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Horrible Movies: A Content Analysis of Propaganda Videos of Boko 

Haram Terrorist Sect in Nigeria 

 

‘Femi M. Olufunmilade 

 

Igbinedion University Okada, Nigeria 

 

Abstract 

 

In 2009, what was hitherto an obscure Islamic sect began its metamorphosis into a 

terrorist organization that became one of the four deadliest terrorist groups in the world. 

In 2009, leader of Boko Haram sect in the northeastern region of Nigeria, Muhammed 

Yusuf, was murdered extra-judicially while in the custody of the Nigerian Police. In 

revenge, Yusuf’s followers, prominently including his deputy, Sheikh Abubakar Shekau, 

went underground to plot a jihad, which has left thousands dead and millions homeless 

in its wake for a full decade. The aim of this article is to underscore the fact that the horror 

videos released by Boko Haram periodically is indeed a powerful instrument of its 

campaign of terror. In this regard, the article analyses the contents of the periodic videos 

that are released by Boko Haram and identifies their objectives, ranging from luring young 

people into its fighting force to sending across the world message of its strength and 

omnipresence. It concludes that the videos are, indeed, propaganda tools aimed at set 

objectives in furtherance of the ultimate goal of establishing an Islamic Caliphate. 

 

Introduction 

 

Nigeria, a country in West Africa with an estimated 200 million population, is made up of 

over three hundred ethnic groups welded together as one country through the 

instrumentality of British colonization. Since it became an independent country in 1960 

from British rule, it has undergone series of internal conflicts most of which have their 

roots in ethnic antagonism among its multiplicity of ethnic groups. In terms of religion, the 

country is dominated by two major religions: Christianity and Islam. Both are almost of 

equal strength in terms of adherents. And aside occasional bickering by leaders of the 

two religions, there has never been a major conflict between the two.  However, Nigeria 

has experienced serious religious conflicts. In the 1980s there was an Islamic sect known 

as Maitatsine that propagated an ideology opposed to Nigeria’s secular order and without 

recognition of lawful authorities and allegiance to the Nigerian state. Worse still, it 

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embraced violence as a tool of actualizing its vision of what a society should be. 

Inevitably, the Nigerian authorities at the time had to deploy force to crush its 

advancement. Outside this case, there was no other religious upheaval in Nigeria until 

2009 when a sect known as Boko Haram surfaced. Boko Haram literally means “Western 

education is sin”. Its modus operandi is to establish an Islamic Caliphate where the Qu’ran 

– the Islamic holy book – will replace Nigeria’s secular constitution. The sect first took root 

in the north eastern region of Nigeria in one of the country’s 36 states known as Borno, 

from where it gradually spread to nearby states of Yobe and Adamawa. Till date, it has 

not made any significant presence in any other state. 

 

Boko Haram embarked on a jihad or campaign of violence against the Nigerian state in 

the year 2010. Initially, its attacks were construed as revenge for the extra-judicial killing 

of some of its leaders, prominently featuring its founder, Mohammed Yusuf, who died 

while in the custody of the Nigerian police in 2009. Later, it became clear that the goal 

was to capture enough Nigerian territories to establish its Islamic caliphate. In this regard, 

it has deployed diverse forms of violent acts ranging from suicide bombing to kidnapping, 

assassination to armed invasion of various communities. On the whole, its main mode of 

fighting oscillates between terrorism and insurgency. 

 

A decade has passed since Boko Haram began its terrorist campaigns. While there have 

been claims by the Nigerian government that the sect has been “technically defeated” 

(BBC, 2015), the evidence suggests otherwise. Admittedly, the sect have, lately, been 

confined to the north eastern states where it had held sway ab initio. It no longer makes 

inroads into other areas such as when it bombed the United Nation’s building in the 

country’s capital, Abuja in 2014; when it detonated bombs and killed many innocent souls 

through suicide bombs at a motor park in Mararaba, Nasarawa state; and when its fighters 

invaded the Deeper Life Church in Okene, Kogi state, in the middle of a worship and 

gunned down a good number of those in attendance. But the sect has been recording 

successful attacks that leaves in their wake high casualties among the Nigerian armed 

forces in its regular sphere of engagement: the north eastern region. Examples include 

an attack personally witnessed by the theatre commander of Operation Lafiya Dole 

created specifically to combat the sect. Major General Adeniyi is seen in a video that went 

viral saying that the intelligence estimate that informed a particular operation was 

misleading and rather than facing an enemy that could be put out in a light operation, 

himself and his troops were confronted by a well-armed enemy carrying out 

bombardments on all flanks with the use of over a hundred rapid propelled guns (RPGs), 

mortars etc. 

