194 african appropriations
Nigerian governor of the Qadiriy ya brotherhood; and Sheikh Abubakar
Gumi, the founder of the fundamentalist Iszala reform movement. Stick-
ers featured the late Ahmadu Bello, who was a great-grandson of Caliph
Usman Dan Fodio and officiated as prime minister of the Northern Re-
gion from 1954 to 1966; because of his qualities as a politician and his un-
selfish commitment to Islam, he is still revered as a political and religious
icon. The degree to which the signification of bin Laden overlapped with
that of these local religious icons is nicely illustrated by a printed sheet
combining several bin Laden stickers, with a sticker showing Ahmadu
Bello (see figure 6.7).
Another element of bin Laden’s iconic (and acoustic) self-staging—the
image of the ascetic religious reformer—did not go unnoticed in northern
Nigeria. In his analysis of bin Laden’s rhetoric, Navid Kermani (2001: 1)
refers to a staged humility: “[It is] precisely this eager humbleness of ex-
pression that aims at touching the hearts of the fellow believers. W henever
[his] garb and the location chosen for a video are supposed to create a pro-
phetic aura, the asceticism of [his] language picks up the thread of the mili-
tary and political inferiority of the early Muslims for which they made up
ma n i fold ly, however, t ha n k s to t he pu r it y of t hei r fa it h ” (ita l ic s m i ne). Bi n
Laden’s retreat into the mountains of Afghanistan, which evokes associa-
tions with the Prophet Muhammad’s historical “exile” (hijra), combined
with a seemingly unselfish relinquishment of the wealth accumulated
figure 6.7
Detail of stickers showing Osama bin Laden flanking Ahmadu Bello, Kano,- Author’s collection.