In Niger, the role of the media in the re-islamization process that began two decades ago has remained understudied. This article seeks to remedy this gap and discusses a particular example of media usage and appropriation in the urban context of Niamey. It draws on a series of fieldwork studies undertaken in Niamey during the last two years. It focuses on Alarama, a young preacher and one of the most prominent media figures in Niamey. In addition to a series of TV and FM radio programmes he hosts, he has also developed recording and distribution practices that have resulted in the Islamic discotheque, a space that helps him popularize his CD and DVD sermons. I analyse how he has gathered around himself an expanding group of followers, many of whom have developed with him a fan–star relationship. Alarama's case exemplifies the way audiovisual media are constitutive of a new urban Islamic culture, which in return redefines media appropriation and religious imagination.
In the early 1990s, democratization in Niger meant a political reform detached from the military rule, but also safe from religious influence. The adoption of the principle of a radical secularism (laïcité) sought, first, the autonomy of the political sphere from the religious one, and second, the submission of religious authority to the political one. The consecration of this principle led to the criticism of Muslim public actors who argued that such a principle was violating the religious identity of Niger’s society. This paper discusses the difficulty to separate the realm of politics from that of religion as Islamic organizations and Muslim actors have stepped into the political arena, articulating various religion-inspired discourses and seeking the conversion of Niger’s politics to Islam. Nowadays, this activism led to a rearrangement of the state’s position in relation to religiosity and its role in the public domain. This case of ambiguous secularism, I suggest, might be one of a reinterpretation not only of secularism, but of democratization itself.
Elva Community Engagement is proud to share its latest research: An Assessment of the Experiences and Vulnerabilities of Pastoralists and At-Risk Groups in the Atakora Department of Benin. This research was conducted under USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives’ Coastal West Africa Regional Initiative program. It brings together findings from over 190 key informant interviews and 270 focus group participants in northwest Benin, that examined the vulnerabilities of particular groups as they experience violent extremist organization (VEO) influence. Building on Elva’s previous research in Coastal West Africa and the Sahel, this report illustrates how violent extremism in Benin is now increasingly homegrown.
The West Africa al-Qaeda alliance, known as Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) has deployed a dynamic recruitment and influence strategy in northwest Benin. The research found that pastoralists, unemployed youth, and migrants, figured prominently among the groups in the Atakora department that are at-risk of being targeted by VEO recruitment efforts. VEO propaganda is deliberately leveraging the local discontent created by Benin’s recent policy reforms to modernize its agro-pastoral industry and conserve the fragile ecosystem of the Park W-Arly-Pendjari complex.
Economic development policies that seek to formalize crucial sectors of the economy like commercial agriculture and livestock production, in some cases unintentionally impact livelihoods of some of the most vulnerable groups. These reforms can increase competition over already scarce resources, and sometimes can exacerbate intercommunal tensions and escalate into violence. Increased local tensions are creating more opportunities for non-state actors, particularly VEOs, to exploit vulnerabilities, through circulating dis-/misinformation and the provision of alternative economic livelihoods.
Nonetheless, the war against VEOs is by no means lost. Now is the time for thoughtful adaptation of Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism (P/CVE) responses in Atakora, and this research identified several recommendations that were tailored to the local context, based on needs identified in the primary research.
Since last year, jihadi attacks in northern Burkina Faso have been steadily on the rise. These have largely been attributable to a newly established but understudied jihadi group, Ansaroul Islam, which has its roots in the ongoing insurgency in Mali and is linked to al-Qa`ida's network in the Sahel. Its budding insurgency greatly threatens the security of Burkina Faso and neighboring countries. State responses to the violence have been heavy-handed, which only furthers the cause of Ansaroul Islam.
In 2021, the United Nations noted the newfound threats of the Group for Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM), a branch of al-Qa`ida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), that extended into Burkina Faso and the Ivory Coast, stretching farther yet into Ghana, Togo, and Benin. Had an observer in 2006 had this information presented to them, they might have scarcely believed it. That year, in which AQIM was formed, the group was a thoroughly North African organization and based primarily in Algeria. Fast forward 15 years, how did AQIM end up nearly 1,300 miles away, now posing immediate threats in the states of littoral West Africa?