 

Boko Haram does not only engage in physical combats. It has also proved adept at 

psychological operations otherwise known as propaganda warfare. Of particular interest 

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to us in this article is its use of videos as an instrument of propaganda warfare towards 

the attainment of its ultimate goal of creating an Islamic caliphate based on its peculiar 

brand of Islamic doctrine. We refer to the videos as “horrible movies” as this is most apt 

to describe their contents. In the first place, they are movies because elements of drama 

is infused into them. As a matter of fact they usually give off the feeling that some sort of 

rehearsals had preceded their recording and broadcast. For example, in a video 

apparently done to depict the leader of the Boko Haram jihadist, Abubakar Shekau, as a 

redoubtable and invincible holy warrior, a video was recorded where he boasted that he 

was still alive despite the efforts of the Nigerian authorities and their foreign collaborators 

to get him. The collaborators included the United States that have placed a $7 million 

bounty on his head for anyone with information that would lead to his arrest (Sanni, 4 

March 2020). He then began a Rambo-like firing of a gun slung across his shoulders into 

the sky while making a mimicry of the gun shots with his name, shouting, “Shekau, kau, 

Kau, Kau, Kau”! Then he flung the gun away and made a solemn mutter of his name to 

end the footage, this time in a muffled voice note to give the effect of a denouement: 

“Shekau”! It all had the trappings of a movie from Nollywood. On the other hand, the 

movies are horrible because their sights and sounds are usually gory and fear-inspiring. 

They send messages that terrify and traumatize the audience. 

 

The methodology of the article is content analysis of select videos of the Boko Haram 

sect. Content analysis in this context differs from the classical and prevalent approach to 

the method in social research that is fixated to the use of quantitative techniques 

facilitated by the coding of texts. Berelson’s (1952,18) definition is typical of the fixation 

to quantitative approach to content analysis: "A research technique for the objective, 

systematic and quantitative description of the manifest content of communication". For 

the purpose of this article, however, the approach to content analysis is qualitative; not 

quantitative.  Qualitative studies usually focus not so much on the content of a 

communication as rather on its underlying intentions or its presumable effects on the 

audience (Kracauer, 1953). To break down this remark by Kracauer, he is saying that 

picking certain words or features in a text (composed of alphabets, images, symbols etc, 

as the case may be) for coding and establishment of a pattern, as is the practice with 

quantitative techniques, is not the focus of the qualitative approach. Rather, it entails a 

critical interrogation of the more nuanced and not so obvious intrinsic element of a text – 

text in this context being video clips released by Boko Haram. In this regard, the technique 

of qualitative content analysis is critical thinking aided by the fact that the researcher has 

been a keen observer of the subject matter and is a Nigerian who lives in Nigeria 

throughout the period covered by the study (2009 – 2020). 

 

Qualitative approaches to content analysis have their roots in literary theory, the social 

sciences (symbolic interactionism, ethnomethodology), and critical scholar ship (Marxist 

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approaches, British cultural studies, feminist theory). Sometimes they are given the label 

interpretive. (Krippendorff, 2004). One of the characteristics of the qualitative approach 

informing the selection of sample here is that it requires a close reading of relatively small 

amounts of textual matter (Krippendorf, 2004). This is so because, unlike the quantitative 

approach that makes the examination of a large amount of sample possible through 

coding, qualitative approach can only permit the analysis of a few sample, especially 

when each sample will be subjected to thorough analysis. The sample size is four of the 

Boko Haram propaganda videos. The sample is purposive in the sense that each of the 

four videos represents one of the four objectives inferred from about 20 released so far 

by the sect.  This will be further clarified in the main text. 

 

The article is divided into three parts hence. The first clarifies the key concepts (terrorism 

and propaganda). The second part is the core of the article, while the third concludes it. 

In a nutshell, the overall aim of the article is to put in graphic details the point that the 

horror videos released by Boko Haram from time to time is an instrument of psychological 

warfare and a major component of its arsenal of terrorist campaigns. 

