Monday, May 12, 2014
Boko Haram release video of kidnapped schoolgirls - demanding prisoner exchange
A new video released by Islamist militants Boko Haram claims to show around 100 girls kidnapped from a school in Nigeria last month. The group's leader, Abubakar Shekau, said they would be held until all imprisoned militants had been freed.
Related stories: Video - The state of Nigerian governance and Boko Haram
Nigerian military had advance warning of Boko Haram attack that lead to kidnap of schoolgirls
Friday, May 9, 2014
Nigerian military had advance warning of Boko Haram attack that lead to kidnap of schoolgirls
Nigeria's military had advance warning of an attack on the town where some 270 girls were kidnapped but failed to act, Amnesty International says.
The human rights group says it was told by credible sources that the military had more than four hours' warning of the raid by Boko Haram militants.
Fifty-three of the girls escaped soon after being seized in Chibok on 14 April but more than 200 remain captive.
Nigeria's authorities say they "doubt the veracity" of the Amnesty report.
"If the government was aware [beforehand] there would have been an intervention [against the militants]," Nigerian Information Minister Labaran Maku told BBC World TV.
However, he said the authorities would still investigate the claims. 'Gross dereliction of duty' Amnesty says it was told by several people that the military in Maiduguri, capital of the north-eastern Borno state, was informed of the impending attack on Chibok town soon after 19:00 local time.
It says that a local official was contacted by herdsmen who said that armed men had asked them where the Government Girls' Secondary School was located in the town.
Despite the warning, reinforcements were not sent to help protect the town in the remote area, which was attacked at around midnight, Amnesty says.
One reason, the rights group says, was a "reported fear of engaging with the often better-equipped armed groups".
In its report, Amnesty International said the failure of the Nigerian security forces to stop the raid - despite knowing about it in advance - will "amplify the national and international outcry at this horrific crime".
The organisation's Africa Director Netsanet Belay said it amounted to a "gross dereliction of Nigeria's duty to protect civilians" and called on the leadership to "use all lawful means at their disposal to secure the girls' safe release and ensure nothing like this can happen again".
A father of one of two of the missing schoolgirls told the BBC's John Simpson that he believed there was "politics" behind the kidnappings because there was prior information that the militants would be coming to Chibok.
Boko Haram has admitted capturing the girls, saying they should not have been in school and should get married instead.
In a video released earlier this week, leader Abubakar Shekau threatened to "sell" the students.
It is believed the schoolgirls are being held somewhere, perhaps in scattered groups, in the vast forested areas that stretch from near Chibok into neighbouring Cameroon.
Teams of experts from the US and UK - including military advisers, negotiators and counsellors - have arrived in Nigeria to help locate and rescue the abductees.
US Secretary of State John Kerry said earlier that an inter-agency team will work with the Nigerian authorities to secure the girls' release and stressed: "We are also going to do everything possible to counter the menace of Boko Haram".
Boko Haram, whose name means "Western education is forbidden" in the Hausa language, began its insurgency in Borno state in 2009.
At least 1,200 people are estimated to have died in the violence this year alone.
The Nigerian leadership has been widely criticised for its perceived slow response to the girls' kidnapping.
More protests were held in the British capital, London, and Nigeria's main city, Lagos, on Friday.
Speaking to the BBC's World Have Your Say programme, Mr Maku said it was important to remember that the army was not fighting an "easy war" against Boko Haram, which operates over a huge area in the remote north.
BBC
Related stories: Video - The state of Nigerian governance and Boko Haram
Former UN Secretary Generaly says Africa should have reacted faster to kidnapped schoolgirls
The human rights group says it was told by credible sources that the military had more than four hours' warning of the raid by Boko Haram militants.
Fifty-three of the girls escaped soon after being seized in Chibok on 14 April but more than 200 remain captive.
Nigeria's authorities say they "doubt the veracity" of the Amnesty report.
"If the government was aware [beforehand] there would have been an intervention [against the militants]," Nigerian Information Minister Labaran Maku told BBC World TV.
However, he said the authorities would still investigate the claims. 'Gross dereliction of duty' Amnesty says it was told by several people that the military in Maiduguri, capital of the north-eastern Borno state, was informed of the impending attack on Chibok town soon after 19:00 local time.
It says that a local official was contacted by herdsmen who said that armed men had asked them where the Government Girls' Secondary School was located in the town.
Despite the warning, reinforcements were not sent to help protect the town in the remote area, which was attacked at around midnight, Amnesty says.
One reason, the rights group says, was a "reported fear of engaging with the often better-equipped armed groups".
