ideological drivers of public support for Boko Haram. Boko Haram is to be understood as an Islamist insurgency that arose from political and religious discontent within Nigeria and beyond. For these radical Islamists, western education is pernicious and seen as a system that inculcates the Western seeds in Muslims children while admitting girls even beyond puberty. In Hausa, Boko Haram means “Western education is a sin”. The term also refers to a ruse that allows the West to dominate Muslims. However, the insurgency is much more about targeting the state for the sake of destabilizing the country, than a real political movement. During the early days of the Boko Haram insurgency, unemployed graduates were the leading members of the terrorist group. The purpose of the present study is to understand the relationship that exists between radicalization on campus and higher education. Can educated Muslims - be the education in religious and/or western studies - be powerful terrorists who threaten the communities they belong to? I intend to look at the role of Islam in both the curriculum and campus life of northern Cameroon and Nigerian universities, with a specific focus on whether universities are either potentially promoting extremism or could counter it.

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Doctrinal differences and divergences at the origin of Boko Haram The Muslim Students Society of Nigeria and the Cameroon Muslim Student Union both endeavor to build unity through diversity within an educational framework within their respective countries. Their aim is to provide programs for people of all backgrounds, levels of knowledge and levels of piety to learn and meet other Muslims on and off campus. Their primary goal is therefore to educate students and faculty members about Islam as well as create an environment for Muslim students to follow Islamic guidelines during their training. Since the Boko Haram leadership and early members of the terrorist group were unemployed graduates who constituted “the association of peoples of Sunnah for proselytism and armed struggle”, a closed analysis through a comparative approach between Islamic education and violent extremism could help to understand radicalization and counter radicalized perspectives on campuses. Education in Islam is a basic pillar of knowledge. In one of the well-known hadith, Prophet Mohammad said that even if one had to go to China (in his time the most distant destination from the Arabic peninsula) in order to seek knowledge, one must go: “Seek knowledge from the cradle to the grave”. In this regard, there is no specified type of knowledge Muslims are advised to seek, both secular and spiritual knowledge. Thus, by targeting western education, Boko Haram is not only going astray, but also opposing the words of the Messenger of Islam. The Hausa term Boko originally meant deceit, fraud, deception and lack of authenticity. In Bargery’s Hausa-English reference dictionary, expressions related to Boko derive from this original meaning of ”false”: karatun boko – any literature or education that is not related to Islam -; k’waryar boko - a calabash that is empty when it is supposed to contain something - and yak’in boko - military maneuvers, false struggles, parodic battles. Yusuf’s anti-boko ideology, which attacks karatun boko (secular education), makarantun boko (public or secular schools) and rejects the Nigerian state, has been documented in several debates with important sheikhs in cities like Bauchi, Maiduguri and Kano who argued against Mohammed Yusuf’s opinions, the founder of Boko Haram who was killed in 2009.

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The real target of Yusuf’s group is the secular state, which he called tāghūt.1 According to Abiodun Alao, Boko Haram clarified their belief, portraying the Islamic culture and civilization supreme and outrivaling any other be it western or not. There is no single limitation when opposing Western education, their aspirations go beyond culture and civilization. In its early years, Boko Haram generated mass appeal among thousands of youths who were already disenchanted with the Nigerian state, which Boko Haram regarded as a poorly administered secular system. The group’s name was further indicative of the bidding games over Islamic authenticity that undergirds the Salafi discourse appropriated by the Kanuri and disaffected Hausa against an already Islamized elite, resented for its prevalence of corruption and white-collar crime. Boko Haram also impugned the political elites of northern Nigeria for their cooperation with Christian political leaders within the national framework of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. From the Hausa perspective of Boko Haram, Western education is a source of western imperialism destined to dominate Muslims. The importance the Islamic group gives to this orientation is not merely a slogan. In fact, this is a realpolitik approach in the northern resistance to southern domination towards sociopolitical promotion regulated by education. Because education is seen as a way for the south, mainly Christian, to dominate the north, mainly Muslim. Northern Cameroon and Nigeria constitute a broken-up territory with various religious and ethnic groups. There are many similarities between Northern Cameroon and Nigeria: economic challenges with few opportunities, resource-related conflicts involving land and water bodies, unequal access to political power and position among ethnic groups, the feeling of marginalization, and issues around appointments into traditional leadership positions. All these factors affect relationships between individuals and groups resulting in increasing, deep-seated suspicion and the inability to develop cooperative relationships. In Northern Cameroon, religion served as an instrument of social harmony.

