Monday, May 19, 2014
Video - Nigerian Senator disgusted with Government's failure to find kidnapped schoolgirls
The Senator for Nigeria's Borno state said he is disappointed with how the government is dealing with the threat from Boko Haram. The armed group is behind the kidnapping of more then 200 school girls. There has been growing frustration with the slow pace of efforts to rescue them.
Related stories: Video - The state of Nigerian governance and Boko Haram
President Goodluck Jonathan cancels trip to Chibok, where schoolgirls were kidnapped
Friday, May 16, 2014
Video - Muslims in Nigeria condemn Boko Haram's kidnapping of schoolgirls
Muslims around the world have condemned the kidnappings of more than 200 Nigerian girls from their school in Chibok village on April 15.Muslim leaders said groups like Boko Haram, who have claimed responsibility for the abductions, are a disgrace to their religion.The Nigerian government has come under fire for its response to the girls' abduction, but one of the overlooked aspects has been its minimal regulation of preaching and places of worship.Clerics complain that there is no proper mechanism for certifying imams at mosques, allowing some preachers to spread their ideas unchecked.
Related stories: Video - The state of Nigerian governance and Boko Haram
Video - Nigerian government starts cooperating with international community to find kidnapped schoolgirls
President Goodluck Jonathan cancels trip to Chibok, where schoolgirls were kidnapped
Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan has called off a visit the town where more than 200 schoolgirls were abducted, officials say.
Sources had told the BBC he would stop in Chibok, in the north-east, on his way to a conference in France on the threat from Boko Haram militants.
But the visit was called off for security reasons, the officials said.
The president - under pressure over his government's failure to rescue the girls - will fly direct to Paris.
The BBC's Gabriel Gatehouse in Nigeria says the cancellation of this visit underlines just how fragile the security situation is in the north-east.
On Thursday, relatives of the girls called for their unconditional release by Boko Haram.
Mr Jonathan is said to have ruled out negotiations over a possible release of prisoners.
Nothing was seen of the girls for almost a month after they were taken from Chibok.
But on Monday the group released a video showing more than 100 of them and offering an exchange for prisoners.
UK Africa Minister Mark Simmonds said Mr Jonathan had "made it very clear that there will be no negotiation" at a meeting on Wednesday.
President Jonathan has been criticised for not visiting the town - more than a month after the girls were seized.
The president will travel to Paris to take part in a summit convened by French President Francois Hollande to discuss Boko Haram.
The leaders of Nigeria's neighbours - Benin, Cameroon, Niger and Chad - are scheduled to attend the summit on Saturday, which will also include representatives from the UK, US and EU.
A statement said delegates at the meeting will "discuss fresh strategies for dealing with the security threat posed by Boko Haram and other terrorist groups in west and Central Africa".
'Troubling atrocities'
Meanwhile, US officials on Thursday criticised the speed of Nigeria's response to the threat from Boko Haram.
Alice Friend, director for African affairs at the US defence department, said its security forces had been "slow to adapt with new strategies and new tactics".
She also said the US was unable to offer aid to Nigeria's military because of "troubling" atrocities perpetrated by some units during operations against Boko Haram.
"We cannot ignore that Nigeria can be an extremely challenging partner to work with," Ms Friend said.
State of emergency
US drones and surveillance aircraft have been deployed to assist in the search for the schoolgirls, while the UK has sent a military team to the capital, Abuja, to work alongside US, French and Israeli experts.
The lower house of Nigeria's parliament, the House of Representatives, approved an extension of the state of emergency in the north-east states of Yobe, Borno and Adamawa on Thursday.
President Jonathan had requested a six-month extension, calling the security situation in the region "daunting" and saying he was concerned by the mounting loss of life among civilians.
The state of emergency, which still needs to be approved by the Senate, gives the military widespread powers such as detaining suspects, imposing curfews and setting up roadblocks.
On Thursday, there were reports of fresh attacks by suspected Boko Haram militants in Borno state.
