Boko Haram, corruption, and mis-government
Here's an analysis that your students can consider alongside their textbook accounts of Nigerian governance. It was written by Senan Murray and Adam Nossiter for the New York Times.In Nigeria, an Insurgency Leaves a Heavy Toll
Burned, razed and bullet-pocked buildings mark where troops mounted their bloody assault against a strict Islamic sect last week. Residents remain in barracks and police stations, afraid to return to what is left of their homes. And security forces continue going door to door in search of sect members, perpetuating the city’s sense of fear...
But there is relief here as well, especially among those who felt preyed upon by the sect and its rejection of Westernized institutions and ideology...
Beyond that, analysts warned that last week’s bloodshed would not erase its underlying causes...
[They] said the bloodshed and violence could spawn future conflicts in a place where economic and social grievances fester. The sect attracted a ready following from the region’s many poor and unemployed...
The appeal of the sect evidently took officials by surprise. Paul Lubeck, a political sociologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who specializes in Nigeria, said many members were “Western-educated people who have failed to find employment.”...
Repression, nonetheless, was unlikely to solve the underlying problem, Nnamdi Obasi, a Nigeria analyst with the International Crisis Group said. “There’s a culture of bad governance and corruption, to ensure that nothing substantive is done for jobs and education,” he said. “If the government allows the culture of impunity to continue, if the social and economic environment continues, then you will have groups aggrieved by the way this has been handled, probably groups revolting against the state.”
Labels: Nigeria, political culture, politics
posted by Ken Wedding @ 7:14 AM
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