1 Tāghūt literally means tyrant. It is Islamic terminology denoting a focus on worship other than Allah. This term can also mean idols or demons drawn to blood of pagan sacrifices. Nowadays, the term is not only applied to earthly tyrannical power, but also to a creature who rebels against God and transgresses his will. Due to these associations, in recent times the term refers to any person or group accused of being anti-Islamic and an agent of Western cultural imperialism. « Nous avons envoyé à chaque communauté un Messager (pour leur dire): « Adorez Allah et écartez-vous du Tâghoût » » (Sourate 16 - Verset 36). For additional details on these issues refer to: Momen, Moojan. (1995). "Țāghūt". In John L. Esposito. The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World: Oxford University Press.

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Paradoxically, however, in Northern Nigeria, it served as a motivation for violence. Northern Cameroon is both the poorest region of the country and the one with the lowest school enrollment rate. The combination of weak national integration and historical neglect by the state prompted smuggling and trafficking where highway robbers, traffickers and petty criminals have socialized. The geographical and cultural fluidity between this region and northeastern Nigeria, the presence of a rigorous Islam, and the aftershocks of the Chadian civil wars, predisposed it to a contagion of Boko Haram jihadism. Thus, the fact that Boko Haram leaders were educated, high-ranking academics, be it in western or Arabic and Islamic education, is an important consideration when reviewing the curricula approaches in Cameron and Nigeria and determining the relationship between higher education and violent extremism.

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Islam and Education

Largely preceding formal Western education established during the colonial period, Islamic education constitutes a parallel education system present in almost all African countries (Gandolfi 2003). However, this system differs in Cameroon and Nigeria. With the rise of Boko Haram and violent extremism in the region, there is a compelling need to understand the relationship between higher education and violent extremism because the early members and leaders of the terrorist group were said to be unemployed graduates. Every society and nation has its own system of training and educating its youth. In both cases under study, education to attain a good life has been one of the most persistent mantras of the respective governments, but what is difficult to comprehend is how educated Muslims turn education into a threat to communities, especially when we consider the nature and aim of education in Islam. Throughout history the aim, objective or goal, including the method and approach to education differed from place to place, nation to nation, religion to religion and people to people. The Greek concept of an educated man was one who was mentally and physically strong. The Romans, on the other hand, placed emphasis on oratorical and military training. The secularist or modernist believed in education as a process to help man live well in the material world. The humanists conceived education as a continuous process of mental, emotional and moral development as a path to a good and meaningful life (Attas, 1912). The first source of Islamic education is the Holy Quran. It contains all the principles capable of directing human behavior. The Quran provides man with limitless and useful knowledge (Ibn Naft), which guides, directs, and regulates his relationships with fellow human beings and his relationship with his environment. Islam, as a religion and complete way of life, calls man to believe in Allah, the creator of the universe, the designer of the heavens and earth. Islam enjoins good and forbids evil. It respects man and encourages him to learn and gain knowledge generally, Islam encourages Muslims to patronize knowledge at all levels in human life. That is why knowledge from an Islamic perspective is a legacy of humanity. Man is commanded to critically review, reflect, cherish and preserve knowledge. In the Islamic educational system there is no restriction or limitation in knowledge seeking.

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In view of the above, most of the early centuries of learning did not restrict the educational pursuit of Arabic language and Islamic studies (theology), but encapsulated all the available knowledge of that time and all the contributions of the previous and contemporary civilizations of Greece, Rome, India, Persia, Iraq, and so on. In addition, Muslims were actively involved in various fields of learning and early Muslim scholars were well known beyond the Islamic world. According to Zeidan (1991) the fundamental understanding of man and the universe from the Islamic perspective also enriched the knowledge of the era. This continued for many centuries. Similarly, Defee (1991) reports that the legacy which was left by the Greeks was not utilized by the Romans but by the Muslim Arabs who perfected, developed, improved and completed it until they delivered it to the modern world. In the words of Sidir (1994) the Arabs were the external professors of Europe in all branches of knowledge.