 

Propaganda and Terrorism 

 

Propaganda is normally associated with three things: war, advertising, and politics.  It is 

neither new as a phenomenon nor as a subject of academic inquiry. It loomed large in the 

prosecution of World War I, and Hitler, in his book, Mein Kampf, lamented its efficacious 

deployment by the British in demoralizing German troops and considered it a contributory 

factor to German’s defeat. Seven years after the end of World War I, a leading political 

scientist of the era, Lasswell (1928, 260 - 261), defined propaganda as “the expression 

of opinions or actions carried out deliberately by individuals or groups with a view to 

influencing the opinions or actions of other individuals or groups for predetermined ends 

and through psychological manipulations”. The key phrase in this definition is 

“psychological manipulations”. This is an apt, short definition of the way propaganda is 

packaged and deployed as an instrument of war. In fact, an alternative nomenclature for 

propaganda in military parlance is psychological warfare. 

 

Propaganda can take diverse forms, but not every piece of communication qualifies as 

propaganda. There are four characteristics by which propaganda can be recognized: 

Persuasive function, sizeable target audience, representation of a specific group’s 

agenda, and use of faulty reasoning and/or emotional appeals Shabo (2008, 5). These 

four are present in the Boko Haram videos under interrogation.  

 

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Next is establishing the nexus between propaganda and terrorism. First, what is 

terrorism? Opinion differs regarding what this rather contentious concept is. This is the 

thrust of the saying that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. In apartheid 

South Africa, Nelson Mandela was jailed by the apartheid regime for committing terrorist 

acts. But before the black South Africans, he was a freedom fighter. The implication of 

this is that there can be no universally accepted definition of terrorism. In her case, the 

British government has furnished a definition of the concept in line with the imperative of 

its circumstance. Section 20 of the British Prevention of Terrorism Act (1974), first in a 

series of British terrorism acts, defines terrorism as “the use of violence for political ends, 

including any use of violence for the purpose of putting the public or any section of the 

public in fear”. This definition is a bit restrictive in the sense that it narrows terrorism to 

political use alone. It does not encompass other strands of terrorism such as the one in 

focus here: religious terrorism. But the definition is understandable because at the time 

of the promulgation of this Act, the British were contending with a civil strife in Northern 

Island characterized by violent attacks with separatist intent unleashed by the Irish 

Republican Army (IRA). 

 

For the purpose of this article, we will rather explain what terrorism is than furnish any 

definition that may be constraining. Terrorism, a type of asymmetric or irregular warfare, 

is a fighting technique of a weak group confronted by a national army. Terrorism thrives 

on surprise attacks on usually soft targets such as individuals and a meeting point of large 

number of people: market, church, aircraft, train, stadium etc. It can be described as a 

low intensity warfare in contradistinction to conventional warfare where regular armies in 

military fatigues and in diverse specializations, ranging from armor to intelligence, artillery 

to infantry etc., engage each other. Terrorist fighters also make use of propaganda. On 

the heels of the horrendous September 11 attack in the United States, Al-Qaeda terrorist 

Islamic sect, was quick to post a message via diverse media that it was responsible.  

 

Analysis of Four Videos 

 

Each of the four videos here share the four characteristics of propaganda outlined by 

Shabo (2008, 5). First is “persuasive function” - meaning there is an inherent attempt to 

persuade the audience to the message the author of the propaganda is trying to pass 

across. Second is a “sizeable target audience”, which, of course, implies that every 

propaganda material must have an audience for which it is specifically designed. Third is 

“representation of a specific group’s agenda”, which underscores the fact that for a 

material to qualify as propaganda it must have a source and that source must have a 

mission it seeks to promote. Finally, the use of “faulty reasoning and/or emotional 

appeals”. This last characteristic is core to any propaganda material in aid of terrorism. It 

does not have to make sense to a normal person. It can be laced with half-truths or 

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outright falsehood. The intent is to manipulate the audience to believe the implausible by 

working on emotions and sentiments. 

