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Nigeria: Senator Arraigned on Terror Charges
Boko Haram began the same way, as “politically and criminally minded field marshals” began arming youths to keep their hands on the reins of power in northeast Nigeria, said Khalifa Dikwa, a professor at the University of Maiduguri.
The political scene in the northeast is dominated by the All Nigeria People’s Party, which Ndume, the arrested senator, once belonged to before joining the ruling party. Little is known about the sources of Boko Haram’s support, though its members recently began carrying out a wave of bank robberies in the north. Police stations have also been bombed and officers killed.
Boko Haram’s violent attacks and its splintering makes finding a political solution or an amnesty offer much more difficult for the national government. The group’s main demand is not one the government is likely to bend to in a nation that is split into a Muslim north and a Christian south.
While the Niger Delta militants agreed to lay down their guns for money and the promise of work, Boko Haram wants the strict implementation of Shariah law across the nation of more than 160 million people.
Boko Haram was thought to have been eradicated in 2009 after its leader was killed and its mosques left in ruins. However, the group has staged increasingly brazen attacks over the last two years, including the attack on the U.N. headquarters in Abuja. This month, its fighters led an attack on a northeast Nigeria state capital that killed more than 100 people, and they still appear ready to kill at will.
“A look at the government’s responses shows that it has found it difficult to eradicate Boko Haram but worryingly so, the group seems to be reinventing itself and its strategies,” the South Africa-based Institute for Security Studies warned in a report this month.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press.
