The Politics of Jihadist Expansion: Sadiku and “Boko Haram” In Northwestern Nigeria

Formed in 2020–2021, the Sadiku group is the extension to northwestern Nigeria of the jihad waged in the country’s northeast by Jama’at Ahl al-Sunna li-Da’wa wal-Jihad (JASDJ), the outfit created by the late Abubakar Shekau and commonly known as Boko Haram. Sadiku’s operation appears to be the most successful attempt at expansion outside the northeast by a Nigerian jihadist to date. Drawing on original interviews with his former associates, this study analyses Sadiku’s relative success. A stranger in the northwest, a region dominated by bandits uninterested in jihadism, Sadiku showed remarkable flexibility in coopting local components: Darul Salam (a Salafi rejectionist group), the local—and mostly Christian—population, and bandits. Sadiku’s experience confirms that all jihad is necessarily local: even with a portable ideology like Salafi-jihadism, insurgents require local associates and deals. Sadiku’s “navigation” has been difficult, however, resulting in internal contradictions and tensions with the JASDJ core in the northeast as well as erstwhile bandit allies. Here we see the complexities of expansion: even in brutal sectarian organizations like JASDJ, the demands of local context can result in a degree of flexibility, but this, in turn, creates its own problems, undermining jihadists’ religious self-perceptions and expectations.