Teaching Comparative Government and Politics

Tuesday, October 09, 2012

Boko Haram briefing

The Economist offers a good briefing on Boko Haram and the violence in Nigeria to supplement what's in your textbook.

A threat to the entire country: Who and what is Boko Haram, the Muslim extremist group that is terrorising northern Nigeria?

Could the central government ever come to terms with Boko Haram? So far the group’s aims—among other things, greater equality for the Muslim north and a sterner application of sharia law—are fairly vague. The radicals among them may want to break up Nigeria and drive Christians out of the north. If the likes of [Sambo Dasuki, a northerner recently appointed by the president as his national security adviser] have their way, the federal government will seek to peel the more flexible of Boko Haram’s people away from the ultras and negotiate a better deal, especially on the economic front, for northerners. But that eventuality seems miserably far off.

See also a 9-minute interview with Africa expert Lizzy Donnelly about Boko Haram.

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Labels: cleavages, dissent, Nigeria, politics