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Argument

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Nigeria's Absent Commander-in-Chief

With the country descending into chaos, President

Goodluck Jonathan is running out of excuses and places to

hide.

BY Azubuike Ishiekwene / MAY 9, 2014

Regardless of what President Goodluck Jonathan's government would have us believe,

Nigeria is losing the war against Boko Haram.

Days after the chief of defense staff, Air Marshal Alex Badeh, took over in January 2014,

he vowed to end the Boko Haram onslaught by April. He had barely finished speaking

when gunmen struck, killing over 70 people in separate attacks in the northeastern

states of Borno and Adamawa -- two of the three states that have become the hotbed of

recent violence. The defense chief ate the humble pie and promptly disavowed setting any deadline to end the killings.

Since then, Boko Haram has carried out a slew of other attacks, including two high-

profile ones in the country's capital, Abuja. The most outrageous attack yet, however,

was the mass abduction of 276 schoolgirls who were taking their final high school exams

in Chibok, Borno state, on April 14, hours after a bus station was attacked in Abuja,

killing 75 people. At least 200 of those girls are still missing, and eight more were

abducted in the same town on May 6. A day after that, Boko Haram insurgents attacked

another Borno town, killing hundreds and displacing even more. Full-scale war doesn't get much worse.

It's no use asking what Jonathan is doing about it. It took him three weeks simply to

speak up about the abducted girls. Jonathan has blamed everyone and everything for

the escalating violence in the northeast, except his own government. At a political rally

in one of the northeastern states in March, he said governors in the region who were

investing poorly in education were feeding the monster. His aides have accused

influential northern politicians of stoking the violence to get even with Jonathan for

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betraying "a gentleman's agreement" that would have permitted him only one term in

office after the sudden 2010 death of Umaru Musa Yar'Adua, the immediate past

president from the north.

But it's nonsense to suggest that these politicians, whoever they are, would kill their kith

and kin -- and abduct their daughters on a mass scale -- to prevent Jonathan from

returning to power. The country is yet to recover from the shock that, while a distraught

public was still trying to figure out the whereabouts of the abducted girls, the president

was on the hustings, crowing for a second term.

However you slice it, the truth is that Boko Haram and its franchises have exploited the

president's failure to lead, turning what started as a skirmish into raging warfare.

However you slice it, the truth is that Boko Haram and its franchises have exploited the

president's failure to lead, turning what started as a skirmish into raging warfare.

Boko Haram predates Jonathan, but, in his four years of being in charge, the insurgency

has escalated, defying two perfunctory purges of the military high command after a

series of high-profile bombings -- including an August 2011 attack on the U.N. building

in Abuja and another on a church on the outskirts of the capital on Christmas Day of that

year, claiming dozens of lives. In the aftermath, many government buildings in the

capital, including the police headquarters -- also the target of an earlier attack -- were barricaded, and checkpoints mushroomed.

If the capital had any respite at all, it is unclear whether it was because of these

measures. What is clear, however, is that the northeastern states, which make up

roughly one-sixth of the country, have been in a virtual state of unrelenting war.

The federal government declared a six-month state of emergency in three states in April

2013 and renewed it later in the year when conditions did not improve. It created a joint

military task force and encouraged civilians in the area to form vigilante groups. These

steps appeared promising. But turf war within the ranks of the task force, coupled with

charges of extrajudicial killings by residents, soon damaged confidence in the counterinsurgency measures at the federal and local levels.

Jonathan has not helped matters. He has been anything but a commander in chief,

creating the impression that as long as Abuja is relatively secure, the rest of the country

can burn. And any illusions about the security of Abuja have been shattered by the two

recent deadly attacks at a bus station only 15 minutes from Aso Rock, the presidential

residence. The attacks raised fresh questions about the closed-circuit television cameras

installed in Abuja two years ago to fight crime. If the cameras, installed by the

government at a reported cost of $470 million to help secure the capital, have been

vandalized and left unattended, it's easy to understand why so much of the country is vulnerable.

The escalating terror attacks have also raised questions about police funding and the

capacity of other state institutions, including the judiciary, to deal with what is obviously

a new monstrosity. Despite protests by Inspector General of Police Mohammed Abubakar

that the force may be unable to pay salaries, President Jonathan went ahead and

slashed the police budget for 2014, further expanding the room for endemic corruption and surely damaging the capacity of the police to deal with even basic crimes.

Jonathan has often said Boko Haram did not begin on his watch. He is right. Yet, had his

administration confronted the demon head-on -- instead of appeasing or ignoring it --

things might have been very different today. Only a few of the dozens of Boko Haram

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suspects paraded by the security agencies -- often small-fry criminals -- have been

prosecuted, emboldening their sponsors. Meanwhile, Boko Haram has transformed

significantly from the small, angry mob of machete-wielding youths assembled by

Mohammed Yusuf in 2002 with the aim of Islamizing Nigeria. Yusuf's extrajudicial killing

in 2009 radicalized the group under Abubakar Shekau, forcing it underground. By the

time it re-emerged a few years later, it had mutated into a murderous group with an

agenda beyond creed or religion.

The most dramatic turning point, however, was the ousting of Libya's Muammar al-

Qaddafi. His downfall left the entire Sahel region awash with deadly arms and vermin

from his shattered regime looking for new hosts. Many have found new havens in Mali,

Chad, and Cameroon, creating what is clearly the most dangerous Boko Haram franchise

along Nigeria's border towns in the northeast. And it is across Nigeria's porous borders

that many now worry the abducted girls may have been trafficked. What is entirely clear,

however, is that these borders have for years seen the trafficking of radicals and their

weapons from regions far removed from the reach of government.

Surely, securing the country's borders is not rocket science. But in a country where $20

billion is lost in a minister's headgear, corruption prevents the government from

investing both in physical infrastructure and intelligence-gathering, which are at the heart of modern conflict management.

In a moment of exasperation two years ago, Jonathan said he suspected that his

government might have been infiltrated by Boko Haram. Whether the country has been

brought to its knees by the enemies within, or whether corruption and poor leadership

have enfeebled the government's response, it is frighteningly clear that this is now a war for the country's very life.

The major fault lines -- religion and ethnicity -- have rebounded in their most vicious

forms, blurring the government's ineptitude, corruption, and worsening poverty, which

remain the underlying problems across much of the country. It's an unmistakable irony

that the United States, which has been widely -- though wrongly -- criticized in official

circles for predicting that Nigeria will break up in 2015, is the country now leading an

international effort to rescue the abducted girls. But clearly it cannot save Nigeria from

the potentially catastrophic threat of its own making. That lies squarely on the shoulders of one man.

But with general elections less than one year away, it remains to be seen how Jonathan will surmount his lame-duck phase and rally the country back from the brink.

PIUS UTOMI EKPEI/AFP/Getty Images

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The Opinion Pages | Editorial

Nigeria’s Stolen Girls

By THE EDITORIAL BOARDMAY 6, 2014

This story is included with an NYT Now subscription.

Learn More »

Three weeks after their horrifying abduction in Nigeria, 276 of the more than 300 girls who

were taken from a school by armed militants are still missing, possibly sold into slavery or

married off. Nigerian security forces apparently do not know where the girls are and the

country‘s president, Goodluck Jonathan, has been shockingly slow and inept at addressing

this monstrous crime.

On Tuesday, the United Nations Children‘s Fund said Boko Haram, the ruthless Islamist

group that claimed responsibility for the kidnappings, abducted more young girls from their

homes in the same part of the country in the northeast over the weekend. The group, whose

name roughly means ―Western education is a sin,‖ has waged war against Nigeria for five

years. Its goal is to destabilize and ultimately overthrow the government. The group‘s leader,

Abubakar Shekau, said in a video released on Monday, ―I abducted your girls. I will sell them

in the market, by Allah.‖

This is not the first time Boko Haram has attacked students, killing young men and

kidnapping young women. The security situation in Northeast Nigeria has steadily

deteriorated. In the first three months of this year, attacks by Boko Haram and reprisals by

government security forces have killed at least 1,500 people, more than half of them civilians,

according to Amnesty International. Until now, there has been little response to the violence,

either in Nigeria or internationally. But the kidnapping of so many young girls, ages 12 to 15,

has triggered outrage and ignited a rare antigovernment protest movement in Nigeria.

On Sunday, after weeks of silence, Mr. Jonathan admitted that ―this is a trying time for our

country,‖ and he said that Nigerians were justified in their anger against the government and

appealed for international help. The reaction of Mr. Jonathan‘s wife, Patience, was stunningly

callous; according to state news media, she told one of the protest leaders, ―You are playing

games. Don‘t use schoolchildren and women for demonstrations again.‖

Continue reading the main story

Recent Comments

Laird Wilcox

4 days ago

Schoolgirls? How about the hundreds of thousands of young boys who have been kidnapped

to become the "child soldiers" who kill and die in...

