<div style="display: block; position: relative; max-width: 730px;">
<div style="padding-top: 56.25%;"><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100%; position: absolute; top: 0px; bottom: 0px; right: 0px; left: 0px;" src="//players.brightcove.net/1571595826001/default_default/index.html?videoId=5999475109001" allowfullscreen="" border=0 frameborder=0></iframe></div>
</div>
<p>As the countdown to Nigeria&#8217;s 2019 begins, CNBC Africa&#8217;s Dara Rhodes spoke to Yakubu Gowon, former Head of state of Nigeria about national unity and security concerns.</p>


Why we are not worried about security threats – Yakubu Gowon

<div style="display: block; position: relative; max-width: 730px;">
<div style="padding-top: 56.25%;"><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100%; position: absolute; top: 0px; bottom: 0px; right: 0px; left: 0px;" src="//players.brightcove.net/1571595826001/default_default/index.html?videoId=5999056642001" allowfullscreen="" border=0 frameborder=0></iframe></div>
</div>
<p>A security alert from the U.S Embassy and consulate in Nigeria has noted that the Islamic State West Africa and Boko Haram have stated plans to disrupt Nigeria&#8217;s upcoming elections by attacking infrastructure and places of gathering such as markets, hotels, and malls. Dennis Amachree, Security Consultant joins CNBC Africa to discuss Nigeria’s security preparations for the 2019 elections.</p>


Nigeria’s election security preparedness ahead of 2019 elections

<div style="display: block; position: relative; max-width: 730px;">
<div style="padding-top: 56.25%;"><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100%; position: absolute; top: 0px; bottom: 0px; right: 0px; left: 0px;" src="//players.brightcove.net/1571595826001/default_default/index.html?videoId=5971576419001" allowfullscreen="" border=0 frameborder=0></iframe></div>
</div>
<p>Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari met with Nigeria&#8217;s military chiefs in the coming days, to address the loopholes that led to the recent fatalities where scores of soldiers were killed by a splinter group of Boko Haram. Ona Ekhomu, President, Association of Industrial Security and Safety Operators of Nigeria joined CNBC Africa’s Kenneth Igbomor to discuss the state of security in Nigeria.</p>


Buhari meets Service Chiefs over Metele Boko Haram killings

<div style="display: block; position: relative; max-width: 730px;">
<div style="padding-top: 56.25%;"><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100%; position: absolute; top: 0px; bottom: 0px; right: 0px; left: 0px;" src="//players.brightcove.net/1571595826001/default_default/index.html?videoId=5849310066001" allowfullscreen="" border=0 frameborder=0></iframe></div>
</div>
<p>A medical aid worker, Hauwa Liman who was kidnapped in March this year has been killed by the Islamic State in West Africa, a faction that split Boko Haram in 2016. Onyekachi Adekoya, Managing Director at PR24 Nigeria join CNBC Africa to discuss the implications of the continued terrorist operations in Nigeria.</p>


Tackling insecurity ahead of Nigeria’s 2019 elections

<p>OSLO, May 24 (Reuters) &#8211; Remote areas in poor nations need far more investment to undercut recruitment by militant armed groups, in a shift from development policies focused most on cities, the head of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) said.</p>
<p>Achim Steiner, visiting Oslo for a May 23-24 conference on preventing violent extremism, told Reuters there was no purely military way to defeat groups such as Islamic State (IS), Boko Haram or Al Qaeda.</p>
<p>UNDP, a U.N. agency with about $5 billion in donor contributions a year, was seeking to boost investments in remote rural areas to help end poverty and marginalisation, for instance in the Sahel region in Africa.</p>
<p>“A traditional development economist might a few years ago have looked at how to invest a million dollars in supporting small and medium-scale enterprise (in) the capital city, maybe one or two other cities in the country,” Steiner said.</p>
<p>“Today if we want to deal with the phenomenon of exclusion, of potential radicalisation, we will look at who will have the greatest added benefit,” he said.</p>
<p>That could mean investments in remote rural areas prone to cross-border incursions by militants, “that traditionally would not have been at the forefront” of development spending”.</p>
<p>“Even now with a peacekeeping force in Mali there are parts of the country that are essentially not stable and secure &#8230; even a country like Nigeria has struggled to contain Boko Haram,” he said.</p>
<h3>THREAT REMAINS HIGH</h3>
<p>Investment for people in rural areas “may be education, it may be access to health services, it may be access to microfinance so that they can invest in their own businesses,” he said.</p>
<p>The success of such investments were harder to gauge than a cost-benefit analysis of a business set up in a city, he said.</p>
<p>But it might have hidden long-term benefits, for instance averting a need to deploy an international military force that could easily cost hundreds of millions of dollars a year.</p>
<p>UNDP said there were contradictory trends in the struggle to contain militants.</p>
<p>“Even though violent extremist organisations such as Al-Qaeda, Boko Haram and IS are losing territorial control, (the) threat of fragmented and persistent insecurity remains high,” it said in a statement about the Oslo talks.</p>
<p>“Deaths caused by terrorism decreased by 13 percent from 2015 to 2016, representing an overall global decline by 22 per cent since 2014,” with declines in nations including Afghanistan, Nigeria, Pakistan and Syria, it said.</p>
<p>At the same time, “there is an increase in the number of countries that recorded at least one terrorism-related death, from 65 countries in 2015 to 77 countries in 2016,” it said. (Reporting By Alister Doyle, Editing by William Maclean)</p>


