Nigeria Not Important To Rest Of World It Seems

[bust]

Nigeria's forgotten massacre: 2,000 slaughtered by Boko Haram, but the West is failing to help

 

 

One of Africa's most senior church leaders has accused the West of ignoring the threat of the militant Islamist group Boko Haram, days after the reported slaughter of up to 2,000 people by the group.

 

Ignatius Kaigama, the Catholic Archbishop of Jos and president of the Nigerian Bishops Conference, spoke as bodies lay strewn on the ground in Baga, in north-east Nigeria, after a surge by Boko Haram fighters who took over the border town earlier this month.

He highlighted the stark difference between the West's willingness to act when 17 people were killed by militants in France and the approach to the slaughter in Africa.

Estimates of the death toll in Baga and surrounding villages, which were razed by fire, have been put at up to 2,000. Most of the dead were women, children and the elderly who could not flee in time, said Amnesty International, which labelled it the group's deadliest massacre yet.

A further 30,000 people are thought to have fled their homes, 7,500 seeking sanctuary in Chad and the rest adding to Nigeria's tens of thousands of displaced people.

Archbishop Kaigama told The Independent on Sunday that while the Nigerian government was "dilly dallying" and needed to improve its effectiveness against Boko Haram, the West must also act before the militants' power grew to stretch far beyond Nigeria's borders.

The government's military response to Boko Haram's advance in the north has been described as chaotic and ineffective. Soldiers often claim their allowances aren't paid and there are repeated reports of desertion and mutiny, weakening the army's ability to take on a well-organised and determined foe.

President Goodluck Jonathan has promised to re-equip the army to improve its effectiveness and there are hopes that after the election in February there will be the political will necessary to support the military against the Islamist fighters. However, Boko Haram, which regards democracy as blasphemous, is expected to do all it can to disrupt the elections.

But Archbishop Kaigama said the West should recognise that the problem is not simply a Nigerian one.

"I can smell a lot more trouble. It's not going to be confined to this region. It's going to expand. It will get to Europe and elsewhere," he warned.

"When it comes to the international community, they express their solidarity but it isn't really concrete help. We have always said that there should be concern expressed more concretely by the West beyond just expressing their solidarity. They should do more than that," he said.

"We believe there is a lot we can share in terms of security information. I would have thought by now they would be able to help Nigeria. There has to be a concrete collaboration between Europe and America to bring this to an end."

He added: "Compare what has happened in Paris and what is happening here. There is a great difference.

 

The British Government has in recent months announced a new package of help for Nigeria, including intelligence and training advice, to fight the militants. A spokeswoman for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office said: "Boko Haram deliberately targets the weak and vulnerable, causing suffering in communities of different faiths and ethnicities. They must be stopped. The UK – with France and the US – has taken an active role in supporting Nigeria to tackle Boko Haram."

For the Archbishop, this hasn't been enough.

"We were hoping by now that we would be talking about successes in confronting this militant Islamic group but they are causing more destruction and capturing more villages and killing innocent people. It's quite disturbing.

"I believe that Boko Haram and their allies want to cause more harm, more destruction. We are just hoping a remedy can be found and this terrible situation be brought to an end," he said.

The gulf in the attention between the murders in France and the Nigerian massacre was highlighted Twitter messages yesterday.

Imad Mesdoua, a political analyst at consultants Africa Matters, tweeted: "No breaking news cycle, no live reports, no international outrage, no hashtags." The actress Mia Farrow and Stephanie Hancock, of Human Rights Watch, were among those to observe that there had been "no outrage or headlines" about the Nigerian slaughter.

Harry Leslie Smith, the 91-year-old who electrified the Labour Party conference last year with a speech on the NHS, said on Twitter: "Note to the media and Western politicians that Paris isn't burning but Nigeria is."

Nigeria wasn't the only tragedy that fell by the wayside in last week's news cycle. On the same day that 12 people were killed in the attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris, at least 37 died and 66 were injured in an al-Qaeda bomb blast in Yemen that went virtually unnoticed by the international community.

 

 

 

The difference in reaction to Nigeria and other tragedies was, a spokeswoman for the Catholic aid organisation Cafod suggested, "about the value of a life – an African life versus a European life".

Concerns about the international response to Boko Haram, the group which infamously kidnapped more than 200 schoolgirls in a single raid last year, were raised as further details emerged about the massacre in and around Baga, on the shores of Lake Chad.

One of the survivors of the slaughter told of how he escaped to the city of Maiduguri, 100 miles away, after hiding for three days in a gap between two houses. Yanaye Grema was part of a group of locals who had banded together to try to defend their homes from the Boko Haram advance but were overwhelmed.

"People fled into the bush while some shut themselves indoors," he told AFP. "The gunmen pursued fleeing residents into the bush, shooting them dead.

"All I could hear were ceaseless gunshots, explosions, screams from people and chants of Allahu Akbar [God is greatest] from the Boko Haram gunmen. At night I could see lights from the power generator they ran. I could also hear their cheering and laughter.

"On Tuesday they began looting the market and every home in the town. They set fire to the market and began burning homes. I decided it was time I leave before they turned in my direction."

