Wednesday, May 14, 2014
Video - Nigerian government open to negotiations with Boko Haram for kidnapped schoolgirls
Nigeria's government signaled willingness on Tuesday to negotiate with Islamist militants holding more than 200 schoolgirls, a month after the kidnap that has provoked global outrage.
"The window of negotiation is still open," Minister of Special Duties Tanimu Turaki told Reuters by telephone.
He was speaking a day after Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau posted a video offering to release the girls in exchange for prisoners held by the government.
Senior officials say the government is exploring options and has made no commitment to negotiations for the release of the girls and Turaki declined to comment on possible talks over the kidnapping itself.
Instead, he referred to an amnesty committee that he heads set up by President Goodluck Jonathan last year to talk to the Boko Haram militants behind a five-year-old insurgency.
The committee's initial six-month mandate expired without holding direct talks with the rebels, though it has spoken to them through proxies. It has since been replaced by a standing committee empowered to conduct talks, officials said.
Boko Haram has killed thousands of people since 2009 and destabilized parts of northeast Nigeria, the country with Africa's largest population and biggest economy.
The abductions have triggered a worldwide social media campaign under the Twitter hashtag #BringBackOurGirls, and prompted the United States, Britain, France and Israel to offer help or send experts to Nigeria. U.S. surveillance aircraft were flying over remote areas of the northeast on Tuesday.
The video showed more than 110 girls sitting on the ground in a rural location, the first time they have been seen in captivity.
Though at least some of them are Christian, and Shekau described them as 'infidels', they were wearing full Islamic veils and singing and chanting Muslim prayers.
It was not clear when or where the video was filmed or whether Shekau, who sat in front of a green backdrop holding an AK-47 during part of the video, was in the same location as the girls.
Those shown were among 276 abducted on April 14 from a secondary school in the village of Chibok, Borno state, in a sparsely populated region near the borders with Cameroon, Niger and Chad. Some escaped but about 200 are still missing. The group initially threatened to sell them into slavery.
STATE OF EMERGENCY
Jonathan returned to Abuja on Tuesday from the Congo Republic, where he held talks with President Denis Sassou ahead of a regional summit in Paris on Saturday.
He asked parliament on Tuesday for a six-month extension of a state of emergency in the northeastern states of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe due to persistent attacks by Boko Haram. The emergency was declared last May and extended in November.
Yobe state Governor Ibrahim Gaidam rejected the proposal on the grounds that local people had suffered under the emergency and this harmed the government's counter-insurgency strategy.
After being accused of a sluggish response to the kidnapping, the government has sent thousands of troops to the region, while the United States and Britain also have teams on the ground to help with the search.
The U.S. State Department said Washington had sent in military, law-enforcement and development experts.
"We have shared commercial satellite imagery with the Nigerians and are flying manned ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) assets over Nigeria with the government's permission," a U.S. official said.
Britain's minister for Africa Mark Simmonds would travel to the Nigerian capital on Wednesday for talks on further assistance, the Foreign Office in London said.
Borno state Governor Kashim Shettima said 77 of the girls in the video had been identified by parents, fellow students and girls who escaped the abductions.
"The video got parents apprehensive again after watching it, but the various steps taken by the governments and the coming of the foreign troops is boosting our spirit," said Dumoma Mpura, a leader at the girls' boarding school.
Reuters
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Video - The state of Nigerian governance and Boko Haram
Boko Haram release video of kidnapped schoolgirls - demanding prisoner exchange
Tuesday, May 13, 2014
Mother identifies her kidnapped daughter in video released by Boko Haram
A mother of an abducted Nigerian schoolgirl has identified her daughter in a video posted by Islamist rebels that showed dozens of girls in captivity, a school leader said on Tuesday.
The mother watched the video on television on Monday evening and spotted her daughter among the girls sitting on the ground and wearing veils, said Dumoma Mpur, parent-teachers association chairman at Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok, northeastern Nigeria.
The leader of rebel group Boko Haram, Abubakar Shekau, issued the video on Monday offering to release more than 200 schoolgirls, who were kidnapped from the school in a raid on April 15, in exchange for prisoners held by the government. It was not immediately apparent when the video of the girls was filmed.
"The video got parents apprehensive again after watching it but the various steps taken by the governments and the coming of the foreign troops is boosting our spirit, even though I have not seen the any one soldier in Chibok yet," Mpur told Reuters by telephone.
The Nigerian government said it was exploring all options in its effort to rescue the girls. The United States and Britain have sent experts to help with the search and Nigeria has sent two divisions to the northeastern border region.