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Carolyn

4 days ago

It's hard to believe that such horror lurks in the 21st century. It sounds like something out of

Heart of Darkness. Of course, the United...

Oluwatobi

4 days ago

I have read many comments and opinion and they are interesting but will learn my voice

firstly by blaming this insurgency on gun makers and...

See All Comments

Boko Haram‘s claim that it follows Islamic teachings is nonsense. A pre-eminent Islamic

theological institute, Al-Azhar in Egypt, denounced the abductions, saying it ―completely

contradicts the teachings of Islam and its tolerant principles.‖ Although Boko Haram is

believed to number no more than a few hundred men, Nigerian security forces have been

unable to defeat them.

Mr. Jonathan, who leads a corrupt government that has little credibility, initially played down

the group‘s threat and claimed security forces were in control. It wasn‘t until Sunday, more

than two weeks after the kidnappings, that he called a meeting of government officials,

including the leader of the girls‘ school, to discuss the incident. There is no doubt the

intelligence and investigation help President Obama offered on Monday is needed.

The kidnappings occurred just as President Jonathan is about to hold the World Economic

Forum on Africa, with 6,000 troops deployed for security. That show of force may keep the

delegates safe, but Nigeria‘s deeply troubled government cannot protect its people, attract

investment and lead the country to its full potential if it cannot contain a virulent insurgency.

Meet The New York Times‘s Editorial Board »

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Kidnappings in Nigeria

A clueless government

The incompetence of Nigeria’s president and government is hurting

the country’s reputation at home and abroad May 10th 2014 | ABUJA | From the print edition / http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-

and-africa/21601839-incompetence-nigerias-president-and-government-hurting-countrys?frsc=dg

FOR the past few years President Goodluck Jonathan has publicly shrugged off the deaths of

thousands of people, mainly in the north-east of his country, portraying them as the

unfortunate but unavoidable result of a fanatical insurgency for which his government cannot

be blamed. But in the past few weeks the plight of 200-plus girls abducted from a school by

Boko Haram, the extremist group chiefly responsible for the mayhem, has put Mr Jonathan

and his government under an international spotlight, exposing them not only as incompetent

but callous, too.

As outrage spread beyond Nigeria‘s borders, Barack Obama and other Western leaders,

hitherto watching more or less silently from afar, have felt obliged to offer help as well as

sympathy. West African leaders, led by Ghana‘s president, have expressed unusual solidarity.

The surge of global horror mixed with curiosity and bafflement was particularly

embarrassing, at a time when Mr Jonathan was about to host a glamorous gathering of

leaders, including China‘s prime minister, at the World Economic Forum in Abuja, his

capital, where he was hoping to celebrate the recent international re-evaluation of Nigeria‘s

economy as by far the biggest in Africa, well ahead of South Africa‘s.

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Not that there was the slightest sympathy for Boko Haram and its maniacal leader, Abubakar

Shekau, who purported to be the man pictured in a video released on May 5th, making blood-

curdling threats to kill all Christians. ―I took the girls,‖ he declared, standing in front of a

tank, flanked by masked men in uniforms. ―By Allah I will sell them in the marketplace…I

will marry off a woman at the age of 12. I will marry off a girl at the age of nine.‖ Some of

the girls, it has been speculated, may already have been forced to marry their abductors for a

bride-price equivalent to $12. The UN warned members of Boko Haram, which means

―Western education is forbidden‖, that if they carried out their leader‘s threat they would be

committing war crimes.

The girls, abducted on April 14th from a school in Chibok, a town in the north-eastern state

of Borno, are probably being held in a rebel stronghold. One of these is in the dense Sambisa

forest, 60,000 square kilometres (23,000 square miles) in area, south of Maiduguri, Borno‘s

capital. The other is in the Gwosa mountains, which straddle the cave-ridden border with

Cameroon.

Boko Haram, which was founded in 2002 but began its violent insurgency in 2009, has been

responsible for at least 4,000 deaths, mostly in the north-east. But it has also demonstrated an

ability to strike at the centre of the country, setting off a bomb last month at a bus station in

Abuja, killing at least 70 people, and another one on May 2nd near a police checkpoint, also

in Abuja, killing around 20. The capital is now beset with checkpoints, snarling up traffic just

when the government wants to show off the place to its foreign visitors.

In recent months Boko Haram has been aiming with increasing ferocity at soft targets such as

schools and marketplaces, though it had not previously attempted a mass abduction. On May

5th, however, it was reported that it had kidnapped another eight girls from elsewhere in

Borno. On the same day it was reported that Boko Haram had killed 300 people in the Borno

town of Gamboru Ngala. Most secondary schools in the state had been closed before the mass

abduction, for fear of an attack, but the education authorities had convened the girls at a

boarding school so that they could take their final exams.

As worldwide outrage grew over the abductions, the American and British governments

offered to help. A White House spokesman said that experts in intelligence, hostage

negotiation and victim assistance would fly to Nigeria. The British offered to send

surveillance aircraft along with soldiers from its special forces.

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The Nigerians have been loth to accept such help in the past and are wary of perceived

encroachments on their sovereignty. America has operated drones from a base in

neighbouring Niger since 2012, but Nigeria‘s government has long refused American

requests to be allowed to do the same from Nigerian territory. Moreover, Nigerians are proud

of their army, the biggest in Africa, with its long history of contributions to peacekeeping

missions, most recently in Mali. And they are also notably secretive and prickly about its

operations—and the low standards of soldiery which foreign experts would see. Though Mr

Jonathan declared a state of emergency in the north-east a year ago, his army has dismally

failed to defeat Boko Haram.

Indeed, it has itself perpetrated numerous atrocities against civilians suspected of harbouring

or lending sympathy to the rebels, who thrive among embittered young Muslims in the north,

the poorest part of the country. The army was widely castigated after a military counter-

attack on March 14th following an attempted jailbreak by suspected members of Boko Haram

detained at a barracks in Maiduguri. According to hospital sources, around 500 people were

killed, mainly at the hands of soldiers. Such human-rights abuses by the Nigerian army make

Western governments edgy about offering to join the fray, for fear of being deemed

complicit.

Corruption, Nigeria‘s great scourge, is another reason for foreign military advisers to keep

their distance. Nigeria‘s soldiers say that commanders pocket the bulk of their salaries,

leaving them with little incentive to fight a well-equipped guerrilla movement that knows the

rugged terrain and forests. Why risk death at the hands of Boko Haram for no reward? It is

hard, in such conditions, to see how outsiders could raise Nigerian troops‘ morale, let alone

improve their military skills.

Patience not always a virtue

Perhaps the worst aspect of the Nigerian government‘s handling of the abduction is its

seeming indifference to the plight of the girls‘ families. It took more than two weeks before

Mr Jonathan addressed the matter in public. His government‘s sluggish response and its

failure even to clarify how many girls had been abducted provoked protests in several cities

across Nigeria—itself an unusual event.

To make matters worse, the president‘s wife, Patience, ordered the arrest of two leaders of the

protests, bizarrely accusing them of belonging to Boko Haram and of fabricating reports of

the abduction to smear the government. In a televised broadcast on May 4th, the first lady,

who holds no official position, warned against further such marches. ―You are playing

games,‖ she said. ―Don‘t use schoolchildren and women for demonstration again. Keep it to

Borno, let it end there,‖ the official News Agency of Nigeria reported.

Such statements do not give the impression that Mr Jonathan or his colleagues, who face

elections next year, take the worries of ordinary Nigerians to heart.

From the print edition: Middle East and Africa

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In Nigeria, No One Has Your Back

By ADAM NOSSITERMARCH 4, 2014

LAGOS, Nigeria — Africa‘s deadliest terror group, Boko Haram, is an enigma wrapped in a

paradox. The enigma is that it rarely acknowledges either deeds or goals while killing

hundreds of Nigerian civilians. The paradox is that even as it makes itself more feared and

hated, its strength appears to increase.

And that, perhaps, explains the mystery of this band of Islamist killers, perhaps no more than

a few hundred men hiding out in remote scrub and forested hills, striking in a limited area of

northeastern Nigeria, and with few evident links to global jihad. More than 400 civilians have

been killed in the last month alone — deaths attributed to Boko Haram, though not claimed

by it.

