Analysts say Boko Haram is increasingly recruiting from the ranks of unemployed people disheartened by economic stagnation
DAKAR (TrustLaw) – Nigerian authorities must improve justice and tackle endemic corruption in the country as part of measures to halt increasing violence in the north by Islamist sect Boko Haram, a Nigerian Catholic Bishop has said.
Boko Haram demands the adoption of sharia, Islamic law across Nigeria. Recent messages from the group’s leaders said it is attacking anyone who opposes it, at present mainly police, the government and Christian groups.
The group killed more than 250 people in the first weeks of 2012 in gun and bomb attacks in Nigeria, Human Rights Watch said this week.
John Niyiring, the bishop of Kano in mainly Muslim northern Nigeria, said some of the militant group’s demands were based on issues of governance and justice that also affect other Nigerians and that need government attention.
Justice and fairness is “the foundation of peace” within the country, Bishop Niyiring told TrustLaw last week, on the phone from Kano.
“If we are able to ensure justice and fairness and the government is open to talk to Boko Haram and fight corruption more aggressively, it would lead to peace and dialogue,” he said.
“Most of the times the members of Boko Haram complain about justice – that their members are arrested and detained and are not tried – and that becomes a problem.”
Analysts say the group is increasingly recruiting from the ranks of unemployed people disheartened by the north’s economic stagnation. Corruption is widely blamed for rampant unemployment and poverty in Nigeria, Africa’s biggest oil exporter.
“There is need for government to be open, to be interested in seeking solutions to the problems confronting us (Nigerians) and of course one of these is the big problem of corruption,” Niyiring said
Corruption has siphoned billions of dollars of the country's oil riches. A week of protests against the government’s plans to remove costly fuel subsidies this month revealed massive public anger at endemic graft.
RELIGIOUS VIOLENCE
The increasingly violent insurgency by Boko Haram – whose name means "Western education is sinful" in the Hausa language – has strained relations between Nigeria's largely Christian south and its mostly Muslim north.
The group published an ultimatum this month giving Christians three days to leave northern Nigeria. Since then, attacks in northeastern Nigeria have killed many and hundreds of Christians have fled to the south.
Coordinated attacks in the northern city of Kano killed 186 people on Jan. 20 in the group’s most deadly strike to date, prompting President Goodluck Jonathan to visit survivors.
Niyiring urged victims and the families of victims to forgive those who caused them pain and suffering.
“When we talk of people that have suffered, one may think that they are only Christians but there were more Muslims that suffered than Christians (during the blasts),” he said.
“I think all of us, Muslim and Christians, should be able to forgive one another – that way we can move forward.”
Analysts fear that the recent violence could spark a sectarian civil war in Nigeria but Bishop Niyiring says most Nigerians want to live together in peace and unity.
“I really don’t know whether the militants would be able to bring about a (sectarian) war,” he said.
“One would have to know who they are and whether they would be able to fight a war and win a war but generally a majority of the citizens of Nigeria would like to have peaceful coexistence and live together in unity.”
(Editing by Rebekah Curtis)
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
