Religious over zealousness + illiteracy + ignorance+ poverty = Northern Nigeria Violence

Northern Nigeria is burning. Over 400 hundred people have perished with their lives. Churches and police offices have been torched while properties worth hundreds of millions of dollars have been destroyed.

The violence was started by a group of a bunch of illiterates and over zealous Muslims called Boko Haram - which means "Western education is prohibited". The group frowns on anything western.They preach against people who receive education, and are having dignified standard of living. They advocate for the use of Sharia law but have no understanding how it works. Newspapers in Nigeria have written extensively about how bad educated women in Northern Nigeria are treated. They are often denied jobs and made to endure 17th Century slavery style environment.

Northern Nigeria attracted a lot of media attention when polio immunisation programme was stopped because Imams and local leaders thought it could make the people impotent. Lack of understanding and appreciation of scientific innovation was largely responsible for the immunisation saga.

Northern Nigeria still remains one of the areas in the world where polio still remains wide spread. Religious and communal violence in northen Nigeria is very common. It is very difficult to dignose the causes of violence in Northern Nigeria but there is no doubt that religious over zealousness, illiteracy, poverty, and ignorance combined with religious beliefs and practices that the people have little or no grasp with have contributed to the violence.

Ghana Pundit