Its goal hardly needs to be enunciated. Each new massacre of civilians — over the weekend,

well over 100 were killed in car bomb blasts in Boko Haram‘s birthplace, Maiduguri, and

separate attacks in nearby villages; and last week, 45 boys were slaughtered at a state-run

boarding school — brings new embarrassment to a Nigerian security apparatus that appears

incapable of protecting the country‘s citizens.

Photo

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A series of blasts on Saturday killed dozens in Maiduguri, Nigeria. The Islamist group Boko Haram

was blamed for the attacks. Credit Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

And that, in turn, undermines the Nigerian government, leaving it floundering in ineffectual

expressions of sympathy for the victims, vows to redouble its engagement, and declarations

of eventual victory that now have little credibility. Admittedly the military task is not an easy

one, as the International Crisis Group pointed out this week, noting that the ―terrain is vast

and difficult,‖ nearly two-thirds the size of the United Kingdom, and protecting every

isolated village is nearly impossible.

But that does not explain why it has often taken hours for soldiers to intervene in these

unimpeded killing sprees, why headlines in the Nigerian press this week suggested that

outgunned soldiers had fled in the face of the attackers, why a military post near the school

— an obvious target for Islamists who hate secular education — was left apparently

unmanned.

Nearly five years ago, Boko Haram declared war on Nigeria. For all that the group‘s aims

appear limited or mysterious, it is clearly succeeding in one essential goal: critically

undermining Nigeria‘s federal government. The boarding school attack seemed designed to

bring maximum humiliation to President Goodluck Jonathan, occurring as it did two days

before centennial celebrations in Abuja, the Nigerian capital, attended by the French

president, François Hollande, and some African leaders.

Boko Haram‘s attacks brutally underscore what is already obvious to all Nigerian citizens:

The state does not have their backs. It is not there for them. It plays no role in protecting them

or succoring them, a truism amplified a hundred times over in the course of daily life, far

from the terrorist group‘s killing zones.

Within them, Boko Haram kills at will. The military will often claim a ―major‖ success, or

that it has killed ―dozens‖ of terrorists. The next day more civilians will be massacred.

―Have we ever succeeded in thwarting any of their plans?‖ asked Gov. Kashim Shettima of

Borno State two weeks ago — the official whose state is at the heart of the insurgency, and

who has the most lucid understanding of it. He pointed out what appears obvious: The

Nigerian military is outgunned and outmotivated by the insurgents. Mr. Shettima‘s evident

sense of helplessness was perhaps not diminished by Mr. Jonathan‘s threat in response,

apparently half-joking, to withdraw what military protection exists in Borno.

The centennial celebrations went on last week, as did a peculiar centennial awards banquet

hosted by the president in Abuja last Friday night. It seemed as though every rogue,

scoundrel and genuine hero, living or dead, from Nigerian history was entitled to an award.

Even brutal military dictators like the late Sani Abacha got their due.

At one point Mr. Jonathan asked for a minute of silence in memory of the boys, some as

young as 13, who had been slaughtered by Boko Haram three days previously. The minute

lasted for considerably less. The celebration went on, as did the encomiums to Nigeria‘s

greatness.

A version of this article appears in print on March 5, 2014, in The International New York

Times.

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In Town of Missing Girls, Sorrow, but Little Progress

By ADAM NOSSITERMAY 11, 2014

Photo

Mothers of the missing schoolgirls wailed in anguish on Sunday as they waited for a visiting dignitary

in the burned-out ruins of the Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok. Credit Adam

Nossiter/The New York Times

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CHIBOK, Nigeria — The women surged forward, anguish creasing their faces. Many were

crying. A collective wail went up, but the officials traveling with the visiting local dignitary

pushed them back, shushing them so he could speak.

Mutely, the mothers of Chibok bent their heads, clasped their hands tightly and knelt Sunday

on the grounds of the burned-out ruins of Chibok Government Girls Secondary School, their

sobs subsiding after a brief moment on this overcast but stifling afternoon.

Their daughters were kidnapped from this desolate place and taken into the surrounding

sandy scrub nearly four weeks ago by the Islamist sect Boko Haram. As many as 276 girls

here were taken. Although about 50 escaped, not a single one of the remaining girls has been

found, and despite international offers of help, the Nigerian government has been slow to act.

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The town of Chibok, deep in the bush of northeastern Nigeria and down the most Boko

Haram-dense road in the country, is gripped by fear and pain, several said.

Photo

Women prayed for the release of the girls at a church in Abuja. The abductions have ignited a

worldwide movement of solidarity. Credit Joe Penney/Reuters

―We are deeply in sorrow,‖ said Mary Dawa, whose 16-year-old daughter, Hawa Isha, is

missing. ―Every day, I am in deep sorrow. I don‘t even feel like eating.‖

Asked how she was coping, she said, ―How can I start?‖ Behind her the dignitary, the elderly

traditional ruler of the region, made a 10-minute speech of mumbled condolence, sitting

under a tree.

He did not rise to meet with the women. After his brief speech he was off, guarded by police

officers and soldiers.

The officials in the town, though — some of whom say they warned security services of the

impending attack on April 14, to no avail — feel their constituents‘ pain acutely. ―These are

small girls who are used to seeing their parents every morning,‖ said Zanna Madu Mai

Usman Chibokma, an official in Chibok. ―Now they are in the bush. What conditions are they

being subjected to?‖

There are widespread fears that the girls are being forcibly married off, exacerbated by a

video released last week in which the group‘s apparent leader called them slaves and

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threatened to ―sell them in the market‖ and ―marry them out‖ rather than let them get

educations.

To travel the road here — much of it an ungraded dirt track that throws up dense dust clouds

— from the state capital, Maiduguri, 80 miles away, is to understand how vulnerable this

school was. The road is punctuated by the shells of other schools burned by Boko Haram; the

carcasses of cars the militants attacked; and empty villages, their buildings also destroyed,

whose residents have fled.

Little traffic roams this road; the Nigerian police say the Islamists still lurk in the surrounding

bush. The military presence is light. There is an occasional checkpoint — in Damboa, a half-

hour drive away on the dirt road, there is a military base, but its men did not engage with the

kidnappers. This area, for hundreds of miles around, has been under siege by Boko Haram for

five years, with no movement toward resolution.

For the government in Abuja, despite a defense budget of more than $5 billion, the fight

against the Islamists has been a problem occurring somewhere else, even though more than

1,500 people died in the violence the first three months of this year alone, according to

Amnesty International.

Continue reading the main story Video

Play Video

Boko Haram Kidnapping Tactics, Explained

Some background on the Islamist group that has been trying to topple Nigeria‘s government

for years.

Credit Sunday Alamba/Associated Press

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The contrast on view here Sunday — between the mothers‘ sorrow and the light response of

some Nigerian officials — has helped ignite a worldwide movement of solidarity and protest

on behalf of the women here. It took President Goodluck Jonathan nearly three weeks to

address the issue publicly. The mothers seemed only dimly aware of the international efforts

or protests, though, and not much comforted. Their daughters are still missing.

―I‘m not happy at all,‖ said Yana Galang, the mother of 16-year-old Rifka. ―She‘s in the

bush. I don‘t know where she is right now.‖ The girl had recently been recovering in a clinic

after surgery for appendicitis, and had come to the school only to take an exam, she said.

The United States, Britain and France have all pledged to lend their expertise in the search for

the girls, who were probably taken into the Sambisa Forest, the forbidding, dense scrub that

abuts this isolated dot on the map. Counterterrorism experts from all these countries have

begun to arrive in Nigeria.

The international effort broadened on Sunday, with Israel offering help and President

François Hollande of France suggesting a summit with Nigeria and its neighbors focused on

Boko Haram.

The governor of this state, Kashim Shettima, one of the few officials who raised the alarm

early and loud, believes the abducted girls are still in the forest, and have not been taken

across borders into neighboring Chad and Cameroon, though others disagree.

Mr. Shettima said there were indications they might have been divided into groups and told

the BBC about reports of their being sighted ―in some locations.‖ He did not elaborate,

saying the reports had been passed on to the military authorities to check.

Desperate parents have entered the forest themselves, armed only with bows and arrows.

Officials say the military is searching there but there have been no results so far.

The government has revealed little of its strategy beyond — unusually — accepting offers of

international help, which it had consistently rejected over the course of the years of Boko

Haram insurgency.

On Saturday a top official in northern Nigeria, usually well informed, said the federal

government had engaged an ―Australian intermediary‖ to negotiate with Boko Haram, a man

once employed in Nigeria‘s security services. ―They want to do some sort of prisoner

exchange,‖ the official said. A spokesman for the Nigerian government, Reuben Abati, said

Sunday night that he was ―not aware of any formal negotiations.‖

For years government officials in Abuja have spoken of secret negotiations with the sect,

though nothing has come of them.