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Nigeria’s higher education system – and Islam

For 13 years (1966-1979) Nigeria lived under a military dictatorship. At that time, the establishment of universities was the exclusive right of the federal military government, which controlled all universities from 1975. The political decision to take control of the university system was validated by military decree No. 46, dated 1977. It prohibited the establishment or acquisition of universities by any government state, voluntary institution or private individual. The decree further prohibited the constitutional transfer of education from the exclusive legislative list to the joint legislative list, whereby state governments and individuals (or private organizations) were previously entitled to establish universities. This new legal framework failed to include any provision for the quality, planning, or funding of higher education or the scarcity of accredited programs (Aliyu, citing Beaver, 2004). In general, two factors explain the need to open the university sector to private providers. James Sanyal (1998) presents them as follows: Excess demand for higher education, when the absorption capacity of the public system (free or giving rise to the payment of registration fees) is lower than the number of candidates; must meet the diversity of educational needs, and heterogeneity of applicant preferences for curricula and teaching methods on the basis of religious, linguistic, cultural and ethnic reasons for one, and the need for specific professional skills being the other. In the case of Nigeria, the main drivers of private university development are: insufficient absorption capacity within the public system compounded by the frequency of political reforms; increased numbers of secondary school graduates; the decrease in budget allocations for education; frequency of strikes by teachers and pupils and increased religious sectarianism among students (clashes, often very violent, between different sects across the higher education sector). Balami (2004) further noted that, unlike other federal subsystems, the education sector was generally allocated a small share of the budget at the subnational level (state and local). The federal government’s chronic inability to finance the education system, which it had allowed to develop in an anarchistic way, has become more and more evident, given the steady decline in budget allocation to this sector, despite its

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expansion. Religious sectarianism is another scourge that has undermined the public universities in Nigeria. This term covers a reality in which some secret and unofficial student groups are spreading terror by killing, raping and mutilating innocent students and staff, as well as members of rival groups. The first of these groups made their appearance in the 50s, evolving into secret societies until the 90s. According to Olugbile (2005), the situation was so catastrophic that not a half-year passed without hearing of religious clashes, which left terrible a legacy of violence, murder, mutilation, rape, destruction of property, and indelible memories. Ilusanya (2005a) thus identified more than 33 student deaths in the period 1986-1996, as well as at least 7 deaths among teachers. According to Debiel & Lambach (2010) state failure and the ever-decreasing financial support of the educational sector by the Nigerian government lead the Muslim elite to position itself as “functional equivalents” acting as hybrid providers of public goods that the state failed to provide. They invested in the country’s education arena through the Northern Provinces Law School (NPLS) established by the British colonial authority in 1934 for the training of judges responsible for the administration of Islamic law (Umar 2003). This school created a sort of link and synthesis between western and Islamic education. The federal government then took this opportunity to train Arabic teachers, combining western and Islamic education, in the Northern Nigerian cities of Sokoto, Gombe, Maiduguri, Hadejia and Kano by 1979 (Umar 2003). The structure of Islamic curricula mimicked the national curricula in order to prepare students to take advantage of educational and career opportunities without abandoning their pursuit of Islamic education. In respect of the National Policy of Education (NPE), English was used as the medium for teaching secular subjects so that their students could sit for common national examination and certification processes. Nationally, Nigeria recognizes all forms of education, including Islamic education, as a powerful instrument for social change in the process of dynamic nation building. Islamic education, which is faith-orientated, is aimed at producing disciplined, God-fearing, morally-sound and intellectually-capable individuals for a better society. By so doing, classical Arabic and Islamic education leaves little room for secular subjects. According to Tikumah (2008) out of 12 subjects on the curriculum, nine focus on the study of Islamic theology, jurisprudence and Arabic. The four remaining subjects, apart from carrying less weight on the curricula, are the only subjects taught in English. English is not only the medium of instruction in the Nigerian educational system

