THE ANATOMY OF RESISTANCE TO EXTREMISM: WHY EXTREMISM CANNOT THRIVE IN NIGERIA’S SOUTHWEST.
Dr. Marshall Israel.
The relative stability of Nigeria’s Southwest is not a coincidence, nor is it the result of luck or superior policing. It is the product of a society that has consistently chosen education over indoctrination, civic responsibility over blind obedience, and communal accountability over clerical absolutism.
In a country fractured by religious violence, the Yoruba region stands as an inconvenient truth for extremists and their apologists. Millions of Muslims live in Yorubaland, yet Islam there is practiced through scholarship, moderation, and coexistence with other faiths. It is a form of religious life that recognizes reason, pluralism, and the authority of the community. This is precisely why some northern extremists sneer at Yoruba Muslims as “fake Muslims”—a slur that exposes their own intolerance and intellectual poverty.
The Southwest has faced direct attempts at radical infiltration. Extremist clerics entered Osun and Oyo States preaching rigid, imported interpretations of Islam and demanding the politicization of faith through the imposition of Sharia. They expected compliance. Instead, they met resistance.
Yoruba Muslim leaders rejected them. Traditional rulers refused them legitimacy. Scholars challenged them openly. State governments backed the people. The message was unmistakable: religious extremism would find no sanctuary in a society that understands both its faith and its freedoms. The extremists were driven out—not by fear, but by collective resolve.
This experience demolishes a dangerous global myth: that religious violence is inevitable in deeply religious societies. It is not. Extremism flourishes where ignorance is protected, where clerics are unaccountable, and where the state abdicates its responsibility to educate and govern. It collapses where communities are informed, institutions are strong, and leaders are willing to confront radicalism rather than excuse it.
The chaos and crisis in the North is therefore not a failure of religion, but a failure of leadership and civic enlightenment. Military force alone will not defeat extremist ideologies. Guns can kill fighters; only education, social cohesion, and moral courage can dismantle the belief systems that produce them.
The onus therefore lies on the religious and political leaders of Northern Nigeria to rise to this challenge by actively enlightening and educating their people, especially the younger generation. They must take responsibility for monitoring certain imams and the content of teachings delivered in madrassas and mosques, to ensure they promote peace, coexistence, and respect for the rule of law rather than extremism.
For the international community, the lesson is clear—and deeply uncomfortable: stability cannot be imposed from above, and extremism is never defeated by appeasement or silence. It is defeated only when societies refuse to surrender reason to dogma and culture to fanaticism. Southwest Nigeria already offers a working model of this resistance. The real tragedy is not that such a model exists, but that it has not been replicated where it is needed most.