Reuters
Related stories: Boko Haram release video of kidnapped schoolgirls - demanding prisoner exchange
Video - The state of Nigerian governance and Boko Haram
The mother watched the video on television on Monday evening and spotted her daughter among the girls sitting on the ground and wearing veils, said Dumoma Mpur, parent-teachers association chairman at Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok, northeastern Nigeria.
The leader of rebel group Boko Haram, Abubakar Shekau, issued the video on Monday offering to release more than 200 schoolgirls, who were kidnapped from the school in a raid on April 15, in exchange for prisoners held by the government. It was not immediately apparent when the video of the girls was filmed.
"The video got parents apprehensive again after watching it but the various steps taken by the governments and the coming of the foreign troops is boosting our spirit, even though I have not seen the any one soldier in Chibok yet," Mpur told Reuters by telephone.
The Nigerian government said it was exploring all options in its effort to rescue the girls. The United States and Britain have sent experts to help with the search and Nigeria has sent two divisions to the northeastern border region.
Reuters
Related stories: Boko Haram release video of kidnapped schoolgirls - demanding prisoner exchange
Video - The state of Nigerian governance and Boko Haram
US commence aerial search for kidnapped schoolgirls in Nigeria
The United States has been flying "manned" missions over Nigeria to track down more than 200 abducted schoolgirls, the Pentagon said, as experts pored over a new video, seeking clues to where they are being held.
"We have shared commercial satellite imagery with the Nigerians and are flying manned ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) assets over Nigeria with the government's permission," a senior administration official told AFP news agency on Monday, asking not to be named.
It was not immediately clear what kinds of aircraft were being deployed, nor where they had come from.
A new video released by the Boko Haram group purportedly showing about 130 of the girls was being carefully studied by US experts in the hope it might yield vital clues as to where they are being held.
"Our intelligence experts are combing through every detail of the video for clues that might help ongoing efforts to secure the release of the girls," State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said earlier on Monday.
"We have no reason to question its authenticity," she added of the video.
Negotiations
In the video, the Islamic group's leader Abubakar Shekau said the girls may be released once Nigeria frees all the Boko Haram prisoners it has in custody.
But that proposal has been rejected by the Nigerian government, and Psaki recalled that the US policy is also "to deny kidnappers the benefits of their criminal acts, including ransoms or concessions”.
A 30-strong US team arrived on the ground last week in Nigeria to help growing efforts to find the girls aged between 16 to 18, snatched from their boarding school in the northeast of the country on April 14.
The White House said the team included five State Department officials, two strategic communications experts, a civilian security expert and a regional medical support officer.
Also on the manifest are 10 Defense Department planners already in Nigeria, seven extra military advisors from US Africa Command and four FBI officials expert in hostage negotiations.
"We are talking about helping the Nigerian government search an area that is roughly the size of New England," White House spokesman Jay Carney said, referring to the region in the US northeast.
"So this is no small task. But we are certainly bringing resources to bear in our effort to assist the government."
Psaki stressed the Nigerian authorities were "in the lead" during the investigation.
The girls' plight has triggered a storm of outrage across the US, and First Lady Michelle Obama on Saturday for the first time delivered her husband's weekly address to the nation to say they were both "outraged and heartbroken" by the kidnapping.
"This unconscionable act was committed by a terrorist group determined to keep these girls from getting an education - grown men attempting to snuff out the aspirations of young girls," she said.
AFP
Related stories: Nigerian government refused international help earlier in the search of kidnapped schoolgirls
Boko Haram release video of kidnapped schoolgirls - demanding prisoner exchange
"We have shared commercial satellite imagery with the Nigerians and are flying manned ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) assets over Nigeria with the government's permission," a senior administration official told AFP news agency on Monday, asking not to be named.
It was not immediately clear what kinds of aircraft were being deployed, nor where they had come from.
A new video released by the Boko Haram group purportedly showing about 130 of the girls was being carefully studied by US experts in the hope it might yield vital clues as to where they are being held.
"Our intelligence experts are combing through every detail of the video for clues that might help ongoing efforts to secure the release of the girls," State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said earlier on Monday.
"We have no reason to question its authenticity," she added of the video.
Negotiations
In the video, the Islamic group's leader Abubakar Shekau said the girls may be released once Nigeria frees all the Boko Haram prisoners it has in custody.
But that proposal has been rejected by the Nigerian government, and Psaki recalled that the US policy is also "to deny kidnappers the benefits of their criminal acts, including ransoms or concessions”.
A 30-strong US team arrived on the ground last week in Nigeria to help growing efforts to find the girls aged between 16 to 18, snatched from their boarding school in the northeast of the country on April 14.
The White House said the team included five State Department officials, two strategic communications experts, a civilian security expert and a regional medical support officer.
Also on the manifest are 10 Defense Department planners already in Nigeria, seven extra military advisors from US Africa Command and four FBI officials expert in hostage negotiations.
