Nigeria has "technically won the war" against Islamist Boko Haram militants, President Muhammadu Buhari says.
He told the BBC that the militant group could no longer mount "conventional attacks" against security forces or population centres.
It had been reduced to fighting with improvised explosives devices (IED) and remained a force only in its heartland of Borno state, he said.
Boko Haram has been described as one of the world's deadliest terror groups.
Critics of the government argue that it has exaggerated the scale of its success against the militants, and that each time the army claims to have wiped out Boko Haram, the militants have quietly rebuilt.
President Buhari has given the army until the end of this year to defeat the group - a deadline that is likely to be extended as Boko Haram is still bombing some areas despite losing towns under its control.
But he told the BBC that the jihadists had been all but driven out from Adamawa and Yobe states, and their way of operating curtailed.
"Boko Haram has reverted to using improvised explosive devices (IEDs)," he said. "Indoctrinating young guys... they have now been reduced to that.
"But articulated conventional attacks on centres of communication and populations.. they are no longer capable of doing that effectively.
"So I think technically we have won the war because people are going back into their neighbourhoods. Boko Haram as an organised fighting force, I assure you, that we have dealt with them."
Only a few days ago, Islamic State, to whom Boko Haram is affiliated, said its West Africa division had launched more than 100 attacks - killing more than 1,000 people - over the past two months, the Site Intelligence Group, with monitors jihadist websites, reported.
Bokon Haram has also broadened its threat to neighbouring countries, around the Lake Chad region. It reportedly killed five people in a raid in Niger earlier this week.
Mr Buhari said that Nigeria had reorganised and reequipped the military, which had received training from the British, the Americans and the French.
A key priority for the government now, he said, is to rebuild infrastructure and help all displaced people to return to their homes.
BBC
Thursday, December 24, 2015
Wednesday, December 23, 2015
Video - Nigeria clothing label AGAMA launches in Toronto, Canada
A behind the scenes look of a photo-shoot in Toronto, Canada for Nigeria clothing label Agama.
Video - British government to support Nigeria military force with training
The British government says it will double its support for Nigeria's fight against Boko Haram by deploying more British forces to the West African nation. British Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said that the forces will not engage in any combat role but instead provide training. The support comes at a time when Nigerian troops are making a final push into the Boko Haram stronghold of the Sambisa forest in the country's Northeast Borno State.
Nigeria gives MTN December 31 deadline to pay $3.9billion fine
Nigeria will enforce a Dec. 31 deadline for MTN Group Ltd. to pay a $3.9 billion fine even after Africa’s biggest wireless operator said it would challenge the penalty in a Lagos court, according to a spokesman for the communications ministry.
“MTN has the right to seek the court’s interpretation if it feels unsatisfied with the action of the regulator but nothing would stop the government action on the fine,” Victor Oluwadamilare, the spokesman for Communications Minister Adebayo Shittu, said in an e-mailed response to questions on Tuesday. Nigeria won’t consider an extension to the deadline, he said.
MTN said Dec. 17 it will ask the court to rule on the fine, saying that the penalty wasn’t within the powers of the country’s telecommunications regulator to impose. The Johannesburg-based company’s shares have declined 26% since the fine was made public almost two months ago. They gained 4.5% to R141.16 by the close in the city, valuing the company at R261 billion ($17.1 billion).
The Nigerian communications regulator imposed the penalty on MTN for failing to meet a deadline to disconnect 5.1 million unregistered subscribers as security agencies seek to fight crime in a country with poor identity records. The initial fine of $5.2 billion was reduced by 25% earlier this month following talks with the regulator led by MTN Chairman Phuthuma Nhleko. MTN has said it continues to engage with the Nigerian authorities even as it seeks a resolution in court.
Oluwadamilare declined to comment on what will happen if MTN misses the deadline, although Lagos-based newspaper Vanguard cited Communications Minister Shittu as saying another fine could be imposed. MTN spokesman Chris Maroleng didn’t immediately return a phone call or text message seeking comment.