After emerging from his hiding place he decided to escape the area on foot, and witnessed the horrific extent of the bloodbath by victorious militants.

"For five kilometres, I kept stepping on dead bodies until I reached Malam Karanti village, which was also deserted and burnt," he said.

Muhammadu Buhari, the former military ruler of Nigeria and Mr Jonathan's challenger in next month's presidential election, said more soldiers need to be deployed against Boko Haram.

"I have made this comment before and the federal government refused to react to it," he said.

"The number of soldiers, policemen and officers of the State Security Services they deploy during elections, if they had deployed them to Borno and Yobe states to fight Boko Haram, by now, Boko Haram would have been history."

There was further carnage yesterday when a female suicide bomber, who according to one report was aged just 10, detonated explosives at a market in Maiduguri, a city of more than one million.

The authorities said a Boko Haram attack on Damatu, 80 miles west of Maiduguri, was repulsed after a robust response, including air strikes, from the military.

 

http://bcove.me/s3xufvpo

[Flashermac]

The west helps, just not very much.

 

80 U.S. troops in Chad will aid search for abducted Nigerian girls

 

 

http://www.cnn.com/2...geria-violence/

 

p.s. I'm old enough to remember Biafra's struggle for independence from Nigeria.

 

 

"Biafra, officially the Republic of Biafra, was a secessionist state in south-eastern Nigeria that existed from 30 May 1967 to 15 January 1970, taking its name from the Bight of Biafra (the Atlantic bay to its south). The inhabitants were mostly the Igbo people who led the secession due to economic, ethnic, cultural and religious tensions among the various peoples of Nigeria. The creation of the new state that was pushing for recognition was among the causes of the Nigerian Civil War, also known as the Nigerian-Biafran War."

 

"At the beginning of the war Biafra had 3,000 soldiers, but at the end of the war the soldiers totaled 30,000. There was no official support for the Biafran army by another nation throughout the war, although arms were clandestinely acquired. Because of the lack of official support, the Biafrans manufactured many of their weapons locally. A number of Europeans served in the Biafran cause; German born Rolf Steiner was a lt. colonel assigned to the 4th Commando Brigade and Welshman Taffy Williams served as a major until the very end of the conflict."

 

"After two-and-a-half years of war, during which a million civilians had died in fighting and from famine, Biafran forces agreed to a ceasefire with the Nigerian Federal Military Government (FMG), and Biafra was reintegrated into Nigeria."

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biafra

 

This was sparked in a large part by the massacre of about 30,000 Igbo Christians by Muslims in the north. Britain and Russia reacted by supporting the Nigerian government against the Biafrans.

[bust]

I guess the point I was making was more about the world's attention. In Sydney we had the global media coverage and worldwide condemnation and again with the Charlie Hebdo incident where millions of people marched. Yet over 2000 are slaughtered in Nigeria and the world hardly blinks.

[Flashermac]

No one seems to care very much about Africa, as long as western interests are involved.

 

Ironically, GWB paid a lot of attention to Africa. Obama, who had an African father, doesn't.

[bust]

World leaders show there true colours

[cavanami]

The only interest in Africa is to extract all the wealth from it.

 

Aids, ebola, Boko Haram...fark it as long as the wealth gets extracted and it reduces the population.

[Dexi]

Maybe they realise large parts of the continent are a basket case and the effort and resources required are beyond even the capabilities of the US,and maybe not worth it.Maybe the Chinese could do more,but they are probably only interested in the natural resources.

[bust]

Why did the world ignore Boko Haram's Baga attacks?

 

 

 

 

 

As media coverage focused on the Paris terror attacks last week, more than 2000 Nigerians were reported to have been killed by Islamist militants. What makes one massacre more newsworthy than another?

A man holds a placard that reads ‘I am Charlie, let’s not forget the victims of Boko Haram’ outside the French embassy in Abidjan.

 

 

 

 

France spent the weekend coming to terms with last week’s terror attacks in Paris that left 17 dead. The country mourned, and global leaders joined an estimated 3.7 million people on its streets to march in a show of unity.

In Nigeria, another crisis was unfolding, as reports came through of an estimated 2,000 casualties after an attack by Boko Haram militants on the town of Baga in the north-eastern state of Borno. Amnesty International described as the terror group’s “deadliest massacre†to date, and local defence groups said they had given up counting the bodies left lying on the streets.

Reporting in northern Nigeria is notoriously difficult; journalists have been targeted by Boko Haram, and, unlike in Paris, people on the ground are isolated and struggle with access to the internet and other communications. Attacks by Boko Haram have disrupted connections further, meaning that there is an absence of an online community able to share news, photos and video reports of news as it unfolds.

But reports of the massacre were coming through and as the world’s media focused its attention on Paris, some questioned why events in Nigeria were almost ignored.

On Twitter, Max Abrahms, a terrorism analyst, tweeted: “It’s shameful how the 2K people killed in Boko Haram’s biggest massacre gets almost no media coverage.â€

Musician Nitin Sawhney said: “Very moving watching events in Paris – wish the world media felt equally outraged by this recent news too.â€

“Mom Blogger†@Mom101 asked: “How is this not the lead story on every single news network, every Twitter newsfeed right now?†That sentiment was echoed by a number of Guardian readers over the weekend.