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(Federal Republic of Nigeria, FRN 2004) but also the lingua franca for a diverse population with over 250 languages. Thus, Arabic as an instructional medium provides students with formal qualifications that allow access to higher education, with significant attendance in Arabic, Islamic legal studies, and Islamic study courses while limiting engagement with the national curricula. This limitation is also reflected in the overall integration of students in the national discourse and action in the political, economic or social spheres. While some Islamic educated graduates engage with the state and its modern structures, others maintain a distance in the hope that doing so will help them preserve the teachings and ideals of Islam. By operating exclusive religious schools that are neither recognized by nor linked to state educational bureaucracy, Muslim students are isolated from the modern polity and economy and considered “out of school”. Such marginalization and exclusion leads to socio-religious upheavals such as those witnessed in the spiritual northern Nigeria during the last decades. The traditional religious scholars capitalize on their intellectual acquaintanceship with students and operate a recruitment base for what Danfulani (2009) refers to as ‘syncretistic and anti-establishment’ Islamic movements. These movements blend Hausa folk beliefs and practices with selected parts of Quranic content to justify anti-development practices such as non-school enrolment, the rejection of immunization programmes, and the denial of women’s and children’s rights. The latest manifestations of these movements are the Boko Haram and Kala Kato2 insurgencies that have affected the Chad Basin.

2 Warriors for Jihad (religious war) in Nigeria. Their struggle is based on the traditions of the holy

prophet. They never accept any system of government apart from the one stipulated by Islam. They do not believe in any system of government, (democracy, capitalism, socialism or whatever), except the Islamic system (SHARIA, and Holy Quran) and are against adulterated conventional education (Boko) that replaces Islamic teachings. They consider the Nigerian government illegitimate for not protecting Islam therefore they reject the Nigerian judicial system. Boko Haram subscribes to a Salafist-jihadist ideology. The group commonly refers to itself as Jama’atu Ahlis Sunnar Lidda’awati Wal-Jihad, which broadly translates to “people committed to the propagation of the Prophet’s teachings and jihad.”

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Cameroon’s higher education system – and Islam

Secularism in higher education is differently appreciated by the Cameroon Muslim Student Union (CAMSU) 3 . The main complaints raised with the academic authority and the state by Muslim students are dissatisfaction with unequal role distribution by universities administration as far as visibility, access to campus radio, discrimination against Muslim female students, time table conflicts with prayers times without permission from lecturers, refusal of Islamic conferences on campus, curricula harmonization for those coming from Islamic studies, and supervision clashes. The most irritating for Muslim students is the fact that during academic ceremonies organized by the university, Christian choirs are invited to bless and perform gospel songs, whereas Muslim students are never given such public visibility and opportunity. Rather, they seem to be smoothly pushed backwards, psychologically wounded and left wondering “whether they must resist or perish in this type of secularism”. In practice, religion in Cameroon “is regulated by the Ministry of Internal Relations that represents the hierarchy of all religious organizations.” 4 Respecting and maintaining the Christian ethos of western-style universities in highly Islamized campuses of northern Cameroon, profoundly questions the neutrality of the state towards religion. The Muslim students’ sense of marginalization, notwithstanding socio-professional claims, is referred to by them as a temptation (fitna) of their faith. If this debate and these claims migrate outside campus, they may cause a theological debate and “holy violence” may be solicited to repair the injustice. As for the curricula, Islamic studies are subjugated by the study of techniques, contemporary philosophy and the like even in the Arabic language and civilization departments. The traditional Islamic vision of the world is challenged by the modern western civilization’s leitmotif of human promotion. How does one conciliate these two visions with divine transcendence that abandons the ontological destiny of a human being’s right to worship?

3 https://www.memoire-cameroun.com/associations/fondations-assos/camsu/ 4 Interview Prof Hamadou Adama, Ngaoundéré March 25th 2018.

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Therefore, the more common Muslim student’s attitude today is modernism: adoption without any complexities of western cultures, techniques or way of life as a means of regulating their evolution, but also an appreciation of it as a condition of social promotion in Cameroon (as Islamic studies do not give access to socio-professional integration). Thus, Islam in Cameroon is reduced to its sociological dimension, which is not essential for national identity.5

5 Universities in the region are important sites for negotiating Islamic identities and

mobilizing religious activism; however, further research is needed to understand how higher educational institutions and the policies that shape them might either “incubate or challenge extremism Alexander Thurston. “Campuses and Conflict in the Lake Chad Basin: Violent Extremism and the Politics of Religion Higher Education.” RESOLVE Network Research Report no. 1, 2018, Lake Chad Basin Research Series, p. 6.

