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- Unemployment, Complacency Responsible for Boko Haram Upsurge – WSJ
Unemployment, Complacency Responsible for Boko Haram Upsurge – WSJ
- By Williams Ekanem
- Published July 4th, 2011
- Washington File
- Unrated
Although the Boko Haram has been in existence since mid 2000s, the upsurge in its militancy acts has been traced to growing unemployment in the country and the killing of its leader in 2009.
According to the Wall Street Journal, “Security agencies became aware of Boko Haram when its leaders began preaching extremist rhetoric in the mid-2000s. The homegrown group gained additional supporters after Nigerian police killed several hundred members in a 2009 crackdown. Its then-leader, Mohamed Yusuf, was killed by police during the crackdown while in custody.”
The publication in its write up on the group stated that, “Instead of wiping out Boko Haram, that crackdown appears to have attracted more young recruits—mostly jobless young Muslims in the north—and emboldened it. The group “has been allowed to grow for too long,” said a Western security official in Abuja. “The escalation is definitely cause for concern. It’s not a problem that’s going to go away.”
According to the publication, “Security officials say that while some members of Boko Haram may have received training in nearby Niger or Chad, there aren’t yet definitive ties to foreign terrorist groups.”
It added that no senior Boko Haram members have been arrested or publicly charged, though human-rights group say many people, including civilians, are being detained by security agencies without due process. Nigerian military officials didn’t respond to requests for comment on the accusations. A police spokesman declined to comment.
Boko Haram—which loosely translates from the Hausa language as “Western Education Is Forbidden”—is the country’s most prominent radical Islamist militant group. Estimates of membership vary from a few hundred to several thousand members. For the past two years, it had been known primarily for attacks on police stations, local politicians and religious leaders who spoke out against the group in northeastern Nigeria.
It added that, “The attacks also suggest a deepening of the divide between northern and southern Nigeria, analysts say. Predominantly Christian southern Nigeria is home to most of the country’s big companies, its banks and oil firms, and the southern Delta region is the source of the oil the government depends on for more than 90 per cent of its revenue.
Largely Muslim northern Nigeria, once home to a thriving textile and agricultural sector, is now one of the poorer regions in the world, with high infant and maternal mortality rates and one of the lowest female literacy rates world-wide.
“I think they’re a relatively small group and essentially local,” said Rausu Mustapha, an African politics lecturer at Oxford University. “But that they have so many young men without jobs behind them—and that they’ve started to attract middle-class residents in the north—that cocktail is quite dangerous.”
Meanwhile, on 29 June, the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) in Abuja issued new regulations that would henceforth, govern the operation of recreation centres, as part of new security measures it is introducing in the city. The measures are coming two weeks after the Islamist sect, Boko Haram, attacked the police headquarters in Abuja killing at least two people, and four days after its fighters bombed a beer garden in Maiduguri killing 25.
In a statement titled “Immediate Review of Administration of Parks and Gardens, Cinema/film centres, Disco/night clubs and other recreational centres in the Federal Capital Territory”, the FCTA stated as follows:
“Henceforth, all operators of parks and gardens that admit children are to close at 6pm daily including weekends. Cinema/film centre and disco/night clubs are to close at 10pm daily including weekends, while beer parlours/drinking joints and pool centres are to close at 10pm daily including weekends.
“Operators of all the above mentioned centres, apart from complying with the directive must put in place adequate security within their premises and the entrance and exit points into such premises must be properly manned.”
According to the Wall Street Journal, “Security agencies became aware of Boko Haram when its leaders began preaching extremist rhetoric in the mid-2000s. The homegrown group gained additional supporters after Nigerian police killed several hundred members in a 2009 crackdown. Its then-leader, Mohamed Yusuf, was killed by police during the crackdown while in custody.”
The publication in its write up on the group stated that, “Instead of wiping out Boko Haram, that crackdown appears to have attracted more young recruits—mostly jobless young Muslims in the north—and emboldened it. The group “has been allowed to grow for too long,” said a Western security official in Abuja. “The escalation is definitely cause for concern. It’s not a problem that’s going to go away.”
According to the publication, “Security officials say that while some members of Boko Haram may have received training in nearby Niger or Chad, there aren’t yet definitive ties to foreign terrorist groups.”
It added that no senior Boko Haram members have been arrested or publicly charged, though human-rights group say many people, including civilians, are being detained by security agencies without due process. Nigerian military officials didn’t respond to requests for comment on the accusations. A police spokesman declined to comment.
Boko Haram—which loosely translates from the Hausa language as “Western Education Is Forbidden”—is the country’s most prominent radical Islamist militant group. Estimates of membership vary from a few hundred to several thousand members. For the past two years, it had been known primarily for attacks on police stations, local politicians and religious leaders who spoke out against the group in northeastern Nigeria.
It added that, “The attacks also suggest a deepening of the divide between northern and southern Nigeria, analysts say. Predominantly Christian southern Nigeria is home to most of the country’s big companies, its banks and oil firms, and the southern Delta region is the source of the oil the government depends on for more than 90 per cent of its revenue.
Largely Muslim northern Nigeria, once home to a thriving textile and agricultural sector, is now one of the poorer regions in the world, with high infant and maternal mortality rates and one of the lowest female literacy rates world-wide.
“I think they’re a relatively small group and essentially local,” said Rausu Mustapha, an African politics lecturer at Oxford University. “But that they have so many young men without jobs behind them—and that they’ve started to attract middle-class residents in the north—that cocktail is quite dangerous.”
Meanwhile, on 29 June, the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) in Abuja issued new regulations that would henceforth, govern the operation of recreation centres, as part of new security measures it is introducing in the city. The measures are coming two weeks after the Islamist sect, Boko Haram, attacked the police headquarters in Abuja killing at least two people, and four days after its fighters bombed a beer garden in Maiduguri killing 25.
In a statement titled “Immediate Review of Administration of Parks and Gardens, Cinema/film centres, Disco/night clubs and other recreational centres in the Federal Capital Territory”, the FCTA stated as follows:
“Henceforth, all operators of parks and gardens that admit children are to close at 6pm daily including weekends. Cinema/film centre and disco/night clubs are to close at 10pm daily including weekends, while beer parlours/drinking joints and pool centres are to close at 10pm daily including weekends.
“Operators of all the above mentioned centres, apart from complying with the directive must put in place adequate security within their premises and the entrance and exit points into such premises must be properly manned.”