Could this be the solution to combating violent extremism in Africa?

<div style="display: block; position: relative; max-width: 730px;">
<div style="padding-top: 56.25%;"><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100%; position: absolute; top: 0px; bottom: 0px; right: 0px; left: 0px;" src="//players.brightcove.net/1571595826001/default_default/index.html?videoId=5755478085001" allowfullscreen="" border=0 frameborder=0></iframe></div>
</div>
<p>Some of the 110 schoolgirls abducted from the northeast Nigerian town of Dapchi last month were brought back on Wednesday according to reports from Reuters. Senior Special Adviser to the President on Media and publicity has confirmed.</p>


Dapchi girls freed: Did Nigeria pay ransom for their release?

<div style="display: block; position: relative; max-width: 730px;">
<div style="padding-top: 56.25%;"><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100%; position: absolute; top: 0px; bottom: 0px; right: 0px; left: 0px;" src="//players.brightcove.net/1571595826001/default_default/index.html?videoId=5739140900001" allowfullscreen="" border=0 frameborder=0></iframe></div>
</div>
<p>In the latest update on the 94 school girls kidnapped from Dapchi, the governor of Nigeria’s Yobe State, Ibrahim Geidam told residents of the village of Dapchi on Thursday that 76 of their schoolgirls who were reported to have been rescued from Islamist Boko Haram kidnappers were in fact still missing. Tanwa Ashiru, Founder of Bulwark Intelligence joins CNBC Africa to discuss this developing story.</p>


Boko Haram crises: Update on the missing Dapchi girls

<div style="display: block; position: relative; max-width: 730px;">
<div style="padding-top: 56.25%;"><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100%; position: absolute; top: 0px; bottom: 0px; right: 0px; left: 0px;" src="//players.brightcove.net/1571595826001/default_default/index.html?videoId=5659938684001" allowfullscreen="" border=0 frameborder=0></iframe></div>
</div>
<p>As Nigeria wriggles out of recession, the economy is getting some respite, but can we say the same for the security situation in the country?</p>