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The Muslim Student Society of Nigeria

On 30 May, 1954, a group of secondary school students in Lagos met and laid the foundation of what has today become a mass student organization in Nigerian history: the Muslim Student Society of Nigeria (MSSN), was cofounded in the Ansarul Deen School of Lagos by Abdurrahaman Sahid, Aliu Babtunde Fafunwa, Tajudeen Aromashodun and Lateef Adegbite. The latter was the first national president known as the Sharia Law defender. The organization appointed representatives in almost every higher educational institution in Nigeria. Its motto was: “We, the Muslim students of Nigeria, out of our faith and dedication to the service of Islam, do hereby proclaim the establishment of the Muslim Students’ Society of Nigeria, readily and devotedly responding to ALLAH’s call to establish a community enjoying all that is virtuous and forbidding all that is evil”.6 Through electronic media, audio cassettes and literature they disseminated their beliefs nationally and beyond. They gained popularity when they succeeded in gaining affiliation with the World Assembly of Muslim Youths (WAMY) in 1970. The rise of Tariqa brotherhoods during that time, and the increasing interplay of religion and politics in Northern Nigeria, facilitated the implementation of religion in the academic milieu. The emergence of the MSSN as a visible and coherent organization was the result of a conscious decision by Muslim student leaders who saw an opportunity not only for religious change, but also for social and political transformation. A considerable number of people living in Northern Nigeria were Muslims, but their lives and activities were regulated by repressive laws other than the Sharia. And rulers claimed to be Muslims but were in the habit of mixing Islam with traditional religions for political expediency.7 According to R.A. Adeleye, “The disabilities which the Muslim suffered by living under governments that were not based on the Sharia gave

6 http://ntnumssn.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html 7 About 85,000,000 Nigerians are Muslims, approximately 50% population of Nigeria, compared to

Christianity which represents approximately the other 50% of the population. Muslims in Nigeria are predominantly Sunni in the Maliki School, which is also the governing Sharia law. However, there is a significant Shia minority, primarily in Sokoto state. A smaller minority follow the Ahmadiyya Islam, a reformatory sect. The world’s Muslims: Unity and diversity, Pew Forum on Religious & Public life. August 9, 2012. Retrieved August 14, 2012.

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rise to deep-seated grievances which provided Muslims with a common cause to fight for... Besides obvious causes of grievance, details of departures from the Sharia only needed pointing out to the generality to be seen as un-Islamic and therefore unjust… (Adeleye: 1971, 17). The emergence of MSSN could be regarded as constituting a climax of so many contradictions with which Muslim society was identified. The rise of Tariqa brotherhoods (Maitatsine, Izala…) around 1978 sparked a wave of repeated clashes and conflicts between their followers and the traditionalist Qadidirya and Tidjanya throughout the northern parts of the country. With the formation of the Jundullahi organization in April 1980, and its militant activism, the religious atmosphere in northern Nigeria became very tense and uncertain. This complex situation provided an atmosphere highly conducive to the germination and spread of all forms of ideas and militancy. The harsh economic realities of the period, also greatly contributed to laying the foundations of protest and revolt against the system. The new MSSN leadership was trained by Abubakar Gumi. Gumi symbolized a life of piety and teaching, especially after the dissolution of the northern Nigeria region in 1966. Prior to 1966, he served as grand khadi, or chief Islamic law officer and judge in northern Nigeria. An outstanding Arabic and Islamic scholar, Gumi also translated the Koran into Hausa, which made it more widely available to non-Arabic-speaking people in the local constituencies. Trained in Khartoum, Gumi was the main liaison for the Saudis, for senior Nigerian pilgrims, and could garner international support (mainly from Gulf and Saudi Arabian sources) for schools and mosques in Nigeria. Gumi had a considerable impact on the youth and the elites, including the MSSN leadership. MSSN criticized the teachings of both the Qaairivya and the Tijjaniyya and decried their doctrines as being opposed to Sharia and harmful to Islam. This new development changed the character of the ongoing struggle among the Ulama in that the Sufi Orders, who hitherto were regarded with some high degree of respectability due to their roles in the propagation of Islam, began losing their credibility in favor of the new generation of Islamic leadership in northern Nigeria. The emergence of the new MSSN leadership, along with their new interpretation of the position of Tariqa in Islam, symbolized the extent to which the Wahabi doctrines penetrated the Sufi domain of the Muslim communities in Northern Nigeria. This new trend, among other factors, contributed greatly to the subsequent emergence of some new ideas