In Maiduguri, which has borne the brunt of years of Boko Haram attacks, officials are in

semi-open revolt against a federal response to the kidnappings deemed characteristically

lackadaisical.

The population here has swelled by perhaps one million, to three million, because of citizens

fleeing the countryside. Officials here are pinning many of their hopes on the intervention of

foreign experts.

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Through five years of bombings and massacres, they have pleaded for a more robust military

response, to no avail. Mr. Shettima, the governor of Borno State, epicenter of the insurgency,

said the soldiers lacked basic protective equipment to confront the militants, like helmets and

flak jackets. Indeed, many of the soldiers at checkpoints in some of the worst areas of Boko

Haram violence were wearing just thin uniforms, with no protective gear.

One high-level official here said the lack of equipment was so bad, ―we have had cases of

mutiny, of soldiers refusing to go and confront the militants.‖

In a speech Saturday night in Maiduguri to a gathering of local notables, the Borno Elders,

Mr. Shettima expressed deep frustration at the lack of progress, and anxiety over the fate of

the girls. ―These girls are from the poorest of backgrounds,‖ he said. ―They are the poorest of

the poor.‖

―Honestly, I am so desperate, if the Americans were to colonize, I say so be it,‖ Mr. Shettima

said. ―Our people are dying like flies.‖ Even Friday night there was yet another deadly attack

nearby; last Monday more than 300 were killed in a town at the edge of Borno State, on the

Cameroon border.

Mr. Shettima‘s meeting with the elders in Maiduguri ended on a somber note. There was talk

of little else but the missing girls. In Chibok, the mothers could hardly bring themselves to

talk at all.

―Chibok is deeply troubled,‖ said Mrs. Galang, the mother of Rifka. ―All we are hoping is to

have the girls back here.‖

A version of this article appears in print on May 12, 2014, on page A1 of the New York

edition with the headline:

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17 | P a g e

Nigerians Critical of Government’s Slow Kidnappings Response

Vivienne Walt / Lagos @vivwalt

May 11, 2014 / http://time.com/95558/nigeria-kidnappings-government/

A man

holds a sign that reads "Bring Back Our Girls" during a protest outside Nigeria House in London on

May 9, 2014 Dan Kitwood—Getty Images

The government's inaction and sluggish response to the

kidnapping of around 279 girls by Boko Haram has left

many Nigerians frustrated and critical of it

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18 | P a g e

More

Nigeria Sends Army to Find Missing Schoolgirls

Michelle Obama on Nigerian Schoolgirls: ‘Barack and I See Our Own Daughters’

Malala: Save My Nigerian Sisters

With the U.S., Britain and France now involved in the search for hundreds of girls abducted by the

Islamic militant group Boko Haram, Nigerians have begun to wonder whether a slow response by

their own government could ignite an explosion inside the country. Their dissatisfaction is rooted in

a sense that Nigeria’s missteps are a sign of greater disregard for the public good.

More

Nigeria’s Missing Girls: The End of Terror Is Nowhere in SightNigeria Sends Army to Find Missing

SchoolgirlsBoko Haram Video: We'll Exchange Nigerian Girls For Prisoners NBC NewsMen Charged

With Toppling Ancient Rock Formation Avoid Jail Time Huffington PostComet Outlives Predictions

Weather.com

―It took the self-immolation of a Tunisian street trader to spark off the Arab Spring,‖ blogger

Chris Ngwodo wrote in the Lagos newspaper ThisDay on Sunday, referring to the death in

2011 by Mohamed Bouazizi, which set off the Tunisian revolution, followed by revolutions

in Egypt and Libya. In a similar way, he wrote, ―the debacle [of the kidnapped schoolgirls]

might yet unleash seismic repercussions.‖

Popular Among Subscribers

Ngwodo‘s is just one voice in a rising chorus of Nigerians frustrated over their government‘s

seeming inaction and slow response. The girls vanished almost one month ago, on April 15,

when Boko Haram invaded a boarding school in the remote northeastern town of Chibok.

They forced an estimated 279 girls into trucks, and drove them into the forest; eight more

were kidnapped days later.

On Friday, Amnesty International said its researchers had proof that local officials had been

alerted about four hours before the April 15 attack, after people in neighboring villages said

they witnessed Boko Haram gunmen moving toward Chibok, where the girls were writing

their final high school exams. Though the alarm was raised, Amnesty reported, officials

failed both to send military reinforcements and to attempt to move the girls to safety.

Amnesty said it had ―multiple interviews with credible sources,‖ and called the government‘s

inaction ―a gross dereliction of Nigeria‘s duty to protect civilians.‖

Seemingly unaware of the incident‘s potential to set off an emotional chain reaction, Nigerian

President Goodluck Jonathan waited two weeks before speaking publicly about the attack. He

also rebuffed immediate offers of help from the U.S. and U.K., according to the Associated

Press on Sunday. Jonathan — who is also Commander in Chief of Nigeria‘s armed forces —

finally broke his silence on May 1, calling the incident ―horrific‖ and asking for foreign help.

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19 | P a g e

But by then, it seemed too late. Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau released a chilling

video on May 4 saying he intended to sell the girls, some as young as 9 years old, perhaps by

trading them in Chad and Cameroon.

That fueled a global campaign, with #BringBackOurGirls trending on Twitter across the

world. On Wednesday, U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama posted a photo of herself holding a

sign with the slogan, and on Saturday she made her first-ever address from the White House,

saying she and President Barack Obama were ―outraged and heartbroken‖ by the girls‘

situation. Pope Francis too tweeted about the campaign:

With four weeks having passed since their abduction, finding the girls will now be

immensely difficult, especially given Shekau‘s warning about selling them off.

Jonathan has recently suggested that Boko Haram‘s days are numbered, as it now faces

international military action. A Nigerian presidential adviser Reuben Abati told TIME on

Friday afternoon that U.S. military advisers had already last week and that British advisers

would arrive on Monday.

Yet it is unclear what Western military help might accomplish at this point. U.S. Secretary of

Defense Chuck Hagel told ABC‘s This Week on Sunday that the U.S. is sending only military

advisers, not soldiers. He warned that finding the girls ―will be very difficult. It is a vast

country.‖

―This is not going to be an easy task,‖ Hagel said.

Still, in Lagos‘ upscale neighborhoods — hundreds of miles and a world away from Boko

Haram‘s stronghold — several wealthy young people displayed red wristbands this weekend,

part of the #BringBackOurGirls campaign. Other residents hammered posters to the railing of

a traffic circle, each with the silhouette of a face and the name of one of the missing girls.

Boko Haram‘s bloody campaign, which started in 2009, has accelerated sharply in recent

months. Of the 4,000 or so people killed in the past four years, about 1,500 of them have died

this year alone. The insurgency has barely let up since the girls disappeared last month, and it

could well increase with the arrival of foreign advisers. The AP reported this weekend that

insurgents had blown up a bridge in the area near the kidnappings, killing several people, and

that they kidnapped the wife and two children of a retired police officer.

Boko Haram‘s violence isn‘t isolated to the far-flung areas of the country either. The group

has claimed responsibility for a car bomb that killed about 75 people on April 19 in Nigeria‘s

capital, Abuja. A second bomb exploded close to the first site on May 2, and the Nigerian

government blames Boko Haram for it too. That attack killed at least 12 more people, just

days before the beginning of the World Economic Forum on Africa, hosted this year in

Abuja.

President Jonathan and his government had planned for months to use the forum to show off

Nigeria‘s booming economy, Africa‘s biggest since last month. Instead, the kidnappings

dogged most conversations at the forum, and hundreds of heavily armed military and police

surrounded the conference hotel and escorted visitors on transport buses. And rather than

trumpeting his country‘s success, Jonathan spent much of the three-day event defending his

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20 | P a g e

actions. On Friday afternoon, he told a small group of reporters — including TIME — that

aircraft had been dispatched ―immediately‖ after the kidnapping.

―If people give you the impression that the government is slow, that is not true,‖ he said.

―That is not correct.‖

Many Nigerians are unconvinced, however, and are now questioning whether the government

has simply lost touch with its people. Blogger Ngwodo also stated in his article on Sunday

that, beyond bringing back the girls, the government would need to work to ―instill a culture

of accountability.‖

Easier said than done, perhaps. ―Nigerians have never taken the regime very seriously. The

government has never been proactive on any issues,‖ Sylvester Odion Akhaine, a political-

science professor at Lagos State University, told TIME on Sunday. ―That is the general

perception.‖

Nigeria: Big economy, big problems As Nigeria hosts the World Economic Forum on Africa,

we examine how the country can confront its many

challenges. Counting the Cost Last updated: 10 May 2014 09:31

Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation, is now also the largest economy on the continent. Its

economy is worth $510bn, but Nigeria has some big problems to contend with.