"We are talking about helping the Nigerian government search an area that is roughly the size of New England," White House spokesman Jay Carney said, referring to the region in the US northeast.
"So this is no small task. But we are certainly bringing resources to bear in our effort to assist the government."
Psaki stressed the Nigerian authorities were "in the lead" during the investigation.
The girls' plight has triggered a storm of outrage across the US, and First Lady Michelle Obama on Saturday for the first time delivered her husband's weekly address to the nation to say they were both "outraged and heartbroken" by the kidnapping.
"This unconscionable act was committed by a terrorist group determined to keep these girls from getting an education - grown men attempting to snuff out the aspirations of young girls," she said.
AFP
Related stories: Nigerian government refused international help earlier in the search of kidnapped schoolgirls
Boko Haram release video of kidnapped schoolgirls - demanding prisoner exchange
Monday, May 12, 2014
New Nigerian leaders needed to tackle Boko Haram - Wole Soyinka
Whilst his most famous dramatic works may be substantially metaphysical in theme, his current outlook seems more forcefully political. Or perhaps this is a product of what his admirers and questioners most want to talk about: how do we solve the ‘problem(s)’ of Nigeria?
And the problem-du-jour in Nigeria is quite clear: the case of the hundreds of school girls kidnapped by the Islamist group Boko Haram from a small town in the country’s north-eastern Borno state. The imaginative #BringBackOurGirls campaign has galvanised a previously ambivalent international community to pay attention to a conflict that was formerly viewed as a parochial ‘Nigerian problem’.
One gets the feeling that even in Nigeria the insurgency in its poor northern regions has been viewed as something that could be effectively contained and had little impact on the oil-rich southern states.
Soyinka seeks to dispel the notion that ‘Boko Haramism’, as he calls it, is a spontaneous, temporary and isolated problem. As he told an audience at a Royal African Society event last week, “it is a product of decades old political tactics”.
He says over the last 20 years, “religion has become mixed with politics to create a toxic brew”. Relations between Christians and Muslims in Nigeria have deteriorated as politicians sought grassroots support to buttress their own power.
Soyinka links the rise of religious radicalism with another blight of modern Nigeria: impunity. This word is often associated with a failure to prosecute powerful individuals guilty of corruption. However, Soyinka argues that it extends far beyond this to include those who engage in violent sectarian action – beatings and lynchings – in the name of religion, and go unpunished by the legal system. “Boko Haramism”, says Soyinka, “began with the culture of impunity on religious grounds.”
“When the first northern governor declared his state theocratic we should have said ‘No!…but the President, seeking an unconstitutional third term, needed votes from the north,” said Soyinka. But whilst Boko Haram may have its origins within the ‘Almajiri’ foot soldiers of northern politicians, something then happened that they did not expect. The foot soldiers turned on their alleged political mentors, forming the wild and uncontrolled movement we see today.
The insurgency has now grown beyond the capacity of the Nigerian state to control. The government and army “cannot handle it” and perhaps, should not even be expected to, says Soyinka. It is “the responsibility of the global community, a crime against humanity has been committed,” he said.
Soyinka calls for a new generation of Nigerians, artists or otherwise, to step up and accept leadership. It is the task of a new generation to “respond to those who think they have a divine right to mess up our lives.”
Guardian
Related stories: Video - Wole Soyinka on CNN discussing state of Nigeria, Boko Haram and the kidnapped school girls
Video - The state of Nigerian governance and Boko Haram
Nigerian government refused international help earlier in the search of kidnapped schoolgirls
The Nigerian president for weeks refused international help in the search for more than 300 girls abducted from a school by Islamist extremists, one in a series of missteps that have led to growing international outrage against the government.
Britain, Nigeria’s former colonizer, first said it was ready to help in a news release the day after the mass abduction April 15 and made a formal offer of assistance April 18, according to the British Foreign Office. The United States’ embassy and agencies offered help and were in touch with Nigeria “from Day One” of the crisis, according to Secretary of State John F. Kerry.
Yet it was only on Tuesday and Wednesday, almost a month later, that President Goodluck Jonathan accepted help from the United States, Britain, France and China.
The delay underlines what has been a major problem in the attempt to find the girls: an apparent lack of urgency on the part of the government and the military, for reasons that include a reluctance to bring in outsiders and possible infiltration by the extremists.
Jonathan bristled last week when he said President Obama, in a telephone conversation about aid, had brought up allegations of human rights abuses by Nigerian security forces. Jonathan also acknowledged that his government might be penetrated by insurgents from Boko Haram, the extremist group that kidnapped the girls.
