Teaching Comparative Government and Politics

Wednesday, April 02, 2014

Journalistic intelligence

Journalists are often on the "front line" of political changes. Intelligence, military, and diplomatic agents might have clearer and more complete views, but most of what they know isn't public.

Academic intelligence is usually public, but since academics strive to validate generalizations, most of their analysis comes after the fact.

And, of course,journalists have biases which are displayed to greater or lesser degrees. None the less, things don't look good for Nigeria through the lenses of reporters or politicians.

Worse and worse

THE fight against the Islamist terrorists of Boko Haram in Nigeria’s north-eastern corner has reached its bloodiest point so far. Once again the army is being criticised as much as the terrorists. On March 14th a military counter-attack after an attempted jailbreak by suspected members of Boko Haram left around 500 people dead, according to hospital sources, mostly at the hands of soldiers…

The facts of the massacre are disputed. The army says that on March 14th Boko Haram carried out a daylight raid on the heavily fortified Giwa barracks in Maiduguri… in a bid to free hundreds of their comrades who had been detained there. The raid was “foiled” with “heavy human casualty on the terrorists”, says a military spokesman. But Maiduguri residents tell a different story. The army, they say, used the raid as a pretext to wipe out hundreds of young men detained in Giwa barracks…

The army’s behaviour in Giwa had previously been sharply criticised by human-rights groups and by witnesses who had been held there…

What is clear is that Boko Haram has been running rings around the army since President Goodluck Jonathan intensified counter-insurgency efforts a year ago. Several security sources have accused military officials of colluding with rebel factions. For its part, the sect has become more brutal, targeting civilians as it wrests swathes of the rural north-east from the army…

Some in the president’s security team realise that the insurgency cannot be defeated by military means alone, and are trying something new…

The government, says Mr Dasuki, will seek to enroll repentant Boko Haram members into vocational schools; psychologists will provide counselling; and local imams will give them a pacifist interpretation of the Koran…

Well-intentioned as it is, the hearts-and-minds campaign may be too late. President Jonathan, a southern Christian, is widely mistrusted in the Muslim north-east, whose people often feel as hostile to the overzealous army as they do to Boko Haram…

The president is said also to have given the go-ahead for secret negotiations with factions of Boko Haram. But previous such talks have been thwarted by the generals, some of whom are likely to benefit financially from the $6 billion now being allocated from the federal budget for security…

Nigeria's president criticizes northeast governors

President Goodluck Jonathan blamed governors in Nigeria’s northeastern states for the country’s Islamic uprising, saying their failure to provide social services created the climate for the insurgency that has killed more than 1,000 people so far this year.

Jonathan lashed out at the governors, all from the opposition, at a rally in northern Bauchi state on Saturday.

‘‘The current security challenges are the handiwork of governors in the opposition parties who have not performed .... (who) created the situation for insurrection,’’ he said. They ‘‘have not done anything in terms of providing social services to the people.’’…

In northeastern Nigeria, governors have accused Jonathan’s administration and the military of purposely not doing enough to curb the rebellion.

Gov. Kashim Shettima last month said Boko Haram is better armed and better motivated than the military. He spoke after survivors reported that outgunned soldiers had abandoned checkpoints and left villagers and school students at the mercy of the extremists.

Governors also have suggested the violence is intended to weaken the northern vote ahead of February 2015 elections in which Jonathan’s party faces its stiffest opposition since winning power in 1999 elections that ended decades of military dictatorship. Most northerners are Muslims and Jonathan is a Christian from the south.

The two leading political parties, Jonathan’s People’s Democratic Party and the coalition All Progressives Congress, have traded insults recently about who is responsible for the uprising. There is no dispute chronic poverty is among the root causes of the insurrection. Northeastern Nigeria is the poorest region in the oil-rich nation, with up to 80 percent of young people estimated unemployed. Fewer than 5 percent of children attend high school, according to government statistics…