The country is the world's eighth-largest oil exporter, and almost 90 percent of its export

earnings are tied to oil. Sixty percent of the population lives in extreme poverty, youth

unemployment is close to 80 percent, and on top of that there is the almost daily violence in

the north, where rebel group Boko Haram is fighting for a state governed by sharia law.

There are chronic power shortages, which can increase the cost of doing business in the

country by up to 40 percent. The entire national grid only delivers as much electricity as

Qatar, which is not nearly as big or populous a country. And for a country with great oil

wealth, there is the mysterious issue of falling oil revenues. This is the case of Lamido

Sanusi, the central bank governor, who was suspended after blowing the whistle on a $20bn

hole in the accounts of the state oil company.

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21 | P a g e

So what is needed to achieve progress? And does Nigeria have a truly strong economy?

On Counting the Cost we discuss these issues with Hendrik du Toit, the CEO of Investec

Asset Management.

GORDON BROWN: This is Africa's Dunblane. . . so

why in God's name was the world so slow to act?

Gordon Brown has spent the past week in Nigeria as UN Special Envoy for Global Education

Brown: 'The bombing, burning and kidnapping of schoolchildren is almost a regular occurrence'

Boko Haram means 'western education is forbidden' Terror chief Abubakar Shekau said the girls should not

have been in school and should be married instead

By Gordon Brown

Published: 23:16 GMT, 10 May 2014 | Updated: 23:17 GMT, 10 May 2014

A knock at the door in the middle of the night. A policeman telling you your

teenage daughter has been abducted.

They‘re trying to find her but she may have already been sold as a sex slave

or a child bride. A chance she might be dead. And 270 of her friends have

been taken too. Vanished. Inconceivable in this country. Reality in parts of

Nigeria.

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22 | P a g e

In Britain and the United States we still have the capacity to be stunned when

evil descends on our classrooms. Who could forget? Sixteen boys and girls

and a teacher murdered at Dunblane Primary, 12 students and one teacher

wiped out at Columbine High, 20 children and six staff shot dead at Sandy

Hook Elementary. All of them events of such horrific magnitude they will

forever be etched in the world‘s collective memory.

Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau said he will 'sell' the schoolgirls his terror group

kidnapped three weeks ago

These massacres shocked us to our core precisely because they were so out of

the ordinary – innocent children gunned down in the supposed safety of their

schools. But in Nigeria, where I have been this past week, the bombing,

burning and kidnapping of schoolchildren is now almost a regular

occurrence. Another day, another outrage. Schools are far from safe havens,

and they must be just that.

They have almost become instruments of war, and the brutality inside those

walls has become so commonplace it is rarely reported.

Why in God‘s name has it taken three weeks for the world to sit up and care

about this atrocity?

I once visited a school on the outskirts of Nigeria‘s capital, Abuja, with

Bono. When we asked the children what their ambitions were, we found they

were the same as kids all around the world.

Former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the international community had to work

together to prevent the spread of groups like Boko Haram

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23 | P a g e

Some wanted to be teachers, doctors and nurses, others engineers, airline

pilots and scientists.

None, of course, had ambitions of being a politician – and to Bono‘s

surprise, none wanted to be a rock star.

What struck me most during our visit were the appalling conditions and the

substandard education they were receiving. Lessons were being offered in a

dilapidated school with a leaking, corrugated iron roof. Children huddled

together, three or four at a rickety desk built for one.

What we ultimately learned was deeply disturbing. We found this school was

losing pupils to a madrasa only a few miles away – a new, fresh, well-

financed institution that offered free education.

But the drawback was that they were indoctrinating students by preaching

support for terrorism.

Gordon Brown had previously traveled to Nigeria with Irish rock singer Bono where he

discovered that extremist schools were offering free education to poor children

So it is no surprise to me that extremism, fed by propaganda infiltrated

through the education system, is on the rise in Nigeria.

And now, thankfully, the international community has finally woken up to

the fact that 270 girls were snatched at gunpoint from their school.

The murderous terrorist group Boko Haram – the name means ‗Western

education is forbidden‘ – has claimed responsibility for the abductions, and

their twisted leader Abubakar Shekau released a video stating the girls should

not have been in school and should be married. A further eight girls were

kidnapped last week.

These lives now hang in the balance. Kidnapped and carted off in lorries into

the jungle territory of Borno state, their parents are unsure whether they will

be used as sex slaves, taken over the border and sold as child brides, or

killed.

It is horrendously late but a search, involving the UK and US and using state-

of-the-art equipment, will finally begin. Three weeks ago and within hours of

the mass abduction, I asked for international support to rescue them.

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24 | P a g e

Thanks to William Hague, our Foreign Secretary, and John Kerry, the US

Secretary of State, specialist teams are in place. Last week the world was

angry and vocal.

Look to the #BringBackOurGirls campaign. This week the world will be

watching and praying.

And the Nigerian government and their people deserve the fullest support in

tackling terrorism. Last week in Abuja, Boko Haram bombed and killed

dozens. Over the past four years the group‘s attacks on Nigerians have taken

more than 4,000 lives.

We also now know that in a separate incident in the past few weeks, seven

teachers were murdered and 27 members of their families were abducted in

Borno state. Another day, another outrage.

US first lady condemns kidnapping of Nigerian schoolgirls

This brings to 171 the number of teachers who have been assassinated in

Nigeria since 2009. It makes it all the more important that a Safe Schools

Initiative I announced in Abuja on Wednesday – to increase the security

available to pupils and teachers in their school grounds – is moved forward

as quickly as possible.

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25 | P a g e

We simply cannot stand by and see schools shut down, girls cut off from

their education and parents in fear of their daughters‘ lives. The education

system that has the potential to transform Nigeria cannot be undermined.

Starting with a 500-school pilot programme in northern states, the Safe

Schools Initiative will focus on school and community interventions, with

special measures for the most at-risk children. The initiative will build

community groups to promote safe zones for education, comprising teachers,

parents, police, community leaders and young people.

+4

Ex-Corrie star Julie Hesmondhalgh also gave her support to the international campaign to

release the girls

This initiative, which came from the Global Business Coalition For

Education led by my wife Sarah, is part of our work to give every girl and

boy in Nigeria the opportunity to learn and fulfil their ambitions. Surely in

the year 2014, every boy and girl should be at school and no one should be

prevented from an education.

Sadly there are still 57 million across the world who are denied even basic

schooling.

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26 | P a g e

There ARE children in Nigeria prepared to stand up to terrorism. Last week

12 young Nigerians, appointed global ambassadors by education initiative A

World At School, made a statement showing that they will not be cowed by

terrorist threats. They declared they will continue their work for the right of

every child to go to school safely.

And Nigeria is not the only country at risk. More than two million out-of-

school children are growing up in conflict zones, whether it be the Afghan-

Pakistan border, on the fringes of Burma, or in South Sudan, and all of them

are vulnerable to extremist influences as we cut global education aid year

after year.

All the world‘s aid put together offers sub-Saharan Africa only $13 per pupil

per year – barely enough to buy one school book per child. Faced with a

rising school-age population, Nigeria receives just $2 per pupil, but it needs

to spend $2 billion a year more if it is to meet the UN Millennium

Development goal that every child be at school by 2015.

I also now believe that discrimination against girls has become the civil

rights struggle of our times. Thankfully, millions of girls across the world are

now prepared to stand up for their rights.

A few weeks ago I returned to Pakistan 18 months after a visit I made

following the shooting of Malala Yousafzai. Then, there was rage that a

young girl could be shot simply for wanting girls to go to school. A whole

population almost seemed fearful and cowed by the Taliban.

However, on my recent trip, addressing 2,000 girls who had turned out in

Islamabad, I found a determination that no girl should ever be forced out of

their country by the Taliban again. None of them wanted their country to be

defined to the world any more by a shooting. They wanted Pakistan

recognised not by their failure to get girls to school but by their success.

These socially aware girls, desperate for education and careers, are

globalisation‘s children – born in the latest wave of change, aware, through

their mobile phone contact with the outside world, of the opportunities girls

enjoy elsewhere. Their outrage at the denial of opportunity could threaten

over the coming decade to bring unresponsive governments to their knees.

