In her testimony to Congress on Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton cited jihadist group Boko Haram as part of the broader
Islamic militant threat in Africa.
Clinton said that the West-African group, whose name means "Western
education is sinful" is a major threat to Nigeria – Africa’s largest oil
exporter.
In an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Wednesday, Nigerian
President Goodluck Jonathan agreed that Boko Haram could pose an
existential threat to his country.
“If Boko Haram is not contained, it would be a threat not only to
Nigeria, but to
West Africa, Central Africa and of course to North
Africa,” he said. “Elements of Boko Haram link up with some of al Qaeda
in northern Mali and other North African countries.”
For that reason, he said his government is “totally committed” to
working with friendly nations to help contain problems in Mali. Like
many other world leaders, Jonathan said the problem there has been
exacerbated by the free flow of weapons out of Libya since the fall of
dictator Moammar Gadhafi.
President Jonathan admitted that initially Boko Haram caught Nigeria
off guard; now, he said, the country has been making progress to contain
“the Boko Haram saga.”
He said his government is working day and night to make sure that the
deadly attacks on an Algerian oil field do not happen in Nigeria.
The Economist reports that the death toll from Boko Haram attacks in 2012 was 1,099 – double was it was the previous year.
“If you look at the last six months, incidents of killing started
dropping,” President Jonathan contended, insisting that the government
is gaining control.
He denied suggestions from the U.S. State Department that the
Nigerian government has conducted a large quantity of arrests and
killings that have been indiscriminate, possibly driving more people
into the hands of Boko Haram.
“The United States of America is completely wrong,” he told Amanpour.
“No security agency arrests anybody just for the love of arrest. We
have intelligence that enables us to arrest the people who have been
arrested.”
President Jonathan also insists that poverty and unemployment are not
fueling the violent rise of Boko Haram – citing religion as the primary
motivation of this jihadist group.
As part of a counter terrorism effort, President Jonathan’s national
security adviser has sought to engage in dialogue with Boko Haram.
Jonathan told Amanpour that the discourse has helped the situation, and that he will continue to pursue this strategy.
The Power of the Presidency
Christiane Amanpour was the first journalist to interview Goodluck
Jonathan when he assumed the presidency in April 2010. One focus of that
conversation was about the endemic electric outages that average
Nigerians face.
Three years later, despite continued problems and a report by
Nigeria's Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission that says 60%
of Nigerians are without access to power, Jonathan said that the
country has made significant strides.
“That is one area where Nigerians are quite pleased with the
government – that our commitment to improve power is working,” he said.
“I promise you before the end of this year, power outages will be
reasonably stable in Nigeria.”
Endemic Corruption
“You cannot change the mindset of people by waving your hand. You
must take means to make sure that you don’t create an environment where
everyone will be corrupt and we are doing it very well,” Jonathan said.
He cited the previous elections as signs of success against
corruption. International observers, The African Union, and the
Independent National Electoral Commission all praised the polling.
But there is still widespread corruption in the oil industry.
Last April, Nigerian Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said that
400,000 barrels of oil a day were looted from the country in just one
month.
The International Energy Agency said that $7 billion dollars a year is lost annually to oil theft.
“Frankly speaking, speaking I want the international community to
support Nigeria because this stolen crude is being bought by refineries
abroad and they know the crude oil was stolen,” Jonathan told Amanpour.
“The world must condemn what is wrong.”
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