l'AFRiQUE...and other stories

Which reminds me…earlier this week, MEND issued a statement threatening to carry out attacks on muslims and mosques in Nigeria “in defense of Christianity”, a response to the terror Boko Haram has waged in the northern states. 

The Federal Government and the Boko Haram sect have opened peace talks with an indirect contact made between the two sides over the past week through two senior clerics, sources privy to the discussions told Daily Trust last night.

A deal is being worked out for a three-month ceasefire during which there would be no attack by the sect and there would also be no “harassment” from the government, one of the sources said.

“Boko Haram wants the release of arrested members as a condition for ceasefire. Then discussions will follow,” a source told one of our reporters.

Earlier yesterday, Reuters news agency also reported that “mediated” talks have started.

One of the sources who spoke to Daily Trust last night said the two clerics involved in the negotiations have close contacts in the Boko Haram sect, and they have been shuttling between the sect’s self-proclaimed leader Abubakar Shekau and government officials.

The two clerics were in the Supreme Council for Sharia in Nigeria together with the late Boko Haram leader Mohammed Yusuf, whose death in police custody in July 2009 triggered a widespread violent uprising by the sect.

But one source said the talks were being threatened by leakages in the media.

“The problem is that Boko Haram has intended for this to be confidential. But the issue has already leaked to the media. So now, Boko Haram is threatening to back out though the mediators are trying to persuade the sect to stay on,” he said.

There was no immediate comment from the Presidency over the story yesterday. Boko Haram, which makes sporadic tele-conferences through Maiduguri-based journalists, also did not react to the report.

The senior cleric mentioned as the leading mediator did not answer calls made to seek his comments on Wednesday and yesterday.

When our reporter called the other cleric in the talks last night, he pleaded not be named because he said they had agreed ab initio to make these talks secret.

A third source spoken to yesterday said one of the mediators had confided in him that the discussions were going on and there were indications of success. He said the major target for now was to agree to a three-month ceasefire, during which Boko Haram will not launch any attack while security forces will not attempt to arrest any sect member.

The source said if the ceasefire is achieved, then discussions on ending the whole campaign of violence will start.

In its own report, Reuters quoted a source saying that “BH (Boko Haram) has mentioned a conditional ceasefire but it wants all its members released from prison. The government sees this as unacceptable but is willing to release foot soldiers.”

It said a traditional leader and a civil rights activist, whose names were not given, were also involved in the talks.

“It is the first time a ceasefire has been mentioned, so it is a massive positive, but given the lack of trust a resolution is still a way off,” the Reuters source added.

National Security Adviser, General Owoye Andrew Azazi, was quoted to have said in January that the government was considering making contact with moderate members of Boko Haram via “back channels.”

President Jonathan has also said in January that the government was open to dialogue but said sect members were hidden and therefore direct talks were unlikely.

The military’s efforts to stem the sect’s insurgency have had mixed results in the past, with human rights groups saying heavy-handed tactics have worsened resentment of authorities.

But more recently there have been arrests of senior figures including Abul Qaqa and Kabiru Sokoto, while some have died in clashes with security forces.

The group has not managed to launch a widescale, coordinated attack since one in Kano that killed 186 people in January, reverting to crude bomb attacks and drive by shootings. 

Source: AllAfrica

The kidnap and killing of a British and Italian hostage in northernNigeriamarks a worrying new development in the violence wreaked by the country’s militant Islamists.

Responsibility for the abduction was initially claimed by a previously unheard-of group calledal-Qaidain the Land Beyond the Sahel, but Nigerian security sources believe that the kidnappers came from a faction ofBoko Haram, an Islamist sect responsible for almost 1,000 deaths since it launched an uprising in 2009.

According to Nigerian security sources, the hostages were being kept in the remote northern city of Sokoto at the time of the attempted rescue. The centuries-old Muslim trading hub has until now escaped the brunt of violence by Boko Haram, which means “western education is sinful” in the Hausa language of northern Nigeria. But several hundred miles of porous and poorly policed borders with Niger makes Sokoto a haven for kidnappers from Boko Haram or al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, known as Aqim.

Both groups see themselves asoffshoots of Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida and loosely model themselves on the Taliban. But neither is a single, coordinated organisation, and each is divided into various factions more or less willing to use violence to achieve their aims, analysts say.