A generation ago, young people might have accepted that their rights were

what others bestowed on them, their opportunities simply what parents and

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27 | P a g e

grandparents handed down, and that a shortage of ability, not a shortage of

opportunity, explained their fate.

Now not so, and probably never again. They are fighting back but there will

be moments of despair on their journey.

In Chibok this past week, it has been heartbreaking to see the desolation on

faces as they wait for news about the girls.

We should be taking even more action. Schools that already have the same

legal rights under international law as hospitals should also be the subject of

agreements that they never become instruments of war. They should be as

safe as the hospitals that have Red Crosses on them and the UN buildings and

vehicles that bear the blue UN symbol.

Perpetrators of terrorist crimes against children should be aware that

murdering or abducting them is a heinous crime that the authorities will

punish. Even in the world‘s most dangerous places, we must now establish

the right of all children to schooling and make a new idea of ‗education

without borders‘ a reality.

And while we cannot end terrorism overnight, we can show determination to

stand up to it by making schools safe and defending every child‘s right to

education… and to life.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2625322/GORDON-BROWN-This-Africas-

Dunblane--Gods-world-slow-act.html#ixzz31VIpL9Xz

Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

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Nigeria’s Missing Girls: The End of

Terror Is Nowhere in Sight

Rana Foroohar @RanaForoohar

5:45 AM ET

A

member of Boko Haram in a suburb of Kano, Nigeria, in 2012. Samuel James—The New York

Times/Redux

Terrorism is the most pressing of many issues facing

Nigeria, TIME's Rana Foroohar writes after a visit to

Abuja, amid the government's sluggish response to the

April kidnapping of almost 300 girls by the militant

Islamic group Boko Haram

Outside the airport in Abuja, Nigeria, where the World Economic Forum‘s Africa conference

recently wrapped up, I noticed a local workman‘s truck, which had a sign painted on the back

that read, ―Every problem has an expiry date.‖

There are plenty of problems in Nigeria–inefficiency, inequality, corruption, unemployment–

but the most pressing one right now is terrorism. It is unclear what the expiry date might be.

Nearly three hundred girls taken from their boarding school in the northeast of the country by

a militant Islamic group called Boko Haram are still missing. A new report by Amnesty

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29 | P a g e

International claims that the national government headed by President Goodluck Jonathan

knew about the impending attack–and did nothing.

At panels I attended at the World Economic Forum (WEF), just as the report was coming out,

President Jonathan said that the kidnappings would be ―a turning point in our fight against

Boko Haram, and the beginning of the end of terror in Nigeria.‖ At the WEF evening

welcome soiree last Thursday night, a Nigerian pop star serenaded the President, his coterie

of plumbed generals, and the rest of us, in tones that managed to be both mournful and

saccharine, with a song about the missing girls. It seemed tone-deaf at a forum sponsored by

the government, which began with a moment of silence for the missing girls, but offered no

real sense of urgency around finding them, or combatting the growing terrorism in the

country.

The big question at the WEF was whether terrorism, and in particular the kidnappings, would

have any impact on the Nigerian investment story, which up until now has been one of the

biggest recent success stories in emerging markets. Just a few weeks ago, the World Bank

―rebased‖ Nigerian GDP numbers to account for the fact that old calculations weren‘t taking

into account new industries like telecoms and Nollywood. The result was that Nigerian GDP

grew by 89 % overnight, making the country the largest economy in Africa, trumping South

Africa. Growth is high–around 7 %–the middle class is growing strongly, and oil and gas

represents about 14 % of the economy, about half of what was previously thought. Overall,

that means more growth is coming from sustainable sources. Six out of ten of the world‘s

fastest growing economies are in Africa, and Nigeria is first among them.

Yet unemployment is still high and inequality even higher. Half of Nigerians live in poverty,

despite vast oil and gas wealth. In fact, that‘s one reason that many prominent citizens say

that Boko Haram has gained a foothold in the country. Some Nigerians are getting wealthy,

but there aren‘t jobs for enough of them, particularly given that over 50% of the population is

under 18 years old. That‘s exactly the kind of demographic and economic combination that

bred the Arab Spring uprisings.

―Terrorism hasn‘t stopped business from coming here to Nigeria yet, but the situation is out

of hand,‖ says Aliko Dangote, the head of Dangote Holdings and Africa‘s richest man. ―I

think the government is trying to get themselves together [around this issue]. I think they

have been taken by surprise–there are people in places like Spain who are saying, ‗where are

these Nigerian girls?‘ That hasn‘t happened before. It‘s good that the government has asked

the US and the UK to help. And it‘s important that the private sector do its part, too. Unless

we create more jobs, we won‘t eliminate Boko Haram. Even if we do, another such group

will come. We have to empower our people.‖

In some of the WEF meetings, President Jonathan tried to play down the link between terror

and poverty, presumably to turn the spotlight away from the fact that the government has

much more to do in terms of building infrastructure, improving education, bolstering

efficiency in agriculture, and cutting corruption, all of which would improve job growth in

Nigeria. ―Terrorism is a recent problem for us,‖ he said. ―It‘s not about poverty, but

extremism.‖

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30 | P a g e

But a number of Western businesspeople I spoke to at the WEF said they were concerned

about terrorism spreading, particularly further south to areas like Lagos, where the State

Department recently issued a warning about potential attacks on Sheraton Hotels. While big

oil and financial deals will likely continue without interruption, consumer goods companies–

food suppliers, retailers, and others that depend on a secure and growing middle class–were

more concerned. That‘s in part because of what the Amnesty Report implies about the

attention that the Nigerian government pays to safety and security, particularly for women

and girls in the country.

A glut of research from institutions such as the World Bank and the UN shows that if girls

don‘t stay in school, and women aren‘t economically empowered, economies don‘t grow in a

sustainable way. ―For things to work here [in Nigeria] you need two things: foreign direct

investment, and local capacity, meaning human capacity. That requires education. If you have

a situation in which women and girls can‘t be educated, that‘s a big deal,‖ says John Rice, the

vice chair of G.E., and a co-sponsor of the WEF Africa conference.

―There‘s a good news story and a bad news story here,‖ says Rajiv Shah, the administrator of

USAID, here attending the WEF meeting in Abuja. ―The good news is that Nigeria is thriving

economically. But the bad news is that this [incident with the girls] cuts to the heart of the

continuing problems with safety and security here. Boko Haram has displaced 500,000

people in northern Nigeria. The president has instructed Secretary Kerry that we will do

everything we can to help.‖

Yet at the end of the day, the impetus for managing the crisis has to come from Nigerian

leaders themselves–and so far, most seem much more interested in discussing foreign direct

investment and GDP growth and privatization of the country‘s various industries rather than

talking about how to ensure security for its people, and particularly how to find the missing

girls and insure that something like this never happens again. ―People have no idea how

fragile things are here,‖ says Anton du Plessis, managing director for the South Africa based

Institute for Security Studies. ―You can have growth without development.‖ That‘s exactly

the situation in Nigeria right now.

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WEF(A) in the Shadow of Chibok

08 May 2014 / http://www.thisdaylive.com/articles/wef-a-in-the-shadow-of-chibok/178072/

Font Size: a / A

The Verdict By Olusegun Adeniyi; olusegun.adeniyi@thisdaylive.com

The African edition of the World Economic Forum (WEF) began yesterday in Abuja but not

many Nigerians care since our people are being treated as some families would treat their

eccentric relations that have to be locked out of view when important visitors come calling. It

beggars belief that our distinguished guests, majority of who are actually from other African

countries, are here at our expense (that is how Nigeria hosts events) and will depart our

shores by the weekend without experiencing a functioning Nigerian society. But as it would

happen, given the recent abduction of over a hundred female students in a secondary school

in Chibok, Borno State, the attention of the world has focused more on the fate of the missing

girls than the glitz and glamour that the WEF usually bring to the table. That this is a defining

period in the life of our nation is no longer in doubt but it is also time those who preside over

our affairs stopped living in denial.

While addressing workers at the May Day rally in Abuja last Thursday, President Goodluck

Jonathan disputed claims that Nigeria is a poor country. Said the president: ―the GDP of

Nigeria is over half a trillion dollars and the economy is growing at close to 7 per cent. Aliko

Dangote was recently classified among the 25 richest people in the World. I visited Kenya

recently on a state visit and there was a programme for Nigerian and Kenyan business men to

interact and the number of private jets that landed in Nairobi that day was a subject of

discussion in Kenyan media for over a week. If you talk about ownership of private jets,

Nigeria will be among the first 10 countries, yet they are saying that Nigeria is among the

five poorest countries…‖

To start with, we are clearly not a rich country by whatever yardstick, even if our national

wealth were to be distributed evenly. Besides, even while the president admitted that we have

a challenge of income distribution, he failed to see the connection between that and the

poverty of many Nigerians. Yet I am almost certain that if you combine the total assets of the

richest 1000 Nigerians, they would probably account for about 90 percent of our national

wealth or perhaps even more. When you have such inequitable distribution of income, it is

not so difficult to understand why majority of the people are poor so the number of private

jets owned by a few Nigerians cannot be a basis for judging the prosperity of our nation or

any nation for that matter.

