Abdulbasit Kassim Profile picture
PhD ABD @RiceUniversity Fellow @IslamAfricaNU African Studies| Intellectual History| History of Religion| Political Theory| History of Book| Manuscript Studies
Oct 29, 2019 8 tweets 3 min read
THREAD

117yrs ago on 29 October 1902, Frederick John Dealtry Lugard in consultation with Walter Richard Samuel Miller replaced Arabic & Arabic script Hausa (Ajami) with English & Romanized Hausa as the official language of Northern Nigeria. What were the effects of this change? A. The structural dislocation of education in Northern Nigeria. Prior to the change, century-old scholarships were developed in humanistic, scientific and social-scientific disciplines in Arabic & Ajami. But all of those scholarships henceforth were rendered moribund & obsolete.
May 25, 2019 17 tweets 9 min read
The three major groups in Nigeria #BokoHaram (Shekau's JAS), #ISWAP and #Ansaru had their most active week of media releases this week. In addition to the highlight of their contents, I will also share my thoughts on where I think this decade-old insurgency is heading.

#Thread 1. Let me start with highlights from #BokoHaram Shekau's JAS. JAS acknowledged the Death of Man Chari Abū Sadīq al-Bāmāwī. He was the commander that issued the first protest against the deposition of Shekau by ISIS. He led the group as a commander & Imam. See Text 73 of BH Reader
May 16, 2019 10 tweets 5 min read
The new Crisis Group report on #ISWAP "Facing the Challenge of the Islamic State in West Africa Province" is comprehensive and well-researched but there are important analytical gaps overlooked in the report.
#Thread

crisisgroup.org/africa/west-af… via @crisisgroup According to the report, the success of #ISWAP's Jihadist Proto-State or the symbiotic relationship between the group and the inhabitants of the Lake Chad Area is hinged upon the Governance and Public Good ISWAP delivers to the local communities. This claim is reductionist.
Mar 11, 2019 13 tweets 7 min read
When @A_Salkida reported the leadership change in #ISWAP on March 4th, albeit the skepticism attributed to the report, I was CERTAIN the report was TRUE because of Salkida's antecedents. #ISWAP has released the audio in Hausa from their encrypted channel. Here is the translation The 6 minutes 16 seconds audio translated below was released by #ISWAP. Abu Abdulla Idris can be confirmed as the same figure Mamman Nur mentioned in August 2016 as "Ba Idrissa who queried Shekau's flawed interpretation of Quranic exegesis" See Text 72 of The Boko Haram Reader.