Unah’s Concept of God: A Panacea to Boko-Haram Insurgency

Abstract

Professor Jim Unah is an ontologist who embraced phenomenology as a root method of interpreting reality. To him, reality reveals itself in profile. Reality is multifaceted, comprehensive, and complex. So, to use the phenomenological method to interpret reality means to adopt the perpetual habit of letting reality reveal itself without any willful interpretation or bias of the mind reflecting in the understanding of reality. Precisely, the concept of God as reality reveals itself in profile. Meaning that whatever view a religion portrays about God is an aspect of that religion and there is no need to compel or kill people because their religion is not submissive to a particular concept of God, even if other views are not correct or true about God. The phenomenological attitude demands that everyone is free to have their own ideology of God, and one should be aligned with your own concept of god. The atmosphere is wide enough for all birds to fly; there is no need to fight in the name of worshipping God in this or that way. On the contrary, Boko Haram insists on their Islamic ideology of God, Shariah law, and thereby condemns any opposite views resulting in killing and destroying lives and property. Is this what Islam stands for? How can Unah’s concept of God aid in abating the Boko Haram insurgency? This paper considers the human mind, the formation of concept, Unah’s concept of God, the Boko Haram insurgency and Unah’s concept of God as a panacea to Boko Haram insurgency.