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and brotherhoods from 1970 to 1980. Yet, with the death of Gumi in September 1992, new patterns of Islamic practice emerged as the Izala movements moved to a wide variety of local interpretations and leadership patterns. In the late 1980s, there was dissension among the MSSN’s members when one side decided to reject the secular approach of the 1979 constitution, supported the establishment of an Islamic state, and acted to stop the sale of alcohol in some Northern Nigerian universities, notably Ahmadou Bello University in Zaria. The extremist groups were also linked to riotous acts in Kano during the Maitatsine upheaval.8 Gradual changes pervading the political landscape provoked Muslim students to unite for self-preservation and common resolve to hold onto their faith and practice their religion unhindered by the Government or any group under whatever guise. Before then, Muslim students were obliged to go to school during Muslim festivals of Eid-Fitri and Eid-Adha, or get severely punished for staying away from school during the celebrations. There were no holidays for Muslim festivals. Indeed, some examinations were specifically set on those days to compel Muslim students to attend school. It was equally impossible for Muslims to attend Juma’ah service on Fridays and Muslim sisters were not allowed to wear the Islamic Hijab at school and were forced to appear half naked (National Retreat, MSSN 2012). The advent of the MSSN can be regarded as the beginning of a revolution, a new consciousness and reawakening of the Muslim minds to the truth and fact of Islam and according to them “one of the greatest things to have happened to mankind in this part of the world” (National Retreat, MSSN 2012).9

8 https://web.archive.org/web/20140306035531/http://nigerianwiki.com/wiki/Muslim_students

_society 9 http://www.mssnui.org/sites/default/files/MSSNUI%20Bye%20Law.pdf, MSSN constitution.

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The Cameroon Muslim Student Union

Northern Cameroon universities are important sites for negotiating Islamic identities and mobilizing religious activism in the region. There are many similarities between northern Cameroon and Nigeria as far as environment, ethnic and religious identities and cultures are concerned. Cameroon Muslim Sufi movements have always influenced the majority of Muslim northern regions and paved the way for religious intolerance. The emergence of fundamentalist groups, combined with communal tensions, create a specific risk in the North and increase competition for leadership of the Muslim community: such competition has already led to local conflicts. Moreover, the various religious groups have negative perceptions of each other. The Boko Haram violence accelerated the importance that state and academic milieu are giving to religious dialogue and tolerance in order to avoid the kind of religious violence seen in neighboring Nigeria and the Central African Republic. The fact that Islamic lecturers in Maroua and Ngaoundéré universities were trained in Nigeria, Sudan, Libya, Egypt and Medina Islamic Universities on the one hand, and the relationship between Islamic education and Boko Haram violent extremism on the other, opened up a new interest in the Cameroon Muslim Student Union. The Cameroon Muslim Student Union (CAMSU) is the leading Muslim student organization in the country.10 This state-recognized association on campuses assist Muslim students with advanced religious training besides their secular and western form of education. There are no nationally recognized curricula, but there is a wide range of activities dealing with educational programs and student services. Without being a sectarian association, CAMSU’s leadership has a Salafi tilt that occasionally brings it into conflict with parents and religious authorities in “host” communities. The vast majority of the CAMSU executive board comes from former Islamic associations born on university campuses during the late 1980s.

10 For more details on this issue refer to Brandon Kendhammer and Adama Ousmanou, 2019,

Islam, Higher Education, and Extremism in Cameroon, Resolve Network Research Brief No. 1, Lake Chad Basin Research Series February 2019, or visit: https://www.resolvenet.org/research/islam-higher-education-and-extremism-cameroon