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As a Yoruba saying goes, if you have just one rich man among ten poor relations, what you

have is a congregation of poor people. That may then explain the convulsions that we have in

the system and the recent recruitment exercise of the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS)

which ended in tragedy should be an eye opener. With millions of our young people without

jobs and with several more millions out of school, it is no surprise that the devil has been

rather busy in finding bloody vocations for some of our idle hands. It is therefore within that

context that I welcome WEF to our country because the theme of their engagements in Abuja,

―Forging Inclusive Growth, Creating Jobs‖, is most fitting.

To be sure, inequality is a global problem. For instance, according to a January 2014 report

by Oxfam International, a British humanitarian group, the richest 85 people in the world hold

46 percent of the world‘s wealth ($110 trillion) while about 3.5 billion people, the bottom

half, account for about $1.7 trillion. But that is the challenge policy makers in most countries

are facing as they concentrate efforts on lifting those at the bottom of the ladder rather than

on those who can help themselves, and have been doing so, at the expense of the greater

majority.

It is however, comforting, that the Coordinating Minister for the Economy (CME), Dr Ngozi

Okonjo-Iweala, appreciates the challenges we face as a nation. Rather than being in denial as

some other officials are wont to be, the CME has always admitted to the problem of inclusive

growth and shared prosperity. Last week, the Kukah Centre in association with the Ministry

of Finance held a somewhat closed session in Abuja to reflect on ―Nigeria‘s GDP Rebasing:

Issues, Facts and Fiction‖ with Okonjo-Iweala and the Statistician General of the Federation

and CEO of the National Bureau of Statistics, Dr Yemi Kale, in attendance.

In his introductory remark, Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah said he called the session so that

there could be a serious engagement on the rebased economy rather than the cynicism that

seems to dominate debates about such issues in Nigeria, especially at a time the only thing

patriots can do is to market hope. He, however, added that even if the figures from the

rebased economy are correct, there is a ready Nigerian response to such reality: ―Na GDP we

go chop?‖ which in itself raises questions about the growing gap between the rich and the

poor.

In the course of her intervention, Okonjo-Iweala said the rebasing of the economy was a

needful exercise that ought to have been conducted many years ago and should ordinarily be

routine. But she did not dissemble when analyzing our challenges. According to the CME,

given our huge population, Nigeria‘s GDP per capita still remains low. ―After rebasing, the

GDP per capita increased from $1555 to $2,688. On this per capita basis, Nigeria is ranked as

121st in the world, rising from a previous 135th position. By comparison, South Africa has a

higher per capita GDP of $7507, and is ranked 69th in the world for per capita incomes,‖ said

Okonjo-Iweala.

Kale, whose NBS conducted the rebasing exercise, put the challenge of our economy in

context in a rather lengthy presentation that touched on virtually all sectors. While agriculture

accounted for 33 percent in the past, it now accounts for 22 percent of GDP, a 50 percent

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decline! From his analysis, only 3.5 percent of Nigeria has permanent crops yet 87.3 percent

of the land is agricultural, based on a 2011 World Bank report. From Kale‘s paper, Nigeria‘s

tax revenue-to-GDP has also dropped from 20 percent to 12 percent and is today not even up

to half of South Africa‘s.

Perhaps for the benefit of critics who take statistical figures as absolute, Kale used an analogy

from a recent UEFA Champions League semi final football match to show that one still needs

to go beyond the numbers. Bayern Munich, as the home team in the match in question, had

64 percent of the ball possession to Real Madrid‘s 34 percent; 19 attempts on goal to Real

Madrid‘s 13; nine corner kicks to Real Madrid‘s 3. Yet at the end of 90 minutes, Real Madrid

defeated Bayern Munich by four goals to zero! What that says, in a nutshell, is that whereas

100 people may own private jets within a society, if 100,000 others go to bed hungry at night,

that society is still a very poor one!

That is the challenge before WEF as they seek to find a formula for inclusive growth and job

creation on the continent but resolving the Nigerian contradictions seem to be more daunting

given the menace of Boko Haram. From the cold-blooded murder of anybody at sight, the

criminal gang has moved into kidnapping innocent female children who, by the morbid

declaration of their leader, would be sold into slavery. And that brings us back to the

mismanagement of the Chibok tragedy in which both the President and the First Lady were

establishing different committees with conflicting mandates and making contradictory

pronouncements that have not only turned the presidency into a butt of internet jokes but

have also further ridiculed our country in the eyes of the civilized world.

How do you tackle national insecurity under such a cynical (some would say, comical)

atmosphere and how do you reposition the economy when a great majority of our people are

on siege; when students are being abducted from schools in broad daylight and when villages

are being invaded by some blood-thirsty criminals who shoot and maim anybody on sight?

Answer to such a question may be beyond the purview of the distinguished men and women

who are in our country for the African edition of WEF but it is one that should task our

authorities if there is ever going to be any meaning to the current engagement on ―Forging

Inclusive Growth, Creating Jobs‖ in Abuja.

I am aware that there are people in government who feel unhappy that the attention of the

world is fixed more on the missing Chibok girls than on the WEF but not only do they miss

the point, it is precisely because of that mindset that we have not had a solution to the Boko

Haram insurgency. What Chibok has done is to let the world know that terrorism is holding

us back as a nation and that we need help. Fortunately, the world has responded. From the

United States to China and the United Kingdom, assurances have come for President

Jonathan that Nigeria is not alone as we seek to find not only the kidnapped school children

but also a lasting solution to the Boko Haram menace. It is an opportunity that should not be

lost.

However, in a week that global attention ordinarily ought to focus on Nigeria‘s economic

status in Africa and the best of our people and culture as a result of hosting the WEF in

Abuja, all the world has been hearing about Nigeria is the sordid drama of the missing

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Chibok girls while the most spectacular footage from our country is the misguided ranting of

one lunatic who takes delight in taking innocent lives. One implication of this is that long

after the WEF has ended, the world may have to wait for how the Nigerian leadership

resolves our security challenges before deciding whether our country is indeed open for

business. That for me is the tragedy.

Why The President Matters, By Ifeanyi Uddin

Ifeanyi Uddin - 12 hours ago / http://m.premiumtimesng.com/opinion/160527-president-

matters-ifeanyi-uddin.html

One of the wackier arguments with which boosters of the Goodluck Jonathan administration

have met the charge that his government has been unusually feckless in its response to the

recent abductions of schoolgirls in Chibok is that the whole affair is a prank. The ―why?‖ of

what would then qualify as the most pathetic swindle ever played out on the Nigerian people

makes sense only within the dynamics of our domestic politics. On this understanding,

opponents of the government have apparently contrived the disappearances in order to

buttress their ―clueless‖ narrative on the trajectory of this administration.

However, even if one were to concede this bizarre possibility, i.e. if it was possible to ignore

the spectacle of grieving parents/guardians running from pillar to post trying to recover their

missing children/wards, or to stop one‘s ear to the horrific accounts of those children lucky

enough to have escaped their abductors, the government‘s responses to an existential

challenge have again been sub-par. How best to have exposed fraud on a scale as large this,

than on the day after the alleged abductions, to have come out with a list of students

registered with the Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok, and an accounting for each

child having returned home? And to have exposed the ―victim-parents‖ as crooked actors,

their grieving as ―crocodile‖, and the tales of a handful of girls stealing away from the

clutches of ―phantom‖ kidnappers as idiotic‖?

The Jonathan Government did not do this. Instead, it dawdled. It squatted on its haunches in

the sand in which its ostriches hid their heads. Now and again, stretching its limbs. It yawned,

even. Thereafter, like Emperor Nero, it twiddled its thumbs. Anything but literally, ―take the

bull by the horns‖. It let social media activists gain and drive traction on the matter. It let the

#BringBackOurGirls hashtag trend globally. And as diverse interests got on to this new

bandwagon, it let the bandwagon trundle all over its space.

