ACADEMIA Letters From the “Sokoto Jihad” to the “Boko Jihad”: Interrogating the Motivations for Recruiting of Terrorist. Bernard B. Fyanka, Redeemer’s University Ede. Background and the Problem The state of Nigeria has been engaged in the war on terror since 2009 and the group Boko Haram has remained the primary belligerent. By May 2014 over 12,000 Nigerians had been killed in the insurgency,[1] while one in fve persons from Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states had been internally displaced.[2] The growth, development and metamorphosis of groups like Boko Haram retain historical antecedents in a 2-century old process of Islamic radicalization starting from the Jihad of Uthman Dan Fodio in 1804. Each outburst of radical religious violence over the centuries has an identifable gestation period that could have been terminated at some point. The 1804 Jihad of Shehu Uthman Dan Fodio initiated the process of violent propagation of Islam and the planting of the frst seeds of Islamic violence and fundamentalism in Northern Nigeria.[3] Dan Fodio was noted for his reformist agenda against polytheism which formed the basis of his call for a Jihad and a Caliphate;[4] however there are more crucial motivations for the recruitment of fghters for the Jihad. Violent jihadist ideology may remain central to the idea of prosecuting the Jihad but a mass movement to arms rode on a recruiting mecha- nism that was rooted in the political economy of the Hausa states. For instance, the nomadic Fulani who were Dan Fodio’s kinsmen normally received grazing rights from the local Hausa chieftains wherever they grazed their cattle in Northern Nigeria. Conficts often arose over the use of water resources and damage of farmlands or crops. The jihad thus aforded the Fulani clansmen the opportunity to recalibrate power relations in their favour. Many Fulani clansmen Academia Letters, August 2021 Corresponding Author: Bernard B. Fyanka, fyankab@run.edu.ng Citation: Fyanka, B.B. (2021). From the “Sokoto Jihad” to the “Boko Jihad”: Interrogating the Motivations for Recruiting of Terrorist. Academia Letters, Article 2990. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL2990. 1 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0