Teaching Comparative Government and Politics

Wednesday, November 30, 2016

More woe for Nigeria

The government doesn't seem to have the capacity to deal with conflicts between herders and farmers in the middle belt, it is unable to resolve the conflicts in the south and the south south, and the Boko Haram insurgency itself continues. And one of the results of that terrorism, is starvation facing hundreds of thousands of Nigerians. How can a government increase its capacity to deal with the issues facing it?

Tens of thousands of children at risk of starvation in Nigeria crisis

More than 120,000 people, most of them children, are at risk of starving to death next year in areas of Nigeria affected by the Boko Haram insurgency, the United Nations is warning.

Intense fighting in parts of Nigeria, Chad, Niger and Cameroon has left more than 2 million people displaced, farmers unable to harvest their crops and aid groups unable to reach isolated communities…

Maiduguri is among the best served places in a region the size of Belgium. Much of the area is still insecure because of the war with Boko Haram, and countless thousands have not made it to population centres where some degree of care is available…

Boko Haram, a jihadi group, has lost ground in the past year but its insurgency has left large areas of farmland inaccessible and many roads unnavigable by aid convoys. The situation has been compounded by a lack of international support: UN funding for the Nigerian crisis is 61% or $297m short of its target…

Kashim Shettima, the governor of Borno, the Nigerian state that has borne the brunt of the insurgency, said the farming that usually sustains locals had collapsed. “Most of our communities have not been able to till their soils for the past four years,” Shettima told the Guardian. “It’s just unimaginable; 80% of the people [in Borno] were denied access to their farms by Boko Haram.”…

Officials and aid workers warn that if the situation continues it could foment extremism in the area and migration flows farther afield. “A hungry young man is easily susceptible to the manias of religious demagogues like [Boko Haram founder] Mohammed Yusuf and [leader of the insurgents] Abubakar Shekau,” said Shettima…

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