Vast geographies and weak central governments mean that Nigeria and its northern neighbours have struggled to prevent ordinary citizens or criminal-minded terrorists from slipping across borders.

Roaming the vast deserts that span Niger, Mauritania, Mali, Chad and Western Sahara, Aqim operates largely unchecked by these under-resourced governments. But the Algerian-founded movement has yet to implant itself in Nigeria where militancy, to date, has been a localised phenomenon.

Officials say factions within each of the groups have been in contact with each other. According to Nigerian intelligence officials, members of the more radical Boko Haram factions have received training from Aqim in Algeria and possibly Afghanistan. Aqim is thought to have given Boko Haram advice on urban terrorist tactics and suicide bombings.

Aqim has perfected what analysts call a “kidnap economy”, thriving off the abduction and ransom of westerners and Africans. It often snatches hostages in one country and moves them across one or more borders, ending up in Aqim bases in Mali. Reports suggest Chris McManus and Franco Lamolinara were moved around but remained within Nigerian borders, which makes it unlikely that Aqim was behind the atrocity.

To date, Boko Haram has shunned kidnapping as a cash cow or ideology. The group generally favours untargeted mass bomb attacks. But it has shown increasing sophistication in its campaign, graduating from crude bombs to more sophisticated improvised explosive devices. Is targets have also become more ambitious: an attack on the UN office in Abuja last yearsignalled that foreigners were considered legitimate targets.

The diversity of methods suggests, observers say, that the group is increasingly splintered. That raises the frightening possibility that the kidnappers are most likely an offshoot of Boko Haram mimicking Aqim’s tactics. This could spell a new chapter of terror in the north of the country, mirroring the decade of kidnappings that plagued Nigeria’s southern oil creeks until a 2009 amnesty. Most hostages taken by oil militants were held for ransom and released safely – but the jihadi ideology that fuels Islamist militancy would make such outcomes far less likely in the north.

Source: The Guardian 

Army General Carter Ham told the United States house armed services committee that leading figures in al-Shabaab in Somalia, Boko Haram in Nigeria and North Africa’s al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) were discussing ways to synchronise their actions.

If successful in their efforts to link up, the Commander of US Africa Command (AFRICOM) said that the terrorist networks would pose a “real challenge” to the United States.

The four-star General, who commanded the US military intervention in Libya, had earlier expressed concern about the “stated intent” of the groups to work together, voiced most strongly by Boko Haram and AQIM.

Boko Haram – a militant Islamist group whose campaign of terror in northern Nigeria has left hundreds dead – has reportedly received weapons and training from al-Qaeda’s North African wing.

And some analysts have pointed to the sophistication of its bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Nigeria’s capital Abuja last year, in which 23 died, as evidence of strengthened ties to other terrorist groups.

“Boko Haram has definitely taken inspiration from groups like al-Shabaab and AQIM, but current evidence for actual linkages isn’t compelling,” Alex Vines, head of the Africa programme at the Chatham House think tank, told The Daily Telegraph.

“While we see increasing sophistication in Boko Haram’s techniques, including the use of suicide bombings, much of Boko Haram’s agenda is still to do with Nigerian issues and not a broader radical Islamist agenda.”

Al-Shabaab demonstrated its chilling capacity to carry out attacks further afield in July 2010, when twin suicide bombings killed 74 football fans watching the World Cup Final in Uganda’s capital Kampala.

Within Somalia, the group is battling on many fronts, including against Kenyan and Ethiopian forces, and an African Union offensive in Mogadishu that has taken back much of the capital.

But an announcement by al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri formally welcoming al-Shabaab to its ranks has provoked concerns that the group is committed to exporting its terror tactics to the region and beyond.

Africa is an increasingly important arena for US counterterrorism efforts, as concern mounts that al-Qaeda affiliates are extending into unstable parts of Africa. An expeditionary base in the Horn of Africa and extensive military training and intelligence-gathering operations across the continent are just some of America’s counterterrorism strategies in the region.

“One of the key lenses that the United States looks at Africa through is counterterrorism,” added Vines. “Paradoxically, we’ve seen a deepening of the security relationship between the United States and Africa under President Barack Obama, whereas President George W. Bush is remembered more for his humanitarian activities on the continent.”

