“One Man’s Terrorist is Another Man’s Freedom Fighter”: Construction of Identity and Ideology in Selected Abubakar Shekua’s Speeches

Abstract

Terrorism as a form of social practice in Africa and Nigeria in particular has received scholarly attention from different perspectives. The inception of Boko Haram, a terrorist group in Nigeria, as well as its complexities in modus operandi, tactics, and international linkages has led to the widening cleavages given to its nomenclature. Despite several scholarly researches (both linguistic and non-linguistic) on Boko Haram insurgency, there seems to be limited study on a joint orientation to self as perceived through the sect beliefs, that is, conceptualisations of themselves. This study differs from existing studies in that it considers the identity claimed by the sect which can be tracked from the speeches of their leader. Thus, this study investigates how Boko Haram identity is constructed in Abubakar’s speeches from a socio-pragmatic approach in a bid to revealing the sect’s identity orientations and ideology. For data, five video-taped speeches of Abubakar Skekau, the leader of the group, downloaded from the Youtube and transcribed were purposively sampled. The sampled was based on the group’s responses from major attacks and the number of viewers as well as viewers’ comments on the videos. The data would be analysed using qualitative analytical method by adopting the social constructionist theory of identity and critical discourse analysis with insights gained from Systemic Functional Linguistics as theories. Three identity orientations/types of the sect: Islamic adherent, freedom fighter, and revolutionist were identified marked off by transitivity processes of verbal, mental and material with the nationalist, Islamic fundamentalism, separatist, and liberationist ideological projections/underpinnings. The study concludes that the sect’s identity orientations when perceived from the way they see themselves provide a socio-pragmatic approach to ‘war on terror’ in curbing terrorist activities in Nigeria.

Keywords: Terrorism, Identity orientation, Nationalist, Conflict resolution, Freedom fighter.