The first public video released by Boko Haram was titled “Harvest of Spies” (Zaimov, 

2015). In this video, two men alleged to be spying for the Nigerian security agencies were 

executed. This particular video was meant to send a message of fear down the spine of 

the Nigerian civil populace among which the terror sect’s operatives and foot soldiers 

mingled to plot and execute horrific attacks, particularly, suicide bombing. In the video, 

one of the two purported spies was in a kneeling position while the second one with his 

right leg amputated was seated on a chair. Standing behind them were their executors in 

military fatigues and hooded. Of these, the main executioner held a sword while the rest 

carried a rifle each. The exact moment of the beheading was not shown. The footage 

simply jumped to the scene where each of the executed men lay lifeless with his severed 

head placed on his chest. The whole essence of the video is to warn existing informants 

of Nigeria’s security agencies and would-be ones of the dire consequences that awaited 

them should they be caught. It made the price to be paid by electing to be an informant 

against Boko Haram. This was a strategic propaganda because at this time Boko Haram 

had not morphed into an insurgent group marked by conquest and control of territories. 

They were only a terrorist group whose survival depended largely on how best they could 

hide themselves within the populace in their theatre of operation. 

 

The second video for analysis is about abducted schoolgirls. On 14 April 2014, girls 

numbering 276 were abducted from a high school in Chibok, a predominantly Christian 

town in the northeastern region of Nigeria, by Boko Haram jihadists. It was a most 

shocking development among a series of terrorist acts so far perpetrated by the extremist 

Islamic sect. The sheer number of the abductees and the fact that they were of the female 

gender drew global attention to the abduction. A worldwide movement with the slogan 

“Bring Back Our Girls” began and featured many international figures, including America’s 

First Lady, Michelle Obama, photographed holding a cardboard on which the slogan was 

etched. The abduction was a major publicity breakthrough for Boko Haram as it 

catapulted it from a relatively obscure group to global limelight almost on par with Al-

Qaeda. On 13 April 2016, about two years into the abduction, the sect released a video 

(CNN, 2016) at a time concerns were rife about the safety of the girls. The video was not 

meant to allay the fears of anyone about the girls’ safety, though. It was rather a carefully-

packaged propaganda instrument aimed at achieving a mix of objectives.  

 

The first objective obvious from the video was the portrayal of the sect as a true crusader 

of Islam. The girls, mostly Christians, were attired in Islamic apparel called hijab – a loose 

and commodious gown that covers a lady ensconced in it from head almost to the toes, 

leaving only the face open. All the girls without exception were uniformly attired. The video 

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passes the message that the sect has successfully converted a group of infidels into the 

Islamic faith. Of course, not every Muslim will be cajoled by the gimmick but it will have 

an impact on the illiterate and homeless mass of male youths in northern Nigeria known 

as almajiri, who earn their living by begging while they are supposed to be undergoing 

training in Islamic theology under a cleric. Boko Haram needs the almajiri as recruits for 

its jihadist warfare. It is thus good public relations to appeal to them that the sect is a 

rallying point for Islamic proselytisation. Last but not the least, it offers the attraction of 

prospects of settling with a woman to the boys. The leader of the sect, Abubakar Shekau, 

announced in one of his videos he was marrying off the girls to his boys. 

 

The third video (AFP, 15 January 2018) showed the abducted Chibok girls dressed 

exactly the same way they appeared in the first video, except that some of them were 

hooded in the orthodox Islamic way. At least three of them carried a baby each – meaning 

they had either been raped or married off under duress. They said “we won’t return”. 

Apparently, they must have been told to say this by their captors and they, of course, had 

no choice than to comply. The message of the video was to give a false impression to the 

watching audience that the girls had found fulfilment and home in the Boko Haram camp 

and way of life, and, whereas, they were taken by force from their community, now they 

had willingly embraced the Boko Haram way of life so much that returning home would 

be unthinkable. This message is, particularly, targeted at the impressionable youths 

among whom the sect drew most of its recruits. They were meant to think that there was 

a hidden pleasure and bliss in the Boko Haram camp, wherever it may be, and to aspire 

to be a part of the idyllic Islamic life. 

 

The fourth video focuses on the Boko Haram leader. On 9 November 2018, Abubakar 

Shekau, leader of the Boko Haram sect, released a video meant to project his person as 

an invincible holy warrior. This was against the background of news making the rounds 

in Nigeria that he had been killed. In this video, he appeared in a military fatigue alongside 

four bodyguards similarly clad, except that they wore face masks while his own face was 

bare (SaharaTV, 2018). All of them had a rifle strung across the shoulder such that it 

rested on the chest. In the video, Shekau showered praise on his troops for their success 

in capturing some Nigerian towns such as Kumshe and Gulumba in the crisis-torn 

northeast region of Nigeria. He then, importantly, boasted about his invincibility – that he 

was alive contrary to the wicked expectation of “those that said I have died”. This video 

is a morale booster to Boko Haram fighters, especially those faraway from Shekau, 

operating in diverse secret cells. It reassures them their commander is alive and, not only 

that, he is victorious as evidenced by his claim of capture of new territories. The visual 

message passed across by his dressing and the guns is that of a battle-ready, fearless 

commander who is actively fighting himself just as he expected them to do, risking their 

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lives to attack the Nigerian military, manufacturing improvised explosive devices (IEDs) 

and detonating same on selected targets, kidnapping innocent people for forced 

conversion to Islam and huge monetary ransom, as the case may be, and so on. 

