NIGERIA`S ENTANGLED WEB WITH BOKO HARAM

NIGERIA`S ENTANGLED WEB WITH BOKO HARAM By Tikum Mbah Azonga Nigeria has been shaken. The danger is the fundamentalist sect known as Boko Haram and the evidence is the wide-scale havoc wreaked on the Nigerian people. Today the nation is beleaguered, besieged and estranged. Cameroon Tribune examined the sectarian violence: “initially targeting security forces and their facilities, it was later transformed into indiscriminate attacks on civilians, the United Nations compound in the capital, Abuja, churches and threats to Southerners to leave the largely Moslem north”. For a country that suffered the ravages of a costly civil war in the late 1960s (commonly known as ‘the Biafra War’) the current violence could not have been more untimely. In fact, Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan has described it as being worse than the civil war because today’s enemies are hard to identify. Worse still for Nigeria, a nationwide strike crippled the country for days after trade unions talked people into the streets to protest at government’s withdrawal of petrol subsidies. However, although the Nigerian president has announced a cut on fuel prices, the same can unfortunately not be said for the religious riots. Tough questions for Nigeria Nigeria should ask itself why there is so much unrest between its Muslims and Christians. It should ask itself why Cameroon which also a Muslim and Christian population is on the other hand enjoying unprecedented peace and harmony. The truth is that the political constitution of Nigeria’s ethnic groups is such that they are disparate and alien to each other; and as a result, suspicious of each other. On the other hand, Cameroon’s ethnic groups are despite their heterogeneous nature composite and tolerant. The reason is that for decades the Cameroon government has applied a policy by which civil servants can be posted to any part of the country at any time. In that way Cameroonians easily cohabit. If Nigeria were to give the Cameroonian formula a chance, it might find that therein lies the solution to its longstanding dilemma. FFOTNOTE This piece was first published on my www.tmazonga.wordpress.com a year ago.