President Goodluck Jonathan comparing Boko Haram’s wave of violence to atrocities committed during the countries 1967-1970 civil war, otherwise known as the Biafran War 

So instead I’m going to do a quick list of three news I saw over the weekend, but didn’t have time to repost (and by didn’t have time to repost I mean I couldn’t make myself be a contributing member of society this weekend and was horizontal for 85% of it) 

1. Zambia/Cote d’Ivoire - Chipolopolo win thrilling football final in dramatic penalty shootout. Shockingly Related: Prostitutes offer free services to celebrate Chipolopolo. Unfortunately and embarrassingly related: Ghana didn’t even get 3rd place?!

This is how I feel. On another note look at the pure joy happening to the right. 

2. Nigeria recaptures Christmas bombing suspect

“Marilyn Ogar, the deputy director of public relations in the State Security Service, said no further information would be given on how he was recaptured. “We have brought forward Kabiru Sokoto who was declared missing. I think that is enough,” she said.

“How we went about it is our own business. It is private to us; we operate under the need-to-know principle and so we won’t begin to tell you our mode of operation,” she added. 

Sokoto’s escape on January 18 was described by security sources as “unusual and suspicious” and it prompted President Goodluck Jonathan to sack the chief of police and his six deputies.

Related: Cameroon’s Economy Suffers as Boko Haram Infiltrates Country 

“I will break the good news to our Islamic nation, which will… annoy the crusaders, and it is that the Shabab movement in Somalia has joined al-Qaeda..The jihadist movement is with the grace of Allah, growing and spreading within its Muslim nation despite facing the fiercest crusade campaign in history by the West.” - Al Qaeda leader Ayman Zawahiri

Abu Qaqa (of Boko Haram), in response to President Goodluck Jonathan’s call for negotiations between the Nigerian government and the terrorist organization. 

The Nigerian president, Goodluck Jonathan, has challenged Boko Haram to identify itself and state clearly its demands as a basis for talks.

The radical Islamist group killed more than 500 people last year and another 250 in the first weeks of 2012 in gun and bomb attacks in the West African country, according to Human Rights Watch.

“If they clearly identify themselves now and say this is the reason why we are resisting, this is the reason why we are confronting government or this is the reason why we destroy some innocent people and their properties … then there will be a basis for dialogue,” Jonathan said in an interview to Reuters at the presidential villa in the capital, Abuja,on Thursday.

“We will dialogue, let us know your problems and we will solve your problem, but if they don’t identify themselves, who will you dialogue with?”

Jonathan said there was no doubt that Boko Haram had links with jihadi groups outside Nigeria.

Read on here 

Source: Al Jazeera 

Nigerian authorities have suspended a top police officer for alleged negligence in the escape of a suspected member of the Islamist Boko Haram group over a deadly Christmas Day bomb attack.

At least 44 people, mostly worshippers, were killed in the December 25 attack on Saint Theresa’s Roman Catholic Church in Madalla, outside Abuja, the capital.

Kabiru Sokoto, who was arrested on Saturday, had been handed over to a police commissioner for further investigation.

The governors of the 36 Nigerian states have lodges in the capital, Abuja, where Sokoto was arrested.

Sokoto was being transferred to a satellite village called Abaji, near Abuja, for further investigation on Sunday, police said in a statement on Tuesday.

“In the course of undertaking this important procedure, the policemen on escorts with the suspect were attacked by the suspected sect gang members and in the process the suspect was freed,” it said.

“The police view this development as a serious negligence on the part of the commissioner of police and have since queried and suspended him from duty.”

The senior police officer, the identity of whom was not disclosed, and members of his team would be prosecuted if a criminal case was established against them, it also said.

Al Jazeera’s Ahmed Idris, reporting from Abuja, said that a massive police manhunt is under way for Sokoto.

“If nothing else they have to prove that they are capable of re-arresting this individual,” he said.

“They say, if anything, they won’t want it to look like the police are part and parcel (to his escape).”

Boko Haram blamed

Boko Haram, which claimed responsibility for the Christmas day attack, has been blamed for scores of attacks in Nigeria, including an August suicide bombing of the UN headquarters in Abuja that killed at least 25.