So why did the Paris attacks receive more coverage than the Boko Haram killings?

“I am Charlie, but I am Baga tooâ€

 

“I am Charlie, but I am Baga too,†wrote Simon Allison for the Daily Maverick, a partner on the Guardian Africa network. “There are massacres and there are massacres†he said, arguing that “it may be the 21st century, but African lives are still deemed less newsworthy – and, by implication, less valuable – than western livesâ€.

Allison recognises the challenges in reporting – “the nearest journalists are hundreds of kilometres away†– but also points to the significance of the attack: taking control of Baga, “Boko Haram effectively controls Borno state in its entirety. These aren’t just terrorists: they are becoming a de facto state.†Even more reason for the world to take notice.

But the blame does not just lie with western media; there was little African coverage either, said Allison. No leaders were condemning the attacks, nor did any talk of a solidarity movement, he said, adding that “our outrage and solidarity over the Paris massacre is also a symbol of how we as Africans neglect Africa’s own tragedies, and prioritise western lives over our own.â€

Silence from Nigeria’s politicians

 

Many pointed to the palpable silence of many of Nigeria’s politicians. Last week, Nigeria’s president, Goodluck Jonathan, expressed his condolences for the victims of France but stayed silent on the Boko Haram attacks on Baga.

Media analyst Ethan Zuckerman said that the president is “understandably wary of discussing Boko Haram, as it reminds voters that the conflict has erupted under his management and that his government has been unable to subdue the terror groupâ€. Nigeria’s elections are set to take place on 14 February. The president was also criticised for celebrating his daughter Ine’s wedding over weekend, in the aftermath of the killings.

— BellaNaija.com (@bellanaija)

January 11, 2015

President Jonathan gives away Ine's hand in marriage

http://t.co/tntLhSXmO6

pic.twitter.com/JMbFJiH5zo

Elnathan John, a Nigerian writer and lawyer who has changed his Twitter identity to “I am Baga†in solidarity, shared a tweet from Nigeria’s finance minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who also expressed condolences over the Paris attacks but made no mention of the events in Baga.

— Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (@NOIweala)

January 8, 2015

Terrible incident. Our deepest sympathies to the journalists and their families. We are one with France in mourning

#JeSuisCharlie

He also pointed to comments on the official Twitter account of Ahmadu Adamu Muazu, from the ruling People’s Democratic party, who looked to downplay the death toll: “We know it’s a political period so some of this [sic] things are expectedâ€.

Muazu has since taken to the account again to say he has been working with the security services to ensure that “peace will soon be restored†to the people in Baga and other regions in the north-east of the country.

‘The west is ignoring Boko Haram’

 

 

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Ignatius Kaigama, the Catholic archbishop of Jos in central Nigeria – an area which has also suffered terror attacks – added his voice to criticism of the west.

Speaking to the BBC, he argued that Nigeria could not confront the threat from Boko Haram alone. “It is a monumental tragedy. It has saddened all of Nigeria. But... we seem to be helpless,†he said. “Because if we could stop Boko Haram, we would have done it right away. But they continue to attack, and kill and capture territories... with such impunity.â€

Over the weekend Boko Haram was also blamed for a suicide attack in a market in Borno state that left 16 dead in Yobe state. Kaigama called the for international community to show the same spirit and resolve against Boko Haram as it had done after the attacks in France.

#BagaTogether

 

Echoing the #bringbackourgirls hashtag, which was set up to call for the release of the 200 schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram in April, some have taken to social media to show their support for the people in Baga.

Using a number of hashtags including #BagaTogether, #weareallbaga and #pray4baga, Nigerians and others have posted their support for the affected area. Some objected to disputes over the total death toll, yet to be confirmed, getting in the way of the real issues, some objected to the scant media coverage, others simply called for solidarity.

— Emeka! (@GambinoTweets)

January 12, 2015

Disputing over the number killed is irrelevant to me. Innocent people have died, this needs to stop

#BagaTogether

— David Webb (@davidwebbshow)

January 10, 2015

Reported up to 2,000 killed by Muslim terrorists Boko Haram in Nigeria ignored by news headlines

#WeAreAllBaga

pic.twitter.com/pthFtWnG8O

Why did the media ignore Baga?

 

If you live in Nigeria, or are interested in this topic, we’d like to hear from you. What makes one massacre more newsworthy than another? Should media outlets have done more? And how can social media solidarity help? Add your thoughts in the comments below or on Twitter @GuardianAfrica.

The story was amended on the 13 January to include the full name and profession of Elnathan John

 

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/12/-sp-boko-haram-attacks-nigeria-baga-ignored-media

[baa99]

I hear the actual death count was ~200.

 

Maybe the West is limited in helping Nigeria, because of all the corruption and incompetence in Nigeria. Where has all the petro-dollars gone?

[The_Munchmaster]

Why should others help them, they don't even try to help themselves!