In 1980, one of the NSO's bigger intelligence gaffs was brought to light in the wake of the Maitatsine riots in Kano. The riots in which 4,177 people lost their lives were started by the Maitasine sect, an Islamic sect founded on the teachings of the late Malam Muhammadu Marwa alias Allah Ta-Tsine or Maitatsine. Marwa, a Cameroonian preacher, was deported from Nigeria in 1960 because of his fundamentalist teachings. Before the riots broke out, the NSO has successfully infiltrated the organisation but they were still unable to predict the violent riots sparked by the group. The riots were subsequently put down with much violence by both the police and the army. The Maitatsine uprising served as a springboard for several other fundamentalist uprisings in the north of the country including the more recent Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria. In 1982 a similar riot to the 1980 Kano riots broke out in Bulumkuttu, near Maiduguri and in Kaduna all of which displayed similarities with the Kano riots.