For over a decade, Boko Haram has launched attacks in the Sahel region. The group launched its first series of attacks in Nigeria's Borno state. A report by the Tony Blair Institute says Boko Haram established power by exploiting social vulnerabilities. Chief among those is the low-level of education in Nigeria's northeast. UNESCO puts the literacy rate for Borno state at 14 point 5 percent. The report urges authorities to prioritise soft-power policy programmes to combat the threat posed by Boko Haram.
Wednesday, July 28, 2021
Nigerian Police Ordered to Free 5 Anti-Buhari Activists
A Nigerian court has ordered the secret police to release five suspects detained for wearing T-shirts criticizing President Muhammadu Buhari, their lawyer said Tuesday.
The men were arrested early this month by the Department of State Service (DSS) during a church service led by a well-known evangelical pastor in the Nigerian capital Abuja.
They had been wearing T-shirts with the slogan "Buhari Must Go!" inside the church when they were arrested and detained.
The church was accused of aiding the arrests, but it denied the allegation.
On Monday, the federal high court Abuja ordered the DSS to release the suspects, lawyer Allen Sowore told AFP.
"The judge ordered their release forthwith without any condition. But we have not got a certified true copy of that order," he said.
He said his clients were yet to be freed.
"Unfortunately, the judge has not signed the order. So, we just came here [to the DSS office] thinking that they will act on the order of the court, but they have not acted."
Buhari, a former army commander, has come under fire after his government recently banned Twitter, a move Western allies and critics warned undermined freedom of expression.
Officials announced the ban after Twitter removed a remark from Buhari's personal account for violating its policies.
The Nigerian leader is also under pressure to tackle the country's insecurity.
The security forces are battling an Islamist insurgency in the northeast, a surge in mass kidnappings by criminal gangs in central and northwestern states, and separatist tension in parts of the south.
Monday, July 26, 2021
Video - Kidnappers in Nigeria release 28 schoolchildren
Emotional scenes in Nigeria’s Kaduna state as 28 schoolchildren were reunited with their parents after being abducted by armed men. Other families were left in tears, with 87 students still missing.
Nigeria school kidnappers abduct man delivering ransom
Kidnappers in Nigeria have seized a man who was sent to deliver a ransom payment to secure the release of dozens of abducted school children.
The elderly man was sent by the children's parents after they managed to raise 30m naira ($73,000; £53,000) by selling land and other possessions.
But they have been left feeling hopeless following his kidnapping.
The north of the country is in the midst of a wave of school abductions carried out by criminals for profit.
Ransoms are frequently paid, but this is a rare case where the person carrying the cash has been taken.
The kidnappers called up the school's headteacher to say that the money delivered was not the agreed sum.
The 136 students were taken from an Islamic school in Tegina, Niger state, in late May.
Gunmen riding on motorcycles stormed the town and opened fire indiscriminately killing one person and injuring another.
As people fled, the attackers went to the school and seized the children.
The parents and school administrators negotiated with the criminals and agreed to pay the ransom. They sold part of the school's land as well as other possessions.
Headteacher Malam Abubakar Alhassan told the BBC that six people were sent with the correct amount to meet the kidnappers near the forest where the children were being held.
When they arrived, the gunmen demanded that one of the group, an elderly man, follow them into the forest so that the cash could be counted.
But they later called to say the money was not sufficient.
"Parents are now resigned to fate. They say they can't raise any more money. They are now relying on God," Mr Alhassan told the BBC.
More than 1,000 students have been abducted from schools across northern Nigeria since December last year.
Hundreds of them are still in captivity, but 28 of the 121 children taken from the Bethel Baptist High School in Kaduna state earlier this month were freed on Saturday night.
The authorities are being severely criticised for their failure to tackle the country's widespread insecurity including the deepening kidnapping crisis.
