Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 27
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
Recent times of devastation
The Gwoza hills are a remote mountain range in the semi-arid northeast of Nigeria (see
Figure 1). In terms of modern infrastructure they are the most underdeveloped part of Borno
state, if not the whole of Nigeria. The hills belong to the Gwoza Local Government Area
(GLGA), and its east side borders the far north province of Cameroon. Its administrative
centre, Gwoza town, made headlines over the last few years because in August 2014 the
terrorist group Boko Haram declared Gwoza the first 'Islamic State caliphate' inside the
Federal Republic of Nigeria. The terrorist group had for several years used the Gwoza hills as
a convenient place to recruit and hide, and despite Gwoza town having been retaken by the
Nigerian army in March 2015, the hills themselves (in particular the Dghweɗe massif)
remained much under the control of Boko Haram. Also, the intramountainous eastern plain
along the Cameroon border remains highly insecure because the army is present only in
Gwoza town itself. The ongoing unresolved security situation has not stopped the Nigerian
government demanding that the internally displaced persons (IDPs) should return.
Considering that this humanitarian disaster has been acute since at least late 2012, it is
unlikely that the hills area in particular will ever be the same again. I am now asking myself
what my responsibility is, since I have ended up holding more or less in trust the most recent
ethnographic accounts of the oral history of the Dghweɗe way of life, as it was explained to
me between late 1994 and early 2010, on audiotapes and into my notebooks by my Dghweɗe
friends and local protagonists. I wonder if I can truly rise to the responsibility in such deadly
circumstances, and adequately write a book about the orally-related Dghweɗe past. Many of
my friends and their relatives who lost their homes and livelihoods in the hills now suffer in
refugee camps. Many others, whom I never met, lost their lives, or their daughters were
abducted by Boko Haram. Some of their sons might have been influenced by the group while
working as seasonal workers in Maiduguri, while others, often elderly Traditionalists, were
forced under Boko Haram rule because they had not been able to flee the Gwoza hills.
Plate 1a: Dzga ethnographic research station
Plate 1b: Visitors at the station
In December 2009 I visited Dghweɗe for the last time, only several months after the death of
Mohammed Yusuf who was then leader of Boko Haram. A neighbour who was an old man
came to visit me and told me that he had lost his son during the crackdown by the security
forces against Boko Haram in Maiduguri earlier that year. I had come with Stella Cattini, who
had been a primary school teacher in London all her working life. In 1998 she started a
learning support in the hills for English literacy and numeracy. Her initiative was to bring
about the primary school of Dzga, which is the local village ward where I had a research
station.
The research station (Plate 1a/b) was later burned down, and the primary school (Plate 1c/d),
for which we had sponsored the building and teaching materials, became a local Islamic
school under Boko Haram. At least this is what I was told by my Dghweɗe friends a few
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