br anding bin laden 197Nigerian Christians hailing from the south. Users of bin Laden merchan-
dise thus communicated their determination to continue with the social
and cultural transformation of the northern states implied by the reintro-
duction of sharia law. In other words, bin Laden images became symbolic
tools of boundary making within Nigerian ethno-religious politics. In
this context, it makes sense to remember that at the turn of the century,
Nigerian visual publics transformed and expanded considerably. With the
spread of video, satellite tv, the internet, and advertising billboards, the
logic of visual communication gained more and more ground in Nigerian
urban spaces (Ukah 2004, 2008). W herever this is the case, Muslims must
face a problem when competing against Christians in communicating
their religious identification. As I have argued herein, one of the central
features of promotional visual communication involves associating con-
sumer goods or ideational products (such as religions) with faces, which
is an important tool of branding. In contrast to Islam, Christianity has a
rich tradition of iconizing religious figures, which enables not only the
believers to see their religious credo reflected by portrayals such as Jesus
Christ, the Virgin Mary, St. Paul, and numerous other figures, but also to
outwardly communicate their religious identification. Since this is impos-
sible for Muslims due to the prohibition of images in Islam, “surrogate
prophets” need to be found. Within the Nigerian visual public from 2001
to 2002, bin Laden served this communicative function perfectly.
Of course, no faithful Muslim would have called bin Laden explicitly a
“surrogate prophet,” as this would immediately conjure up connotations
of blasphemy. By the same token, it is unlikely that Nigerian users of bin
Laden images, if asked directly, would have subscribed to the communica-
tive functions I mention. Most likely, such questions would have elicited
no more than quite general responses, such as, “I like Osama because
he tells the truth,” which was a motorbike owner’s reply to a journalist
asking why he had put a bin Laden sticker on his vehicle (Doyle 2001:
2). One of the differences between visual and verbal communication is
visual communication can be much more opaque and ambiguous than
its verbal or written equivalent. W hoever puts a sticker displaying bin
Laden’s portrait on a motorbike is communicating a nonverbal message;
moreover, since images are poly valent, the motorcyclist cannot be held
responsible for what gets communicated. This holds true for the symbolic