The Nation Newspaper

Tag: schoolgirls

  • Nigeria falters in the face of terrorism

    Nigeria falters in the face of terrorism

    THE response of Nigeria’s government to the abduction of more than 200 schoolgirls by suspected Islamist militants began with confusion and has become increasingly shambolic, creating chaos that in other countries would see senior heads roll. President Goodluck Jonathan has remained remarkably silent about the kidnapping of the girls, a story that outraged many and triggered one of Nigeria’s rare street protests. Five years into an insurgency by the Islamist sect Boko Haram that claims thousands of lives every year, Mr Jonathan seems distracted while the military has failed to stop the bloodshed despite a multi-billion dollar-a-year budget.

    Elsewhere, recent human disasters have caused governments to wobble severely. The disappearance of flight MH370 with 239 people on board in early March was an embarrassment for the Malaysian government. Malaysia continues to endure heavy-handed criticism from China regarding a lack of transparency of Prime Minister Najib Razek and senior cabinet members, straining diplomatic relations. In South Korea, Prime Minister Chung Hong-won offered his resignation over the government’s handling of a ferry disaster on April 16th that killed at least 187, many of them schoolchildren. Meanwhile, the Nigerian elite points fingers.

    On April 30th, hundreds of Nigerians took to the streets of Abuja, the capital, as well as in northern city Kano in an attempt to jolt the government out of its stupor and find the missing girls. Horrific reports of mass marriages involving insurgents are slowly leaking into the press, only adding to the misery of families frustrated with the apparent inaction of the government. In desperation, parents have launched their own rescue attempts. Security analysts suggest the girls may have been taken into neighbouring Cameroon.

    In the pounding tropical rain, the former vice-president of the World Bank, Oby Ezekwesili, led the April 30th protest in Abuja. Senate president David Mark addressed the rally. “We are lost for words. We can only apologise that it is taking this long to get these girls released. We are not going to rest until the last of the girls is freed. All the security apparatus, all of us must get involved in this battle.”

    So far, foreign politicians have said more about the attack than Nigeria’s. Former British prime minister Gordon Brown, the United Nations’ special adviser on girls’ education, is going to visit Nigeria to launch a campaign to raise funds for and awareness of the missing schoolgirls.

    Messages from the Nigerian military are odds with statements from the girls’ school and other state authorities. The defence ministry issued an inaccurate report claiming all but eight of the girls had been found and then retracted it, further damaging the government’s credibility. Boko Haram has been going after softer targets such as schools and markets with increasing ferocity. But the mass abduction is unprecedented.

  • Nigeria’s missing schoolgirls

    Nigeria’s missing schoolgirls

    Islamist extremists from the Boko Haram sect have a five-year record of atrocities. In the impoverished northeast of Nigeria they have murdered schoolchildren, attacked mosques and churches and this year slaughtered villagers in their hundreds – in the pursuit of imposing strict Islamic law on a multi-ethnic and multi-faith nation.

    In the past three weeks they have carried out two bomb attacks in a crowded neighbourhood of Abuja, the capital, signalling a fresh bid to broaden their impact after a period in which they have been largely confined to the remote northeast. Nearly 100 people died in both attacks, the latest of which comes days before Abuja is due to host business leaders and politicians from across the continent and beyond at a World Economic Forum conference.

    The militants’ sobriquet translates as “western education is forbidden”. No crime they have committed in that name has traumatised the country quite like the abduction of 270 schoolgirls on April 14. The girls, aged between 16 and 18, were preparing to sit exams when they were taken from school hostels late at night. About 50 escaped. It is thought that the militants initially took the rest to a forest redoubt. Subsequent reports suggest some may have been trafficked into Chad and Cameroon and forced to “marry” the insurgents as sex slaves.

    There is no easy way to combat an enemy willing to use such tactics. But the mass abduction, together with the bombings in Abuja, have exposed the limitations of Nigeria’s counter-insurgency strategy and greatly undermined public confidence in the capacity of the state.

    Nigerians have understandably been outraged at the girls’ disappearance, incensed by ineffectual efforts to find and free them and upset at an initial lack of international support – which some have contrasted to global efforts to track down the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. That is changing. A Twitter campaign under the hashtag “bringbackourgirls” is drawing global attention. Both Britain and the US have offered assistance. The Nigerian military is now reportedly deploying more troops in addition to those struggling to police a state of emergency in the worst affected states.

    Meanwhile, the tragic plight of the girls has united Nigerians in demanding a more effective response to the threat posed by Boko Haram. President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration can build on this sentiment to make the case for a more comprehensive approach to the crisis.

    His administration has committed ever greater resources for defence – now twice those allocated to national education. But his military strategy to contain the insurgency is insufficient given the magnitude of the threat. This is exacerbating divisions between the predominately Muslim north and mostly Christian south, and poisoning national politics just when Nigeria should be capitalising on its new status as Africa’s largest economy.

    More troops are clearly needed to protect villages and schools and to pursue Boko Haram in the bush. Belatedly, the government is putting together a relief fund to help victims of the violence.

    This should be buttressed with a well-resourced, and publicised development plan to address the economic malaise of the north. This has worsened in parallel with a surge in pockets of relative affluence in the south and contributed to the radicalisation of parts of the population. The government should also intensify efforts alongside northern political, traditional and religious elites to deradicalise and reintegrate militants while isolating the hard core of terrorists.

    The battle will inevitably be long. But Nigerians need to feel as though the state is winning. For now, they do not.

    -Financial Times