Then three weeks into this chapter of accidents, the president found his voice. By admitting

the fact of the abduction (in his set piece media chat), he drove a stake through the heart of

the conspiracy theorists‘ wild imaginings. Then the home circus came calling, gaudier than

lachrymal! All of which reinforced the fear that congenitally, this government might not be

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capable of decisive action. Did it help that even after no less a person than the president had

acknowledge the full extent of the problem, we had to wait upon a committee to investigate

the immediate and remote sequence of activities leading up to, passing through, and

succeeding the abductions? Not really! Except to dispel residual doubts as to the

government‘s tortoise-like DNA.

Unsurprisingly, just about every new commentary on the government has been negative.

From the ―New York Times‖, through ―The Economist‖, and back, the flow of adjectives

have ranged from ―callous‖ through ―inept‖ to ―corrupt‖. I guess it is the close parallels

between these words and the ones with which the local opposition has assailed the

government for the last 6 years that may have convinced the federal government and its

minions that most of the foreign commentary in the wake of the president‘s most recent

media chat was ―ghost written‖ by the domestic opposition.

Still, there was a window of opportunity, brief, true, but open nonetheless, for Dr. Goodluck

Jonathan to have acted as president of this country. To have led from the front, in other

words. In order to have successfully exploited this window, as soon as the kidnappings took

place, he ought to have had his security apparatus establish the circumstances of that faithful

night (no need for the new committee?).

This would include ascertaining the number of kids on the school register. How many are

back home? How many ought to have been in school that evening, and how many remain

unaccounted for (some may have just played hooky)? Then the number of assailants. The

mode of assault, especially transportation (this matters because you can then estimate how far

each such vehicle can travel before refueling), and the armaments used (there must have been

bullet casings left behind).

The president ought thereafter (not later than two days after the event) to have addressed the

nation armed with these statistics and pledging to do all that is humanly possible to extract as

many of the abductees as possible while inflicting as telling a blow on their kidnappers as

possible. That window unfortunately was not going to remain open forever.

Now we are looking through a looking glass that has the all-knowing Americans pulling this

chestnut out of the fire for us. But I wonder how many feet the Americans and our new

coterie of non-African helpers mean to put on the ground. For each foot holds out the

possibility of being returned home to the US as a body bag. Is the current domestic political

environment in the US kind to Americans dying in Nigeria? Which is the bigger threat to

world security? A government unable to bake its own cakes? Or a domestic terror movement

that wants to gobble up the kiln? Or are these but flip sides of a failing state?

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How To Mark Time As A Northern Elder While Waiting For The

Presidency By Pius Adesanmi Posted: May, 10 2014, 9:05AM

Pius Adesanmi

Columnist:

Pius Adesanmi

Sometimes when an op-ed touches a raw nerve and enjoys wide circulation in Cyberia, there's

the one reader who bypasses known public channels of communicating with me, invites

himself into my gmail inbox, and insists on not leaving till he gets an answer to a particular

query. This type of reader comes to your inbox with his own chair in case you are thinking of

not inviting him to sit down. Sometimes, I answer the query behind the back of the public.

Where the query is of public interest, I answer the question here on Facebook or in my

column.

I've had one such gmail visitor since my treatise on northern elders went public. My gmail

visitor is a very polite gentleman who claims to be from Zamfara state. His query: do we still

have common purpose in seeing Goodluck Jonathan out of Aso Rock in 2015? More on his

"we" later. He has very nice things to say about my op-ed. He says there are many places in

the north where the things I said about northern elders are now discussed in hushed tones by

members of his generation. I assume he is generation selfie: thirty-years-old and below.

Again, his question: do we still have common purpose in sending Goodluck Jonathan out of

Aso Rock and taking power back to the north in 2015 in the interest of justice and fairness?

There is a lot to digest here. The anti-Jonathan camp is huge in Cyberia and cuts across every

geo-political zone in the country. Even the international community has finally begun to see

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what we have all been screaming about, judging from the near unanimous verdict of the

headlines of their major media and the talking points of all their key figures all the way up to

Hillary Clinton. They now see the cluelessness, the incompetence, and the callousness we

have been talking about. Those who are savvy in reading their signals and messages would

have noticed the choreographed nature of it, from Washington to London to Paris. It simply

means that The White House, 10 Downing Street, and The Elysee have reached a conclusion

about Goodluck Jonathan based on the reasons we have been screaming and writing about

since 2011.

But beyond this unity of purpose in seeing Goodluck Jonathan go in 2015 lies a parting of

ways on the definition of justice and fairness. There are certain assumptions on the part of

many in the northern brigade of the anti-Jonathan camp in Cyberia that must now be

addressed. When our friend in Zamfara talks about a "we" united in the desire to free Nigeria

from the incompetence of Dr Jonathan in 2015, the vision of that "we" must now be

scrutinized. In essence, when Pius Adebola Adesanmi and Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai say that

"we" want Jonathan out in 2015, are they saying the same thing? Are they in perfect

consonance? When my friend from Zamfara and Dapo Rotifa, Agbaosi Sevezun Gloria, Petra

Akinti Onyegbule, Yommi Oni say that "we" want Goodluck Jonathan back in Otuoke in

2015, are they saying the same thing?

No, there are two different sets of "we" saying opposite things here. The "we" of El-Rufai

and my new friend from Zamfara have an understanding of justice and fairness that must see

power return to their own corner in 2015 - a corner still massively overdetermined by a bunch

of cruel, wicked, greedy, and patently anti-north northern elders. These northern elders are

anti-north because the regain of federal power in 2015 translates to only one thing for them:

renewed access to oil blocs and licences, renewed access to juicy federal contracts fed by oil

revenue, renewed access to juicy federal appointments fed by oil revenue. The common

northerner is not and has never been in their calculation. Outside of their narrow interests,

polio, VVF, illiteracy, and backwardness can continue to ravage the north for all they care.

The north of today, home to some of the world's worst statistics in poverty and

underdevelopment, is a product of their over three decades of chokehold on the Presidency.

The second set of "we" is saying something totally different. Take my own case for instance.

I have explained things privately to my new friend from Zamfara. I am sorry he ever assumed

that my own definition of justice and fairness is for Jonathan to leave in 2015 and for power

to return to the north - in the hands of the northern elders I describe above. I am not

responsible for his erroneous assumptions sha. If I am saying that Jonathan needs to go in

2015 for all the reasons I've been writing about, have I told you that I am tired of a south-

south presidency? I am saying that the south-south cannot tell me that the clueless,

incompetent, uninspiring, and wholly corrupt Goodluck Jonathan is the best they've got to fill

that slot. Have I told you that I am not interested in a Donald Duke presidency? Have I told

you that I don't have a wishlist of bright, smart, and inspiring compatriots from the south-

south? The only obstacle to my wish is APC - she will never do the needful, the

revolutionary, by fielding a fantastic south-south candidate with Kwankwaso or Ribadu

serving as running mate.

And when the south-south is done in 2019, have I told you that my understanding of justice

and fairness will involve a shift of the presidency to the north? Have I told you that I am not

interested in an Oby Ezekwesili or a Sam Amadi or a Chidi Odinkalu presidency for eight

years after the slot of the south-south? That many Igbos are deceiving themselves that they

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are having "their turn" now with Goodluck Jonathan does not mean we should accept that

logic. Ebele Azikiwe is Ijaw from the south-south, not Igbo from the southeast. We should

sympathize with the Igbo who are "enjoying their turn" through him. It is evidence of the

psychological violence visited on them by this country. That you have been so thoroughly

worsted that you are willing to agree that an Ijaw south-southerner is filling your slot by

default is evidence of the colossal injustice and unfairness that is Nigeria. So, my own sense

of justice and fairness says that there is a southeast turn after the south-south's turn.

And when we have gone round this tour of justice and fairness with an Igbo Presidency of

eight years, when the presidency truly and genuinely ought to return to the North, will my

friend from Zamfara, Nasir El Rufai, and the "northern elders" who are always giving orders

on behalf of "the North" agree that a Presidency occupied by northerners such as Sam Nda-

Isaiah, Pius Adesanmi or John Danfulani is a fulfillment of the North's desire to regain the

presidency? If they disagree, why?

And while waiting for their turn after the Igbo, northern elders can spend their time gainfully

by learning that there is such a thing as life outside of Federal contract patronage and oil bloc

distribution. They can apply themselves to a robust vision of an agricultural revolution in the

north, bring back cotton and the groundnut pyramids they neglected and destroyed while

feeding on oil, and transform the region to the world's number one supplier of onions and

tomatoes. Above all, they can spend their waiting time working with the rest of us on a

redesigned, genuinely federal Nigeria in which no region shall need the feeding bottle at the

centre. If we do this, they may not even need their do or die battle for the presidency any

longer.

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