In its report, Amnesty International said the failure of the Nigerian security forces to stop the raid - despite knowing about it in advance - will "amplify the national and international outcry at this horrific crime".
The organisation's Africa Director Netsanet Belay said it amounted to a "gross dereliction of Nigeria's duty to protect civilians" and called on the leadership to "use all lawful means at their disposal to secure the girls' safe release and ensure nothing like this can happen again".
A father of one of two of the missing schoolgirls told the BBC's John Simpson that he believed there was "politics" behind the kidnappings because there was prior information that the militants would be coming to Chibok.
Boko Haram has admitted capturing the girls, saying they should not have been in school and should get married instead.
In a video released earlier this week, leader Abubakar Shekau threatened to "sell" the students.
It is believed the schoolgirls are being held somewhere, perhaps in scattered groups, in the vast forested areas that stretch from near Chibok into neighbouring Cameroon.
Teams of experts from the US and UK - including military advisers, negotiators and counsellors - have arrived in Nigeria to help locate and rescue the abductees.
US Secretary of State John Kerry said earlier that an inter-agency team will work with the Nigerian authorities to secure the girls' release and stressed: "We are also going to do everything possible to counter the menace of Boko Haram".
Boko Haram, whose name means "Western education is forbidden" in the Hausa language, began its insurgency in Borno state in 2009.
At least 1,200 people are estimated to have died in the violence this year alone.
The Nigerian leadership has been widely criticised for its perceived slow response to the girls' kidnapping.
More protests were held in the British capital, London, and Nigeria's main city, Lagos, on Friday.
Speaking to the BBC's World Have Your Say programme, Mr Maku said it was important to remember that the army was not fighting an "easy war" against Boko Haram, which operates over a huge area in the remote north.
BBC
Related stories: Video - The state of Nigerian governance and Boko Haram
Former UN Secretary Generaly says Africa should have reacted faster to kidnapped schoolgirls
Unimpeded corruption in Nigerian government possible cause of Boko Haram's inception
The wide-scale kleptocracy of the Nigerian government, which is accused of pilfering billions of dollars of oil revenues and having spawned a massively corrupt civil service, may have played a role in giving birth to Boko Haram, the group behind the kidnappings of nearly 300 schoolgirls, experts say.
Sarah Chayes, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, studied the links between systemic corruption in governments around the world and the emergence of extremist insurgencies. She said all those countries, including Nigeria, were run by a kleptocratic clique.
“Many Nigerians suggest the emergence of Boko Haram was in part a reaction to this systematized corruption,” Chayes wrote in an op-ed piece in the Los Angeles Times.
“Corruption, in other words, has security implications."
And corruption permeates throughout the Nigerian bureaucracy. The U.S. State Department's 2013 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices found that in Nigeria, "massive widespread, and pervasive corruption affected all levels of government and the security forces."
Money from oil revenue, supposed to go to programs like health and education, instead ends up in the pockets of senior government officials and civil servants.
'Massive procurement fraud'
“One of the biggest means of siphoning money into government pockets is the civil service. And so what happens is just massive massive procurement fraud," Chayes said in an interview with CBC News.
As recently as February, questions were raised about Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan's firing of the central bank governor who was investigating the disappearance of $20 billion in oil revenue over an 18-month period.
"I don’t see any public policy focusing on that issue," Chayes said. "I see all the repression aimed at Boko Haram and none of it aimed at Goodluck Jonathan and what happened to the $20 billion."
Chayes made it clear that none of this excuses Boko Haram for its violent actions and that she's only observing that its emergence is in opposition to a system, something that has repeatedly occurred throughout history.
"If we don’t like Boko Haram or al-Qaeda or their methods then we better look at the the cause."
Founded in 2002 , the name itself translates to “Western education is a sin.” But this was not necessarily meant as a Taliban-like medieval rejection of critical thinking that the West automatically assumes, Chayes said.
Instead, Nigerians say it was meant more as a rejection of a corrupt and elitist school system that is thought to be linked to the corrupt civil service.
In order to get a job in the Nigerian civil service, one must go to school. But Nigerians say the educational system is a leftover institution from British colonialism.
When Nigerian students went through this system, they were able to get jobs in the civil service because of their school connections. This deeply corrupted educational system has persisted, with students having to buy their way in, and buy their way through exams.
“That is the context in which people said, at least initially, the notion of 'Western education is sinful' is understood. The whole education system was seen as part of the crystallization of the government into an abusive corrupt system.”