Assessing Nigeria’s security situation

<p>Leighann Spencer, <em>Charles Sturt University</em></p>
<p>Concerns about safety and security are substantial in Nigeria. Here, crime is high and the police are considered corrupt and inefficient. The structure of law enforcement does not help. Police are run at the federal level despite long-standing calls for state forces. Given that Nigeria has many diverse languages, cultural practices and terrain, the centralised police face many difficulties.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-39044 size-full" src="http://cnbc.africa/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/nigeria2_shutterstock_306272309-1.jpg" alt="Nigeria resumes payments to former Niger Delta militants: official" width="800" height="600" /></p>
<p>These conditions are conducive for vigilantes – civilians who undertake their own crime control. Although vigilantes can be effective in providing safety and security, their use poses several problems. They sometimes take the law into their own hands and dispense justice as they see fit. Yet in Nigeria they often have authorities’ approval.</p>
<p>The Borno vigilantes fighting against Boko Haram, whose activities have attracted widespread media coverage, illustrate this well. Referred to as the Civilian Joint Task Force, they began in 2013 as a group of local hunters intending to protect their communities, but quickly became integrated into the government’s official counter-insurgency.</p>
<p>With greater knowledge of the local community and terrain than officials, the Civilian Joint Task Force has been successful in identifying Boko Haram members and limiting their attacks. Nevertheless, they have been implicated in abuses, including extrajudicial killings. There are fears that they could evolve into an ethnic militia or be used for political means.</p>
<p>The Civilian Joint Task Force is not the only example. The use of vigilante groups to protect lives and property, with official support, has become part of the fabric of Nigerian society.</p>
<h2>Profiles of the main groups</h2>
<p>Vigilantism is not a new phenomenon in Nigeria. Traditional hunter guards have pre-colonial origins, and were authorised by the British regime during World War Two. The politicisation of hunter guards after independence led to prohibition. However, vigilantism continued, with groups proliferating in the 1990s:</p>
<p><strong>The Bakassi Boys</strong></p>
<p>Originally a group of shoe producers patrolling the Ariaria market in Aba 1998, the Bakassi Boys quickly spread across the city. They were successful in preventing crime. The state government renamed them the Abia State Vigilante Service in 2000, providing them with funds and equipment.</p>
<p>That same year, the Anambra State governor invited the Bakassi Boys to deal with heightened crime at the Ontisha market. Subsequently, the State House of Assembly passed a law to legitimise the group as the Anambra Vigilante Services. A nearby state, Imo, followed suit.</p>
<p>In all three areas, the vigilantes were controlled by an official committee. However, this did not quell executions and other abuses, including political killings. Efforts by the federal government to ban these groups failed, and the Bakassi Boys continue to operate.</p>
<p><strong>Oodua People’s Congress</strong></p>
<p>The Oodua People’s Congress, based in Southwest Nigeria, was founded by Yoruba intellectuals to promote Yoruba historical and cultural research after the Moshood Abiola debacle. Abiola, a Yoruba, won the 1993 presidential election which was annulled by the military government. He was jailed and later died in prison. In 1996 the group’s mandate was expanded to include vigilante activities.</p>
<p>As members opposed military rule, they became involved in political vigilantism during the 1999 election. When former army general Olusegun Obasanjo won, he banned the group.</p>
<p>This ban failed to stop the Oodua People’s Congress from operating and committing violent acts. They became increasingly politicised. By supporting President Goodluck Jonathan in the 2015 elections they were awarded a contract to guard the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation pipelines. This contract was withdrawn after Muhammadu Buhari was elected instead.</p>
<p>Although the Oodua People’s Congress’ relationship with the federal government is unstable, it tends to have state support. They recently collaborated with the Lagos police to combat the murderous Badoo cult.</p>
<p><strong>The Hisbah</strong></p>
<p>Many states in northern Nigeria have implemented Sharia law. In 2000, the Hisbah vigilante group was set up in Zamfara and Kano states in northern Nigeria amongst claims that the federal police failed to effect Sharia. When complaints of extrajudicial killings escalated, the state governments set up monitoring committees.</p>
<p>By 2003, laws to regulate the Hisbah were passed. They became a highly structured organisation, operating in uniforms and marked vehicles, and even broadcasting a weekly radio programme. Again, official regulation did not prevent abuses. While the Hisbah enjoy state support, they have clashed with the federal police. This peaked with a federal ban in 2006, but the group continued to operate and spread to other northern states.</p>
<p><strong>Groups in the Niger Delta</strong></p>
<p>The Niger Delta is rich in oil, yet local communities are excluded from the benefits of this resource. This has been the driving force behind the emergence of various ethnic vigilante groups there.</p>
<p>For example, the Egbesu Boys formed in the early 1990s as a response to oil exploitation on Ijaw land. A clash between the Okrika and Eleme communities over land ownership where the Port Harcourt refinery is situated produced the Okrika Bush Boys. Both groups have allegedly gained support from politicians.</p>
<p>Port Harcourt has also seen violent clashes between the Ijaw groups Niger Delta People’s Volunteer Force and Niger Delta Vigilante, with the state government supporting the latter. This official alliance precipitated the 2004 Nigerian oil crisis.</p>
<p>Federal attempts to ban and disarm various Niger Delta groups have been unsuccessful.</p>
<p><strong>Vigilante Group of Nigeria</strong></p>
<p>The countrywide Vigilante Group of Nigeria originated in Benue and registered as an NGO in 1999. The group is highly structured and collaborates with the police and military. Like the Civilian Joint Task Force, it has also played a role in combating Boko Haram.</p>
<p>With an understanding of the local communities in which they work, the Vigilante Group of Nigeria has been very successful. Recently, the House of Representatives passed a bill authorising the group. However, its members have not been exempt from committing abuses.</p>
<p>This is not an exhaustive list. Vigilantes cooperate with the police and military amidst farmer-pastoralist conflicts in Plateau state. In Kano, aside from the Hisbah, operates several vigilante groups registered with and funded by the state. In October, the Nasarawa Commissioner of Police announced a partnership with local hunters and vigilantes.</p>
<h2>Regulation and bans</h2>
<p>Although official regulation has not completely eradicated abuses, it appears more fruitful than bans. Moreover, the effectiveness of vigilantism in combating crime cannot be contested. With enhanced training and accountability mechanisms these groups could provide an important component of community policing.</p>
<p>Indeed, nongovernmental organisations CLEEN and J4A have successfully trained vigilantes and improved their relations with police. Conversely, it has been argued that improvement of official law enforcement should be prioritised, which would remove the need for vigilantism.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/86867/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />But for now, these groups are here to stay.</p>
<p>This article was originally published on The Conversation.</p>