Bloomberg
“MTN has the right to seek the court’s interpretation if it feels unsatisfied with the action of the regulator but nothing would stop the government action on the fine,” Victor Oluwadamilare, the spokesman for Communications Minister Adebayo Shittu, said in an e-mailed response to questions on Tuesday. Nigeria won’t consider an extension to the deadline, he said.
MTN said Dec. 17 it will ask the court to rule on the fine, saying that the penalty wasn’t within the powers of the country’s telecommunications regulator to impose. The Johannesburg-based company’s shares have declined 26% since the fine was made public almost two months ago. They gained 4.5% to R141.16 by the close in the city, valuing the company at R261 billion ($17.1 billion).
The Nigerian communications regulator imposed the penalty on MTN for failing to meet a deadline to disconnect 5.1 million unregistered subscribers as security agencies seek to fight crime in a country with poor identity records. The initial fine of $5.2 billion was reduced by 25% earlier this month following talks with the regulator led by MTN Chairman Phuthuma Nhleko. MTN has said it continues to engage with the Nigerian authorities even as it seeks a resolution in court.
Oluwadamilare declined to comment on what will happen if MTN misses the deadline, although Lagos-based newspaper Vanguard cited Communications Minister Shittu as saying another fine could be imposed. MTN spokesman Chris Maroleng didn’t immediately return a phone call or text message seeking comment.
Bloomberg
Nigerian military killed hundreds of Shiites in raid according to Human Rights Watch
Nigerian soldiers fired on unarmed Islamic Shiite children with no provocation in raids that killed hundreds of the minority group in the West African nation, Human Rights Watch said Wednesday.
The charges come as the guardian of Nigeria's estimated 80 million-plus Muslims, Sultan Muhammad Sa'ad Abubakar of Sokoto, warned the government against actions that could further radicalize Muslims in a country that already has lost 20,000 lives to the Boko Haram Islamic uprising.
Human Rights Watch said it doubts the Nigerian military's version that raids over three days on three Shiite locations in northern Zaria town followed an attempted assassination of the army chief.
Nigeria's military said the raids Dec. 12 through Dec. 14 came after Shiites tried to block the convoy of Gen. Tukur Buratai.
"It is almost impossible to see how a roadblock by angry young men could justify the killings of hundreds of people. At best it was a brutal overreaction and at worst it was a planned attack on the minority Shia group," said the Africa director of Human Rights Watch, Daniel Bekele.
The New York-based group said the army's version "just doesn't stack up."
As many as 1,000 people may have been killed, rights activists say, sparking protests in Nigeria's mainly Muslim north that spread to Tehran, the Iranian capital, and New Delhi in India.
Witnesses at the Husainniyah spiritual center said dozens of soldiers took up positions by the mosque at around midday on December 12, 2015, at least an hour before the army chief of staff was due to pass by, according to Human Rights Watch. Video footage shot by sect members and posted on YouTube appears to show soldiers calmly setting up before the shootings began.
Without provocation, the soldiers fired on people coming out of the mosque, initially killing five people and injuring others, including children attending classes at the center, according to Human Rights Watch, which said it interviewed many witnesses separately at locations in Kaduna and Zaria, on December 17 and 18.
A 14-year-old girl attending a math class in the mosque complex said that she was shot as she walked out of the center with other children, according to Human Rights Watch.
The Shiite group's leader, Iran-influenced Ibraheem Zakzaky who dresses like an ayatollah, suffered four bullet wounds, according to the family doctor, and is among scores detained.
Shiites wounded in the attacks are dying in military and police detention because they are being denied medical care, the Shiite Islamic Movement in Nigeria said Tuesday.
Kaduna state police Wednesday released 83 people including 34 children arrested in "the Zaria clash," according to Samuel Aruwan, spokesman for Gov. Nasir El-Rufai.