But while this may have been the genesis of Boko Haram, it has certainly morphed over the years into a violent extremist organization. Darren Kew — a professor of conflict resolution at the University of Massachusetts Boston, and executive director of its Center for Peace, Democracy, and Development — said, in the beginning, there was an ongoing debate over whether the movement should become more violent.
But as the movement grew, the Nigerian police began to crack down on members. Many were beaten or killed by security officers.
"During the growth of the movement, an essential part of their adoption of violence as the solution was the fact that they were themselves victims of government violence in the early stages," Kew said.
"There was a spiral violence that took place that certainly pushed Boko Haram on the road to violence."
CBC
Related stories: Video - Wole Soyinka on CNN discussing state of Nigeria, Boko Haram and the kidnapped school girls
Former UN Secretary Generaly says Africa should have reacted faster to kidnapped schoolgirls
Video - Nigerian Finance Minister discusses situation on kidnapped schoolgirls
Sarah Chayes, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, studied the links between systemic corruption in governments around the world and the emergence of extremist insurgencies. She said all those countries, including Nigeria, were run by a kleptocratic clique.
“Many Nigerians suggest the emergence of Boko Haram was in part a reaction to this systematized corruption,” Chayes wrote in an op-ed piece in the Los Angeles Times.
“Corruption, in other words, has security implications."
And corruption permeates throughout the Nigerian bureaucracy. The U.S. State Department's 2013 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices found that in Nigeria, "massive widespread, and pervasive corruption affected all levels of government and the security forces."
Money from oil revenue, supposed to go to programs like health and education, instead ends up in the pockets of senior government officials and civil servants.
'Massive procurement fraud'
“One of the biggest means of siphoning money into government pockets is the civil service. And so what happens is just massive massive procurement fraud," Chayes said in an interview with CBC News.
As recently as February, questions were raised about Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan's firing of the central bank governor who was investigating the disappearance of $20 billion in oil revenue over an 18-month period.
"I don’t see any public policy focusing on that issue," Chayes said. "I see all the repression aimed at Boko Haram and none of it aimed at Goodluck Jonathan and what happened to the $20 billion."
Chayes made it clear that none of this excuses Boko Haram for its violent actions and that she's only observing that its emergence is in opposition to a system, something that has repeatedly occurred throughout history.
"If we don’t like Boko Haram or al-Qaeda or their methods then we better look at the the cause."
Founded in 2002 , the name itself translates to “Western education is a sin.” But this was not necessarily meant as a Taliban-like medieval rejection of critical thinking that the West automatically assumes, Chayes said.
Instead, Nigerians say it was meant more as a rejection of a corrupt and elitist school system that is thought to be linked to the corrupt civil service.
In order to get a job in the Nigerian civil service, one must go to school. But Nigerians say the educational system is a leftover institution from British colonialism.
When Nigerian students went through this system, they were able to get jobs in the civil service because of their school connections. This deeply corrupted educational system has persisted, with students having to buy their way in, and buy their way through exams.
“That is the context in which people said, at least initially, the notion of 'Western education is sinful' is understood. The whole education system was seen as part of the crystallization of the government into an abusive corrupt system.”
But while this may have been the genesis of Boko Haram, it has certainly morphed over the years into a violent extremist organization. Darren Kew — a professor of conflict resolution at the University of Massachusetts Boston, and executive director of its Center for Peace, Democracy, and Development — said, in the beginning, there was an ongoing debate over whether the movement should become more violent.
But as the movement grew, the Nigerian police began to crack down on members. Many were beaten or killed by security officers.
"During the growth of the movement, an essential part of their adoption of violence as the solution was the fact that they were themselves victims of government violence in the early stages," Kew said.
"There was a spiral violence that took place that certainly pushed Boko Haram on the road to violence."
CBC
Related stories: Video - Wole Soyinka on CNN discussing state of Nigeria, Boko Haram and the kidnapped school girls
Former UN Secretary Generaly says Africa should have reacted faster to kidnapped schoolgirls
Video - Nigerian Finance Minister discusses situation on kidnapped schoolgirls
Thursday, May 8, 2014
Video - Chinese funded railway system in Nigeria almost complete
A Chinese funded standard gauge railway construction project that connects the Nigerian federal capital Abuja with the country's central commercial hub Kaduna, is nearing completion and is expected to reduce road congestion and the time it takes to travel between the two points. The Abuja Kaduna line, scheduled to be completed by December 2014, is co-funded by the China Exim bank and the government of Nigeria. And as CCTV's Peter Wakaba reports this project is just one of many that are transforming lives in Nigeria.
Related stories: Nigerian government signs $1.49 billion construction deal with China
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