The waiting has left parents in agony, especially because they fear some of their daughters have been forced into marriage with their abductors for a nominal bride price of $12. Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau called the girls “slaves” in a video last week and vowed to sell them.
The military has denied that it ignored warnings of the impending attack.
And Reuben Abati, an adviser to Jonathan, denied that Nigeria had turned down offers of help. “That information cannot be correct,” he said. “What John Kerry said is that this is the first time Nigeria is seeking assistance on the issue of the abducted girls.”
In fact, Kerry has said that Nigeria did not welcome U.S. help earlier because it wanted to pursue its own strategy. Sen. Christopher A. Coons (D-Del.) said Friday that it took “far too long” for Jonathan to accept U.S. offers of aid. A senior State Department official also said Friday that the United States offered help “back in April, more or less right away.”
“We didn’t go public about it because the consensus was that doing so would make the Nigerians less likely to accept our help,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the issue concerns internal discussions between governments.
Nigeria receives hundreds of thousands of dollars in U.S. aid every year to address a rising insurgency in the north and growing tensions between Christians and Muslims. The northeast, where the girls were kidnapped, is remote and sparsely populated.
The abductions at Chibok Government Girls Secondary School came hours after a blast in the capital, Abuja, killed at least 75 people. Chibok government official Bana Lawal told the AP that about 11 p.m. April 15, he received a warning via cellphone that about 200 heavily armed militants were on their way to the town.
Lawal alerted the 15 soldiers guarding Chibok, who sent an SOS to the nearest barracks, about 30 miles away. But help never came. The military says its reinforcements ran into an ambush.
The soldiers in Chibok fought valiantly but were outmanned and outgunned by the extremists, who then made their way to the school and captured dozens of girls. Police say 53 escaped on their own and 276 remain captive.
AP
Related stories: Boko Haram release video of kidnapped schoolgirls - demanding prisoner exchange
Video - The state of Nigerian governance and Boko Haram
Britain, Nigeria’s former colonizer, first said it was ready to help in a news release the day after the mass abduction April 15 and made a formal offer of assistance April 18, according to the British Foreign Office. The United States’ embassy and agencies offered help and were in touch with Nigeria “from Day One” of the crisis, according to Secretary of State John F. Kerry.
Yet it was only on Tuesday and Wednesday, almost a month later, that President Goodluck Jonathan accepted help from the United States, Britain, France and China.
The delay underlines what has been a major problem in the attempt to find the girls: an apparent lack of urgency on the part of the government and the military, for reasons that include a reluctance to bring in outsiders and possible infiltration by the extremists.
Jonathan bristled last week when he said President Obama, in a telephone conversation about aid, had brought up allegations of human rights abuses by Nigerian security forces. Jonathan also acknowledged that his government might be penetrated by insurgents from Boko Haram, the extremist group that kidnapped the girls.
The waiting has left parents in agony, especially because they fear some of their daughters have been forced into marriage with their abductors for a nominal bride price of $12. Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau called the girls “slaves” in a video last week and vowed to sell them.
The military has denied that it ignored warnings of the impending attack.
And Reuben Abati, an adviser to Jonathan, denied that Nigeria had turned down offers of help. “That information cannot be correct,” he said. “What John Kerry said is that this is the first time Nigeria is seeking assistance on the issue of the abducted girls.”
In fact, Kerry has said that Nigeria did not welcome U.S. help earlier because it wanted to pursue its own strategy. Sen. Christopher A. Coons (D-Del.) said Friday that it took “far too long” for Jonathan to accept U.S. offers of aid. A senior State Department official also said Friday that the United States offered help “back in April, more or less right away.”
“We didn’t go public about it because the consensus was that doing so would make the Nigerians less likely to accept our help,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the issue concerns internal discussions between governments.
Nigeria receives hundreds of thousands of dollars in U.S. aid every year to address a rising insurgency in the north and growing tensions between Christians and Muslims. The northeast, where the girls were kidnapped, is remote and sparsely populated.
The abductions at Chibok Government Girls Secondary School came hours after a blast in the capital, Abuja, killed at least 75 people. Chibok government official Bana Lawal told the AP that about 11 p.m. April 15, he received a warning via cellphone that about 200 heavily armed militants were on their way to the town.
Lawal alerted the 15 soldiers guarding Chibok, who sent an SOS to the nearest barracks, about 30 miles away. But help never came. The military says its reinforcements ran into an ambush.
The soldiers in Chibok fought valiantly but were outmanned and outgunned by the extremists, who then made their way to the school and captured dozens of girls. Police say 53 escaped on their own and 276 remain captive.
AP
Related stories: Boko Haram release video of kidnapped schoolgirls - demanding prisoner exchange
Video - The state of Nigerian governance and Boko Haram
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