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In 1988, the Yaoundé University Muslim Students’ Cultural Association (YUMSCA) was established. A few years later, a dissident branch set up a new association called the Association of Muslim Students of Cameroon (ASEMUC). Both associations included both French and English-speaking students. Their founders envisaged setting up a representative structure, reflecting the ethno-regional diversity in order to deal with the management of specific problems related to the practice and observance of Islamic principles within a university institution. The first sensitization campaigns of the university authorities revolved around practical problems such as obtaining a place of worship, information on the nature of the meat served at the university restaurant, opening hours of the university restaurant, and food aid to Muslim students during Ramadan. The University of Yaoundé’s administration was receptive to such requests and most of the grievances were taken into consideration and resolved. But, like all the associations during this turbulent period in Cameroon’s history, ASEMUC and YUMSCA were undermined by leadership and internal divisions. For five years they faced identity issues, were fueled by political infighting, torn between regional withdrawal, and an ethnic and Islamic struggle for recognition? The ideas conveyed and the progress achieved prevailed. In 1998, a new association, the Cameroon Muslim Student Union (CAMSU), was established, as proposed by Abdu Kamfom Bornou and Mohammadou Saoudi, at a joint seminar organized in Yaoundé by the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY) and a local non-governmental organization called the African Development Foundation (ADF). Its vision, in the spirit of the Quranic text (Quran X: 49), recalled its anchoring in the principle of republican secularism guaranteed by the fundamental law of Cameroon. CAMSU’s position resembles an explicit recognition of state and national logic, over Umma logic. The Salafist vision of the CAMSU is thus watered down and articulated in the group’s discourse and narratives over strengthening students’ faith with the prophet’s behaviors on campuses. That is the primacy of religion over academy. Whereas the secular “raison d’état” is pushing the association towards respect of institutions on campus besides religious practices. The fact that some CAMSU reformers are not against modernity, the radicals among them often portray their choice as cultureless, i.e. people with poor knowledge of Islam. They may be inclined to mix religion with local cultures or fall into syncretism, in their view, Islam and modernity cannot coexist. Faith, knowledge and success is the CAMSU motto and its objectives are aimed at strengthening the spirit of brotherhood, Muslim solidarity, promoting

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“good Islamic morals” in and out of campuses, the quest for knowledge and its propagation, and student assistance. CAMSU places special emphasis on Islamic education of students, acquisition and mastery of English and new technologies. To practically implement its objectives, CAMSU adopted a simplified organizational chart by strengthening operational units it opened at all eight state universities of Cameroon. Women’s units are particularly active. They are generally better imbued with Islamic principles and play a central role in the religious education of their sisters. The religious life that CAMSU helps to animate at state universities has earned the respect and participation of administrative officials at these academic institutions. In Ngaoundéré in 1998, in Dschang in 2000, in Douala in 2002 and in Maroua 2008, CAMSU successfully obtained the necessary authorization to establish a base on the campus as well as allow the participation of senior university officials in each of the established State Universities in the above-mentioned areas. Cameroon is constitutionally a secular state. 11 The origin of this secularism can be traced back to French colonial administration of the territory in March 28th 1933 under the mandate convention in Article 7. Secularism is a widespread phenomenon in contemporary African states. Initiated in the West to counter the remnants of Christianity, it expanded to Cameroon during the colonial scramble for Africa along with the civilizing mission and its techniques and ideologies. Cameroon with large numbers of Muslims and Christians, implemented secularism to, in principle, give autonomy to temporal values in opposition to spiritual ones. 12 A sociopolitical analysis of the reality in the higher education environment demonstrates a watered down version of the principle of state secularism in Cameroon.13 The state is aware of the role of religion in the moral training of its citizens. The foreign investment Islam generated influenced the neutrality of the state towards religion. Huge sums of money and paralleled diplomacy Muslims students secure from Islamic countries have moved the Cameroonian government to regulate Islam in higher education.

11 http://constitutions.unwomen.org/en/countries/africa/cameroon?provisioncategory=

acb7c06f73b14e8aa83789f3471fcef3 12 https://www.indexmundi.com/cameroon/religions.html 13 http://docplayer.fr/amp/41133617-Article-la-laicite-de-l-etat-dans-l-espace-camerounais-bernard-