 

Conclusion 

 

We have established, using four videos as samples, that Boko Haram – a sect whose 

name means “Western education is a sin” – is heavily reliant on Western technological 

innovation such as videos for its propaganda warfare. We have also established the fact 

that each video is not a happenstance but a carefully packaged tool of communication to 

targeted audiences for specific goals. 

 

References 

 

AFP. (2018, January 15). Abducted Chibok girls say “we won’t return”. Retrieved from 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vj_kvp1GZDQ  

BBC. (2015, December 24). Nigeria Boko Haram: Militants 'technically defeated' – Buhari. 

Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-35173618 

Berelson, B. (1952). Content analysis in communication research, Glencoe: Free Press.  

British Prevention of Terrorism Act 1974 (Qld) c.54. Retrieved from  

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1974/56/contents/enacted 

CNN. (2016, April 13). Proof of life for some kidnapped Chibok schoolgirls. Retrieved from 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=DijqVWcixbo 

Hitler, A. (1998). Mein Kampf. English-German edition. [originally published in German in 

1925/7], Boston: Mariner Books. 

Kracauer, S. (1953). The challenge of qualitative analysis. The Public Opinion Quarterly, 

16(4), 631-642. 

Krippendorff, K. (2004). Content analysis: An introduction to its methodology, Thousand 

Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. 

Lasswell, H. D. (1928). The function of the propagandist. International Journal of Ethics, 

38(3), 260–261. doi:10.1086/intejethi.38.3.2378152. JSTOR 2378152. 

SaharaTV. (2018, November 9). EXCLUSIVE: In first video since July, Shekau taunts 

‘those who said I have died’. Retrieved from  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBwQN2y5Z54  

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vj_kvp1GZDQ
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-35173618
https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=DijqVWcixbo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_object_identifier
https://doi.org/10.1086%2Fintejethi.38.3.2378152
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JSTOR
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2378152


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Sanni, K. (2020, March 4). Boko Haram: US places $7m bounty on Shekau. 

PremiumTimes. Retrieved from https://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/top-

news/380259-boko-haram-us-places-7m-bounty-on-shekau.html 

Shabo, M.E. (2008). Techniques of propaganda and persuasion, Clayton, DE: Prestwick 

House. 

Zaimov, S. (2015, March 03). Boko Haram beheads two 'spies' in first public video; 

Group is being 'shaped' by ISIS' media wing, calls itself 'Islamic State Africa'. The

 Christian Post. Retrieved from https://www.christianpost.com/news/boko-haram-

beheads-two-spies-in-first-public-video-group-is-being-shaped-by-isis-media-wing-calls-

itself-islamic-state-africa.html 

 

Femi M. Olufunmilade holds a doctorate degree in Political Science and specializes in 

International Relations and Strategic Studies. At Igbinedion University Okada, Nigeria, he 

is a Professor of International Security and an international faculty member of Global 

Understanding program of East Carolina University, Greenville, USA. He is pioneer 

Director, Buratai Center for Contemporary Security Affairs, Igbinedion University. He can 

be reached via: director.bccsa@iuokada.edu.ng, femiology@gmail.com  

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https://www.christianpost.com/news/boko-haram-beheads-two-spies-in-first-public-video-group-is-being-shaped-by-isis-media-wing-calls-itself-islamic-state-africa.html
https://www.christianpost.com/news/boko-haram-beheads-two-spies-in-first-public-video-group-is-being-shaped-by-isis-media-wing-calls-itself-islamic-state-africa.html
https://www.christianpost.com/news/boko-haram-beheads-two-spies-in-first-public-video-group-is-being-shaped-by-isis-media-wing-calls-itself-islamic-state-africa.html
mailto:director.bccsa@iuokada.edu.ng
mailto:femiology@gmail.com