Also on Tuesday, six high-ranking members of group were arrested in a raid in the northeastern city of Maiduguri, according to a Nigerian Joint Task Force (JTF) commander.

“We have succeeded in arresting six high-profile members of Boko Haram in a raid on their hideout following useful information provided us by some residents,” JTF commander Victor Ebhaleme told the AFP news agency.

He said the six were being interrogated and gave no further details.

Acting on a tip-off, soldiers raided a hideout used by the group on Tuesday and defused five bombs across Maiduguri.

In the same city, troops shot dead four suspected members of Boko Haram and injured five others on Tuesday.

On Wednesday morning near Maiduguri, members of the group attacked an army outpost, killing two, according to Nigeria’s military.

A witness said that a soldier and a hospital worker died in the attack.

Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, is roughly divided between a mainly Muslim north and a predominantely Christian south.

Christian leaders have warned that they will have to defend themselves if authorities do not address the spiralling violence.

Source: Al Jazeera

Inside Story: Is Nigeria sliding into chaos? 

Good question. 

Source: Al Jazeera

The Nigerian government has warned that a paralysing national strike risks “anarchy” as demonstrations over rocketing fuel prices and government corruption enter their third day.

The comments – made by the attorney general, Mohammed Bello Adoke – came amid violence in which at least nine people have been killed and strikes over the government removing subsidies that had kept petrol prices in the oil-rich nation low.

In Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital, several hundred protesters took over a major road leading to islands on which the wealthy live. One protester carried a signed that read: “We are ready for the civil war.”

“We can sleep on the road until daybreak – we are not tired,” Godwin Bassey, aged 16, said. “We voted for them. They need to obey our voice.”

Adoke described the strike by major labour unions in Africa’s most populous nation as illegal and warned public workers that the government would implement a “no work, no pay” policy for those striking.

However, public workers can sometimes go for weeks without pay in Nigeria, where corruption and mismanagement has plagued government for decades.

“Continuing disregard of that order is [dangerous] to the public interest as it constitutes an open invitation to anarchy,” Adoke said in a statement issued late on Tuesday.

The nationwide strike, which began on Monday, came after President Goodluck Jonathan removed petrol subsidies on 1 January. Prices at the pumps more than doubled overnight, going from 29p to at least 61p a litre. The cost of food and transportation also doubled in a nation in which most people live on less than £1.30 a day.

Jonathan insisted the move was necessary to save the country an estimated £5.2bn a year, which he promised would go towards badly needed road and public projects.

However, protesters – who joined the strike under the “Occupy Nigeria” banner – say the time has come to end government corruption.

Tens of thousands have protested across Nigeria since the strike started. Anger at the government’s action has spurred violence in a country already facing uneasy religious and ethnic divisions. An angry mob attacked a mosque and Islamic school on Tuesday, killing at least five people, in the country’s largely Christian south, the Nigerian Red Cross said.

Unrest could affect oil production in Nigeria, which produces about 2.4m barrels a day and is a leading supplier of crude to the US. However, most fields remain unmanned and offshore oil fields provide much of the capacity.

Babatunde Ogun, the president of one major union representing oil workers, said on Wednesday that his group planned to escalate its strike.

“It means, in the short term, there will be no export of [natural] gas, there will be no power,” he said. “Everything will be at a standstill.”

The strike has closed Apapa port, in Lagos, cutting off cargo shipments. Businesses remained shuttered, while air carriers cancelled more international flights. Organisers say the strike will continue until the government restores the subsidies.

dynamicafrica:

Inside Story - Who are Nigeria’s Boko Haram?

After a wave of attacks hit Nigeria, Inside Story asks what motivates the Islamist group’s increasing violence in Africa’s most populous country. Guests: David Zounmenou, Jonathan Offei-Ansah, and Anthony Goldman.

WARNING: Graphic images.

(Source: )

fyeahafrica:

Michael Amoah speaks to Al Jazeera about Nigeria’s Boko Haram

In Nigeria, a recent string of attacks against Christian targets has been linked to the radical Islamist group Boko Haram. 

The group is fighting to overthrow the country’s government and impose Islamic law.

Michael Amoah, an Africa analyst and author at the London School of Economics, spoke to Al Jazeera about the group.

(Source: youtube.com, via )

:D

(via naturalbelle)