Why I wrote book on Boko Haram – Andrew Walker

Andrew Walker is author of a nonfiction book titled ‘Eat the Heart of the Infidel: The Harrowing of Nigeria and the Rise of Boko Haram’. A journalist who has worked for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), he talks about why he wrote the book, when his journalistic skills kicked in, his research work, and more. 

Bookshelf: What would you say propelled you to write ‘Eat the Heart of an Infidel: The Harrowing of Nigeria and the Rise of Boko Haram’?

Andrew Walker: I had been in Nigeria in 2011 and covered a little bit of the emerging crises, just when the group was coming back. When I went back to England, the whole thing seemed to implode. This place I have come to have a personal connection to, just seemed to vanish to this horrible situation. I didn’t feel like I could turn my back on it. As people outside Nigeria were discovering Boko Haram, I thought that I could use what I had learned over that time in Nigeria to fill in a lot of the context and history that I have been reading and learning about, in order to help people understand the context. Also, to put into circulation what a news story would not necessarily have space for. From afar, from England and Europe and America, it seems like such a baffling and arcane subject. It just appears crazy and I wanted to use my experiences and some of the knowledge I have built up to help shed some light on it.

Bookshelf: What did your research involve? 

Walker: In 2011, along with some colleagues we interviewed some members of Boko Haram in Maiduguri. We also met prisoners that had been taken by the police and interviewed members who had been in the mosque compound. That was one kind of research. I built in little pieces of my experience in the last ten years to try to explain some of the basic concepts Nigerians are incredibly familiar with, but have limited meaning in other places outside Nigeria, until recently. Things like why people feel disenfranchised by the political system. 

Bookshelf: What did it take to have access to actual members of the Boko Haram?

Walker: At a time, when I was working for the BBC, I and my colleague went to Maiduguri. With connections he developed, we managed to get a chance to talk to someone. Unfortunately, in the negotiation of how we were going to meet, we had to run our plan past the safety people, and because of various reasons, we were unable to meet with them face-to-face. So we had to talk on the phone for a period of about three days, lasting several hours. What I got from that at the time was a flagger of their ambition and also the fierceness of their ideology. In another instance, we interviewed another person who had been involved with Boko Haram, who had fallen into it by a process of coercion and was in the thick of it. So we were able to see that there were different kinds of Boko Haram. 

Bookshelf: How would you categorise these different kinds of Boko Haram?

Walker: There are three reasons why people joined Boko Haram. There are the ideologues who really believe in their rhetoric. And because there’s this umbrella of insecurity, there are people who take the opportunity to attach themselves to Boko Haram, probably because they have a grievance with their neighbour or want to have a feeling of power. The organisation has also expanded to include a lot of bandits and cultists. There’s also a category, those who are swept up in it, such as child soldiers. It’s heavily influenced by a kind of fatalistic attitude. 

Bookshelf: How would you say your journalistic skills helped in writing the book? 

Walker: In a lot of ways I have had to break down my writing and reform it in a new way because what I was trying to do was go beyond what a seven-hundred-word journalistic piece could give anyone. And also write something that would not only be relevant today, but also in five years’ time. I was trying to take a step back from the situation, unlike most journalists who step forward to look at specifics. I had to step back to get more content and had to relearn completely how to write. I had to totally break down everything and re-form it again. 

Bookshelf: Was there a point when you had sympathy for Boko Haram?

Walker: We had this interview with a boy of no more than twenty-one or twenty-two, called Zakaria who was in police custody. I don’t know whether he was telling the truth, he was probably lying, about the depth of his involvement.

Zakaria was captured by the police in a gun battle. We were in the Special Armed Robbery Squad headquarters in Maiduguri, and there had been a shoot-out between the army, the Joint Task Force, and they (Boko Haram) in Damaturu. So he was caught when an arms shipment was interrupted. When we interviewed him, I was very aware he was, in many ways, swept up in it. I believe in the justice system, that he should be arrested, tried and punished, whatever that punishment might be. But at the same time, I and my colleague were very aware the likely ending of his life would be very nasty and squalid. This was before they came out and took over territories. Since then it continued and I saw that it was destroying so many things that I loved about Nigeria. 

Bookshelf: Why did you choose the title ‘Eat the Heart of the Infidel’?

Walker: This title is controversial. It looks eye catching too. But it’s from a Shekau speech where he says that “we are going to come down and eat the hearts of the infidels”. What I am trying to say in the book is that, in the kind of terms of how the state works, in terms of its capacity, it’s really that the heart of the state had really been eaten. Because of that, Nigeria finds it incredibly difficult to respond to the situation. And I felt like encapsulating something of the dilemma. 

Bookshelf: What are you doing these days?

Walker: I have spent the last year promoting the book, going to talk to university departments and societies. I have been to Ake Book Festival last year. I have also been talking about the book in America. It’s a book which has a short print run and is of a niche subject, so a lot of the marketing efforts are put on the author. That’s good and it has been fun. I have had to learn how to do it and I have had a good time.

‘Why I wrote book on Boko Haram’