momo-les-cahiers-de-droit-vol-40-n-4-1999-p.html

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While supporting foreign investment in higher education, as implemented by the World Assembly of Muslim Youths (WAMY)14 and Turkey, the Cameroonian authorities omitted to pay attention to the causes of frustration, marginalization, and lack of curricula harmonization Muslim students face in and outside campus in Northern Cameroon. However, the result of these frustrations could have led to violence, as was the case in northern Nigeria. Contemporary Jihadism in the Chad Basin is deeply rooted in intellectual and religious circles. Islam itself does not matter per se, but its dual visions (religion and politics): the puritan and rigorous Salafism and the political Islam characterized by the idea that Islamic state (as it was ruled under the prophet in Medina) would be revived and implemented today. This concern constitutes the root, the cultural broth of jihadist thought and action the government is not yet ready to allow in Northern Cameroon through Islamic education contagion. Religious activism in this region is evidenced by the countless churches and Mosques, regardless of the city in which one finds oneself. That is why today religious fact tends to have become increasingly suspect because it is viewed as extremism. Islamism as an ideology places religion at the service of politics: which seems logical when one knows the political and religious interpretation advocated by the Quran. The Islamist ideology advocates a renewal of society by returning to a pure and true Islam and eradicating the social and economic injustice attributed to the secular state and beyond, its protector, namely the colonialist west. To many students the establishment of a future Islamic University in Northern Cameroon appears to be the last hope of a return to social and political stability. In fact, secularism in Cameroon is only proclaimed and never explained or elaborated upon in the Constitution of the Republic. With regard to what is happening on campus in northern Nigeria, Muslim students in Northern Cameroon mainly understand secularism to be anti-clerical if not anti-Islam. The future of this phenomenon depends on global relationships between Islam and Christianity, as the ruling majority in Cameroon is Christian orientated.15 But compared to northern Nigeria, the majority of Muslim students seem to not yet be considering violence as a viable means to make their voices heard or force change. Rather they are eager to complete their studies and find out how they can professionally insert themselves into this secular state in the absence of

14 http://www.wamy.co.za/ 15 Interview Prof Hamadou Adama, Ngaoundéré March 25th 2018.

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a legitimate method in which Christian ideals can effectively be fought in the higher education milieu in Cameroon. Muslim students are conflicted when enrolling into western type universities in a secular state like Cameroon. When asked to choose between defending their faith, their Islamic identity, or the preservation and advancement of their academic training, their answers were clear: it was preferable to compromise academic training than disobey Allah by not respecting the prayer time. Until the day that an Islamic University is created in Northern Cameroon, as is the case for Christians with their catholic university, suppressing western and Christian dominance in Cameroon will persist. It’s clear to Muslim students that there is a gap and sometimes a conflict between western civilization prevalent in Cameroonian universities and the state’s neutrality towards secularism. The adoption of the western way of life, languages and cultures, which are in opposition to the practice of daily prayers on campus or during Ramadan, could have been easier if the students could fast during the day and spend the night praying. But such radical adherence to the religious rule would ruin their academic life, as not having a Ramadan break would negatively impact their studies. CAMSU, as an Islamic student association in Cameroon has a dual role in respect of State disengagement and globalisation. It must strategize the role of Islam in the socio-political field, and between the State (dawla) and the Muslim community (umma). Firstly, the creation of a nongovernmental organization demonstrates the preoccupation with propelling Muslim actors, whose religious activities were previously confined in the private sphere, into the public arena. This concerns the authorities who endeavour to control the power play by manipulating the group’s charismatic leaders. Secondly, it is obvious that new communication methods considerably change local and global collaboration. Consequently, the relationship between CAMSU and state universities shows that religious resurgence, upon which the Islamic field in Cameroon is based, integrates state logic and Umma in its strategic development. Therefore, despite the growing influence of Salafism on campuses, there is little evidence of extremist ideologies or intra-Muslim ideological conflict. The need to maintain cordial relations with the state provides a strong incentive for Muslim student associations to maintain a united front.16

16 For more details on the issue of secular state refer to Westerlund, D. (ed) 1996, Questioning the

Secular State, London: Hurst.

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Conclusion

Muslim student associations in Cameroon and Nigeria conduct religious, social, cultural, and other activities in the best traditions of Islam through congregational prayers and Islamic religious festivals while also promoting friendly relations between Muslims and non-Muslims in and outside the campuses. They aim to provide Islamic education and control over Muslim students to create non-profit, religious organizations. Their activities are in accordance with their fundamental purpose of enabling Muslims with basic knowledge and competence in Islam to contribute individually and collectively towards meeting human needs while conforming to Islamic doctrine and belief. The feeling of brotherhood, the national and international solidarity they initiate and maintain provides them the power to influence politics in their region. Religion in itself is not the problem or the mere cause of crises in northern Cameroon and Nigeria, it is the manipulation of religion for political purposes, the overthrow of the secular state in a highly complicated context of ethnic diversity, state neglect, post-colonial traditions, and increasing competition for resources that has led to terrorism in the case of Nigeria. This point is crucial in understanding how the cause of conflict is not based simply on the presence of Islam. Conflicts erupt when a factor, such as religion, individually or in conjunction with other factors, is manipulated in favour of (or in opposition to) certain interests, whether on or off university campus.

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