A witness told the BBC's Hausa Service that there had been explosions in Gamboru Ngala, were some 300 people were killed last week in a massacre blamed on Boko Haram.
BBC
Related stories: President Goodluck Jonathan states no negotiations with Boko Haram for kidnapped schoolgirls
US commence aerial search for kidnapped schoolgirls in Nigeria
Villagers take matters into their own hands and kill suspected Boko Haram militants
Sources had told the BBC he would stop in Chibok, in the north-east, on his way to a conference in France on the threat from Boko Haram militants.
But the visit was called off for security reasons, the officials said.
The president - under pressure over his government's failure to rescue the girls - will fly direct to Paris.
The BBC's Gabriel Gatehouse in Nigeria says the cancellation of this visit underlines just how fragile the security situation is in the north-east.
On Thursday, relatives of the girls called for their unconditional release by Boko Haram.
Mr Jonathan is said to have ruled out negotiations over a possible release of prisoners.
Nothing was seen of the girls for almost a month after they were taken from Chibok.
But on Monday the group released a video showing more than 100 of them and offering an exchange for prisoners.
UK Africa Minister Mark Simmonds said Mr Jonathan had "made it very clear that there will be no negotiation" at a meeting on Wednesday.
President Jonathan has been criticised for not visiting the town - more than a month after the girls were seized.
The president will travel to Paris to take part in a summit convened by French President Francois Hollande to discuss Boko Haram.
The leaders of Nigeria's neighbours - Benin, Cameroon, Niger and Chad - are scheduled to attend the summit on Saturday, which will also include representatives from the UK, US and EU.
A statement said delegates at the meeting will "discuss fresh strategies for dealing with the security threat posed by Boko Haram and other terrorist groups in west and Central Africa".
'Troubling atrocities'
Meanwhile, US officials on Thursday criticised the speed of Nigeria's response to the threat from Boko Haram.
Alice Friend, director for African affairs at the US defence department, said its security forces had been "slow to adapt with new strategies and new tactics".
She also said the US was unable to offer aid to Nigeria's military because of "troubling" atrocities perpetrated by some units during operations against Boko Haram.
"We cannot ignore that Nigeria can be an extremely challenging partner to work with," Ms Friend said.
State of emergency
US drones and surveillance aircraft have been deployed to assist in the search for the schoolgirls, while the UK has sent a military team to the capital, Abuja, to work alongside US, French and Israeli experts.
The lower house of Nigeria's parliament, the House of Representatives, approved an extension of the state of emergency in the north-east states of Yobe, Borno and Adamawa on Thursday.
President Jonathan had requested a six-month extension, calling the security situation in the region "daunting" and saying he was concerned by the mounting loss of life among civilians.
The state of emergency, which still needs to be approved by the Senate, gives the military widespread powers such as detaining suspects, imposing curfews and setting up roadblocks.
On Thursday, there were reports of fresh attacks by suspected Boko Haram militants in Borno state.
A witness told the BBC's Hausa Service that there had been explosions in Gamboru Ngala, were some 300 people were killed last week in a massacre blamed on Boko Haram.
BBC
Related stories: President Goodluck Jonathan states no negotiations with Boko Haram for kidnapped schoolgirls
US commence aerial search for kidnapped schoolgirls in Nigeria
Villagers take matters into their own hands and kill suspected Boko Haram militants
Thursday, May 15, 2014
Video - Nigerian government starts cooperating with international community to find kidnapped schoolgirls
Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan has rejected the idea of a swap of Boko Haram prisoners for schoolgirls who were kidnapped by the Islamist group a month ago. This announcement was made by Britain's minister for Africa after talks with Jonathan in Abuja on Wednesday. Meanwhile, an international manhunt is underway to find and rescue the girls.