By Ishaq Khalid
Related stories: Nigeria gunmen kidnap 'nurses and infants' from hospital
Three students dead after Nigeria school kidnapping, says principal
Nigerian outrage at brazen bandit attacks
Nigerians refer to them as bandits - a word that does not quite do justice to what are in fact networks of sophisticated criminals who operate across large swathes of northern-western and central Nigeria.
Gangs on motorbikes terrorise the region, stealing animals, kidnapping for ransom, killing anyone who dares confront them and taxing farmers - it's a huge money-making operation.
Over the last four years the security forces have not been able to get a handle on the situation, which millions of Nigerians feel is out of control.
Last week President Muhammadu Buhari inaugurated the Dutsinma-to-Tsaskiya road in his home state of Katsina but few people dare travel on it after countless attacks.
Most top government officials, including security chiefs, take the train linking the capital, Abuja, to Kaduna because of frequent abductions on the road between the two cities.
A serving army general was recently killed on the main road from Abuja to central Kogi state and his sister, who had been travelling with him, was kidnapped.
This week, 13 military police were killed in an ambush in Zamfara state when at the same time at least 150 villagers were abducted.
At the moment at least 300 students are being held by kidnappers who seized them from their schools in Kaduna, Niger and Kebbi states at different times over the last two months - many taken in broad daylight.
Some are Islamic primary school students as young as five and most of them, if the kidnappers are to be believed, have fallen sick.
In all these cases, the gangs are asking for huge amounts of money to release the children - ransoms the parents cannot afford, while the authorities insist that they will neither pay ransoms nor negotiate with criminals.
The kidnappers, whose hideouts are in vast camps in forests, are brazen.
As they hold out for payment, they hassle parents with demands for bags of rice, beans and cooking oil to feed their captives.
Dozens of schools spread across at least five northern states have been closed by the authorities as they are unable to protect them.
Food prices spiral
This has not stopped the gangs, who have recently turned to targeting more high-profile figures such as a local emir and his family.
Hundreds of villages have been deserted after some of the most brutal and deadly attacks.
In some areas, the gangs dictate what the locals can do and levy taxes.
Such insecurity in one of the country's rich agricultural belts is clear for all to see.
This year has already seen unprecedented rises in the prices of staple foods like maize, rice and beans that are grown there.
Now in the middle of the farming season huge tracts of farmland are inaccessible.
'Sophisticated know-how'
The one clear advantage - air power - that the authorities seemed to have over the criminals is now under threat.
Reports that a military jet had been shot down on Sunday by one of the gangs were at first flatly denied.
But when villagers in the area told reporters they had helped the pilot to escape to safety, the military issued a statement with a more positive spin - commending the "gallant pilot" who had come under "intense enemy fire" after a "successful" mission.
The authorities may have tried to downplay the incident but it shocked security analysts.
"We know the bandits have all those bazookas, rocket launchers… We didn't believe they have the technical know-how and capacity to use them," retired security official Mike Ejiofor told the Vanguard newspaper.
Some of the gang members have been boasting of their alliance with Islamist Boko Haram militants, who have waged a decade-long insurgency in north-eastern Nigeria and some of whom are now linked to the Islamic State group. Such allegations have not been independently verified.
However one bandit leader holding about 90 schoolchildren has told their parents that he will marry off the girls to his fighters and indoctrinate the boys to join his group - tactics used by Boko Haram to expand.
For one columnist, Boko Haram specialist Bulama Bukarti, these outrages take the issue to another level.
"It is time for Buhari to declare these beasts as the terrorists that they are and deploy all available resources to fight them. There can be no ifs, no buts, no equivocation."
Mr Ejiofor echoed this, saying: "The military should go all out for them and carry out sustained bombing of their enclaves."
The communities affected are at their wits' end over the growing boldness of the criminal gangs.
But with more calls for more military intervention, some may be looking nervously at the three states left devastated by Boko Haram - where millions are still living in overcrowded camps far from their old homes and livelihoods.
Related stories: 100 kidnapped villagers freed after 42-day captivity
Video - Nigeria kidnappings: Parents of abducted students of Kaduna plead for help
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)