Another 191 suspects have been charged with offences including obstruction of highways, possession of weapons and attacking security agents, he said.
Ibrahim Musa, a spokesman for the Islamic Movement in Nigeria, charged Kaduna state government has taken over from the military in destroying property of the movement, estimated to have 3 million followers. A school and cemetery were bulldozed Monday, he said.
The leader of Nigeria's Muslims warned against violence targeting peaceful Muslims. "The history of the circumstances that engendered the outbreak of militant insurgency in the past, with cataclysmic consequences that Nigeria is yet to recover from, should not be allowed to repeat itself," Abubakar, president of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, said Monday.
Boko Haram re-emerged as a much more violent entity after security forces attacked their mosque and compound and killed about 700 people in 2009 including leader Mohammed Yusuf, a breakaway follower of Zakzaky.
ABC
The charges come as the guardian of Nigeria's estimated 80 million-plus Muslims, Sultan Muhammad Sa'ad Abubakar of Sokoto, warned the government against actions that could further radicalize Muslims in a country that already has lost 20,000 lives to the Boko Haram Islamic uprising.
Human Rights Watch said it doubts the Nigerian military's version that raids over three days on three Shiite locations in northern Zaria town followed an attempted assassination of the army chief.
Nigeria's military said the raids Dec. 12 through Dec. 14 came after Shiites tried to block the convoy of Gen. Tukur Buratai.
"It is almost impossible to see how a roadblock by angry young men could justify the killings of hundreds of people. At best it was a brutal overreaction and at worst it was a planned attack on the minority Shia group," said the Africa director of Human Rights Watch, Daniel Bekele.
The New York-based group said the army's version "just doesn't stack up."
As many as 1,000 people may have been killed, rights activists say, sparking protests in Nigeria's mainly Muslim north that spread to Tehran, the Iranian capital, and New Delhi in India.
Witnesses at the Husainniyah spiritual center said dozens of soldiers took up positions by the mosque at around midday on December 12, 2015, at least an hour before the army chief of staff was due to pass by, according to Human Rights Watch. Video footage shot by sect members and posted on YouTube appears to show soldiers calmly setting up before the shootings began.
Without provocation, the soldiers fired on people coming out of the mosque, initially killing five people and injuring others, including children attending classes at the center, according to Human Rights Watch, which said it interviewed many witnesses separately at locations in Kaduna and Zaria, on December 17 and 18.
A 14-year-old girl attending a math class in the mosque complex said that she was shot as she walked out of the center with other children, according to Human Rights Watch.
The Shiite group's leader, Iran-influenced Ibraheem Zakzaky who dresses like an ayatollah, suffered four bullet wounds, according to the family doctor, and is among scores detained.
Shiites wounded in the attacks are dying in military and police detention because they are being denied medical care, the Shiite Islamic Movement in Nigeria said Tuesday.
Kaduna state police Wednesday released 83 people including 34 children arrested in "the Zaria clash," according to Samuel Aruwan, spokesman for Gov. Nasir El-Rufai.
Another 191 suspects have been charged with offences including obstruction of highways, possession of weapons and attacking security agents, he said.
Ibrahim Musa, a spokesman for the Islamic Movement in Nigeria, charged Kaduna state government has taken over from the military in destroying property of the movement, estimated to have 3 million followers. A school and cemetery were bulldozed Monday, he said.
The leader of Nigeria's Muslims warned against violence targeting peaceful Muslims. "The history of the circumstances that engendered the outbreak of militant insurgency in the past, with cataclysmic consequences that Nigeria is yet to recover from, should not be allowed to repeat itself," Abubakar, president of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, said Monday.
Boko Haram re-emerged as a much more violent entity after security forces attacked their mosque and compound and killed about 700 people in 2009 including leader Mohammed Yusuf, a breakaway follower of Zakzaky.
ABC
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