Related stories: US commence aerial search for kidnapped schoolgirls in Nigeria
Villagers take matters into their own hands and kill suspected Boko Haram militants
Boko Haram release video of kidnapped schoolgirls - demanding prisoner exchange
President Goodluck Jonathan states no negotiations with Boko Haram for kidnapped schoolgirls
After days of playing coy, the Nigerian government has now said it will not swap Boko Haram prisoners for the over 200 schoolgirls the militant Islamist group abducted a month ago.The decision by President Goodluck Jonathan was not unexpected by most foreign observers, and was relayed to the media separately Wednesday by Nigeria's Interior Minister Abba Moro and then later by Britain's top government official in Africa, Mark Simmonds, who had just come out of a meeting with Jonathan.
Though not everyone is convinced that there is nothing going on behind the scenes.
Many countries deny paying any money or even engaging in talks with hostage-takers. But Fred Burton, a vice-president at the global intelligence group Stratfor, says he has learned the hard way that these claims can be false.
While employed by the U.S. State Department as a counter-terrorism agent, he worked on the Lebanon hostage crisis in the 1980s, when dozens of foreign nationals, including many Americans, were kidnapped.
"We were looking for hostages being held, and lo and behold, our own government was negotiating with the terrorists behind everybody's backs," said Burton.
The lesson, he says, is that governments sometimes "talk out of both sides of their mouth," despite knowing that ransom payments and prisoner exchanges can lead to more kidnappings in the future.
Clever ploy
The offer of a prisoner exchange by Boko Haram was "an extremely clever ploy" to put additional pressure on the Nigerian government, said John Campbell, who served as U.S. ambassador to Nigeria in the late 1980s and late 2000s.
But even before the government made its position clear on negotiating, Campbell said he doubted it would happen.
To concede anything to the Islamist sect would probably just escalate its years-long fight against the Jonathan government, increase the prospect of future kidnappings and cause the government to suffer an "enormous loss of prestige," says Campbell.
"So I don't really think that in any meaningful way that negotiations are in the cards."
Boko Haram and, to a lesser extent, the Nigerian government have been under intense international condemnation this past month since upwards of 200 schoolgirls were kidnapped by the militants from a boarding school in Chibok in the troubled northeastern portion of the country.
After weeks of international pressure, including a #BringBackOurGirls Twitter campaign involving celebrities and politicians from all, the Nigerian government gave in and allowed Western militaries to help search for the missing girls.
Earlier this week, though, saw the release of a second Boko Haram video that showed leader Abubakar Shekhau with some of the girls and demanding a prisoner exchange for at least the Christian schoolgirls in the militants' possession.
In response, a Nigerian government official said "all options" are on the table, and that "the window of negotiation is still open."
Negotiated in the past
How serious that option was is open for debate. Boko Haram analyst Jacob Zenn has said that the Jonathan government has taken part in trade-offs with the militants in the past.
Boko Haram, which loosely translated means "Western education is forbidden," began its violent insurgency about five years ago. Years earlier, it had emerged as a religious sect in the predominantly Muslim north, where many feel marginalized by the government in the south.
Zenn, an analyst with the Washington-based Jamestown Foundation, told CNN that a year ago, Boko Haram raided Bama, a town near the Cameroon border, killing people and taking wives and children.
It then used these hostages to demand the Nigerian security forces release Shekhau's wife and the wives and children of some of the group's commanders.
Two weeks later, nearly 100 Boko Haram members and relatives were set free and those held by Boko Haram were "rescued," according to an official account, says Zenn.
He also says that security sources told him there was a financial payoff as well.
On Feb. 19, 2013, Boko Haram also abducted a French family of seven visiting a park in Cameroon.
After they were released two months later, Reuters reported it had obtained a Nigerian government document that indicated a ransom of $3 million had been paid. French and Cameroonian authorities denied the report.
Campbell cautioned that it's hard to know how the Nigerian government has dealt with Boko Haram in the past and whether it has paid ransom. "It never ever admits to having done so," he notes.
Still, kidnappings are a big business in Nigeria.
The country ranks third among those with the highest number of kidnappings, according to a 2013 report by Control Risks, a global consulting firm that specializes in such risks.
CBC
Related stories: Video - Nigerian government open to negotiations with Boko Haram for kidnapped schoolgirls
Video - The state of Nigerian governance and Boko Haram
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)