Organizations
Boko Haram
Militant Organization
Citation Formats
General Reference
APA Style
BibTeX
Origin from 2002
Boko Haram is a Salafi-jihadist militant group founded in 2002 in northeastern Nigeria by the preacher Mohammed Yusuf, whose popular name (roughly, "Western education is forbidden") reflects its founding rejection of secular schooling and state authority. After Yusuf's death in 2009 custody killing, the group under Abubakar Shekau escalated into a prolonged insurgency; a 2015 pledge of allegiance to Islamic State split it into a loyalist faction operating as the Islamic State West Africa Province and a rump faction that remained under Shekau until his 2021 death.
Facts
History
Historical NoteBegan as an Islamic center and school in Maiduguri, Nigeria. 2 Historical NoteMohammed Yusuf died in a 2009 police custody killing after his capture, a death that helped drive the group's escalation into a prolonged insurgency under his successor Abubakar Shekau. 2 Notable MomentA 2015 pledge of allegiance to Islamic State split the group into a loyalist faction operating as the Islamic State West Africa Province and a rump faction that remained under Abubakar Shekau until his 2021 death. 2 Status
Current StatusSourced to the subject's own accountDesignated a terrorist organization by the United Nations Security Council and numerous governments; an active insurgency continues in northeastern Nigeria and the Lake Chad basin. 1 Finances
Basis of the Wealth FigureJournalistic or Scholarly Estimate 3 Financial Disclosure RegimeBoko Haram publishes no financial accounts; its financing has been reconstructed from Nigerian and international government, security and scholarly investigations, chiefly since its 2009 uprising. 3 Disputed
Institutional Wealth or FinancesEstimates of Boko Haram's financing vary widely: researchers have traced roughly 70 million US dollars raised from illicit sources between 2006 and 2011, alongside later reporting of several million US dollars from bank robberies and several million more in kidnap ransom payments (including for the 2014 Chibok schoolgirls), on top of extortion, taxation, smuggling and foreign remittances that are harder to total into one aggregate figure. 3 No single reconciled total was found; figures come from different studies covering different, sometimes overlapping, years and revenue streams. Origins
Origin PeriodSourced to the subject's own account FounderSourced to the subject's own accountMohammed Yusuf, a preacher, who founded the group in northeastern Nigeria in 2002. 1 FoundedFounded 2002 in Maiduguri, Nigeria, by Mohammed Yusuf 2 Organisation
Distinguishing FeatureRejects secular Western-style education and state institutions as corrupting influences, and seeks to replace Nigeria's secular government with a state governed strictly under sharia law, a platform reflected in its own popular name. 2 Notable MemberSourced to the subject's own accountMohammed Yusuf, founding leader, 2002 to his death in 2009; succeeded by Abubakar Shekau, 2009 to 2021. 1 Learn More
Mohammed Yusuf's Founding and Boko Haram's Turn to Insurgency
This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.
Boko Haram is a Salafi-jihadist militant group founded in 2002 in Maiduguri, in northeastern Nigeria, by the preacher Mohammed Yusuf. It began as an Islamic center and school built around Yusuf's own teaching, and its popular name, roughly translated as "Western education is forbidden," reflects the group's founding rejection of secular schooling and the secular Nigerian state alike; Yusuf preached against what he held to be the corrupting influence of Western-style institutions and sought to replace Nigeria's secular government with a state governed strictly under sharia law.
Yusuf died in a 2009 police custody killing after his capture, following clashes between his followers and Nigerian security forces, a death that helped drive the group's escalation from a preaching movement centered on one man's teaching into a prolonged armed insurgency under his successor, Abubakar Shekau. In 2015 a pledge of allegiance to Islamic State split the movement in two: a loyalist faction went on to operate as the Islamic State West Africa Province, while a rump faction remained under Shekau's own command until his death in 2021, by which time the insurgency had spread well beyond its original base in Maiduguri.
A UN-Designated Insurgency and Its Leadership
This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.
Boko Haram is designated a terrorist organization by the United Nations Security Council and numerous national governments, and an active insurgency continues in northeastern Nigeria and the wider Lake Chad basin, a designation and a conflict that together outlived both of the group's own founding leaders. The group was founded by Mohammed Yusuf, who led it from 2002 until his death in a 2009 police custody killing, and was then led by his successor, Abubakar Shekau, from 2009 until Shekau's own death in 2021.
That two-name leadership succession, Yusuf then Shekau, spans the group's entire documented history from a Maiduguri preaching movement centered on one man's teaching to an insurgency now carrying formal international terrorist designation. Both leaders are dead, and no successor to either is named in the sourced record, which describes an organization that remains an active security concern in the region today, still designated by the Security Council years after the founder who gave it its name and its first following was killed in custody. The 2015 split that followed a pledge of allegiance to Islamic State occurred entirely within Shekau's own tenure as leader, years after Yusuf's death.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
This source names Africa directly: "operating as the Islamic State West Africa Province and a rump faction that remained under Shekau until his 2021 death."
This source names Boko Haram directly: "general-reference article on Boko Haram, a continuously edited tertiary source with no fixed publication year, accessed 2026-08-14."
This source names Boko Haram directly: "maintained datasets tracking the Boko Haram insurgency's toll, the Council's own Nigeria Security Tracker and the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), across the period from June..."
This source names Boko Haram directly: "Foreign Relations backgrounder on how Boko Haram funds its insurgency in Nigeria, citing an estimated 70 million US dollars raised from illicit sources between 2006 and 2011, alongside bank robbery..."
This source names Boko Haram directly: "across Nigeria, distinct from Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province."
This source names Boko Haram directly: "armed actor in Nigeria, including Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province."
Related To
Sources
Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.
Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.
View At A Past Year
Choose a year to see this entry's facts and connections as the atlas records them at that moment: what it held then, what it held instead, and what it had not yet adopted. Choose Present for the current record.