Relying on a combination of primary source jihadi propaganda and historical research, this report argues that over the past 30 years, al-Qa`ida and its branches and allies in North and West Africa have followed what this report calls “al- Qa`ida's Imperial Playbook,” as they have sought to expand their areas of influence southward. Al-Qa`ida's “playbook,” this report shows, is composed of five fundamental tactics: befriending or creating militant groups operating in the midst of conflict; integrating themselves into communities where those militants exist; exploiting grievances of those communities to gain sympathy; addressing internal or external dissent either passively or aggressively; and looking toward new theaters once their base is solidified. Al-Qa`ida has subsequently utilized this playbook to expand southward from its Algeria base in five distinct historical periods: from 1992- 1998; 1998-2006; 2006-2012; 2013-2017; and 2017-present. The report concludes that al-Qa`ida and its affiliates in northern and western Africa are likely to continue to use this playbook as they continue their contemporary expansion into West Africa.
In contrast to similar organizations in its neighbouring countries, Niger's domestic Salafi associations have remained peaceful and apolitical. Drawing on historical institutionalist scholarship and on recent conceptualizations of the state as a religious actor, this article examines how the Nigerien state has tried to regulate religious practices since Seyni Kountché's military coup in 1974. It argues that the institutional regulation of religious practices is one important variable that accounts for Niger's deviant trajectory. During Niger's autocratic period (1974–91), the government established the Association islamique du Niger (AIN) as the sole legal authority regulating access to Niger's Friday prayer mosques. Committed to peaceful and apolitical interpretations of the Koran, the AIN confined access to Niger's religious sphere to local clerics and Sufi brotherhoods. After the breakdown of autocratic rule in 1991, the AIN served as a religious advisory body. Salafi associations could assemble freely but had to abide by certain criteria. Confronted with the prospect of Islamic violence in 2000, the Nigerien state intervened in Niger's religious sphere in several ways. Among other initiatives, the government began to resurrect a more rigorous system of religious supervision in order to monitor religious practices on an ongoing basis.
The Potential for Radicalization and Political Violence in West Africa
Crises in the Sahel (from Mali to southern Tunisia and Libya) and the regionalization of Boko Haram’s activities as far as the Lake Chad basin (Niger, Cameroon and Chad) are some of today’s worrying signals related to West African stability.
The question of a potential broadening of this ‘arc of crisis’ to stable countries in the region, including Benin and Ghana, motivated research in the field conducted by the Clingendael Institute. In Accra and Tamale in Ghana, and in Cotonou and Porto-Novo in Benin, the research team looked into religious, historic, political and societal dynamics that may constitute elements of future (in)stability.
New religious “ideologies” (Christian evangelism and/or Sunni revivalism), mixed with economic frustrations, have deeply impacted the traditional balance and make long‑term stability a challenge for most of the countries in the region, from Mali to the Horn of Africa. In this report Clingendael explores the specific ways the Ghanaian and Beninese actors are dealing with politics, identity and societal stress. We also identify the influence of external actors, from both the region and beyond, and potential spill over of nearby conflicts.
Conclusion
Clingendael comes to the conclusion that several issues, like border porosity, absence of a regional strategic approach to counter terrorism, youth frustration towards the elder’s political and economic monopoly, rural and urban disparities and rampant illiteracy are some of the regional aggravating factors that are conducive to the spread of extremist ideology and dividing behaviours. Our report can be considered as an early warning. What is urgently needed is early action.
Northern and southern Benin (formerly Dahomey), which lie in different economic and cultural areas, have been traversed since early times by merchants and by the alfas (a local term for Islamic scholar) who accompanied them and introduced Islam. Islam arrived in the north beginning in the tenth/sixteenth century, or at the end of the eighth/fourteenth, but was not established permanently along the coast until the nineteenth century. Muslim merchants from the north are first mentioned, in 1116/1704, by the Chevalier des …
Since 2021, the government of Benin has been battling a violent jihadist insurgency in the north of the country, fueled by a complex mix of political marginalization, religious ideology and long-simmering intercommunal conflicts. Unfortunately, in doing so, it is repeating the same tragic mistakes made over the past decade by its West African neighbors, Mali and Burkina Faso.
The Dyula are Muslim traders who form a religious and ethnic minority in Koko, an urban neighborhood in northern Côte d'Ivoire. Although on the fringes of the Islamic world, for centuries they have maintained ties to the universal Islamic tradition while adapting their everyday religious rituals to their local context. Through a well-integrated analysis of the history and culture of the region, Launay evaluates the ways in which Muslims on the frontiers of the Islamic world define and redefine their beliefs, practices, and rituals as they face a series of challenges to Islam and what it means to "be Muslim." He elucidates the interaction among the universal Islamic tradition, anchored historically in the Arab Middle East; the local variations wrought by Islamic practice; and the profound, continual changes in the way Islam is lived, wherever it is professed.