Vigilantism is flourishing in Nigeria — with official support

<p data-reactid="42">Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari said on Sunday he would not allow the country to be dismembered as it faces calls for secession in a region formerly known as Biafra and the Niger Delta oil hub along with a separatist insurgency by Boko Haram.</p>
<p data-reactid="43">Nigeria is Africa’s most populous nation and has the continent’s largest economy but it has struggled for unity among its 180 million inhabitants who include Christians and Muslims. Its 250 different ethnic groups mostly co-exist peacefully.</p>
<p data-reactid="44">In the last few months calls for a separate southeastern state known as Biafra have grown louder, evoking memories of a conflict there that killed around 1 million people in the 1960s. Militants in the restive southern Niger Delta have also called for independence in the last year.</p>
<p data-reactid="45">“Highly irresponsible groups” were calling for the “dismemberment of the country,” Buhari said in a televised speech to mark the anniversary of Nigeria’s independence. “We cannot and we will not allow such advocacy.”</p>
<p data-reactid="46">His comments come against the backdrop of a military deployment to the southeast and a crackdown on the region’s best known secessionist group, the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), which was last month labelled a terrorist organisation.</p>
<p data-reactid="47">The group’s leader, Nnamdi Kanu, has not been seen since Sept. 14 when IPOB says his home was raided by soldiers. The military on Friday said it did not raid Kanu’s home and was not holding the IPOB leader.</p>
<p data-reactid="48">Buhari also said the government continued to hold talks with communities in the Niger Delta to maintain a ceasefire which halted attacks on oil installations which last year cut the OPEC member’s crude production by over a third.</p>
<p data-reactid="49">“We intend to address genuine grievances of the communities. Government is grateful to the responsible leadership of those communities and will pursue lasting peace in the Niger Delta,” said Buhari, a former military ruler.</p>
<p data-reactid="50">The broadcast was aired on Sunday shortly before the presidency said Buhari was travelling to the northeastern city of Maiduguri, epicentre of the Islamist militant Boko Haram insurgency, to celebrate the independence anniversary with soldiers fighting Boko Haram.</p>
<p data-reactid="52">The jihadist group is seeking a separate state in the northeast adhering to a strict interpretation of Islamic law.</p>
<p>More than 20,000 people have been killed in the insurgency since 2009 and at least 10.7 million people in the northeast need some form of assistance, according to the United Nations which says it is one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.</p>
<div class="Attribution_attribution_o4ojT" data-reactid="53">
<p class="Attribution_content_27_rw" data-reactid="54">Writing by Alexis Akwagyiram; Editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg</p>
</div>


Nigeria’s Buhari says will not allow state to be dismembered by secessionists

<p><em><span class="fn author-name">Omolade Adunbi |</span> University of Michigan</em></p>
<p>The rise of ethnic and religious nationalism in Nigeria in the last decade has led to such high levels of tension that it’s prompted people to ask if it will survive as a country. Or if Nigeria is on the brink of another civil war.</p>
<p>What’s behind the growing tensions is unequal distribution of the country’s wealth. Inequality has caused mistrust among ethnic groups. This, in turn, has led to conflict and violence.</p>
<p>Nigeria has in fact been at war with itself for some time – a war that has become intensified in the last two decades.</p>
<p>A number of events illustrate this. For instance, militancy in the oil rich Niger Delta region started after the 2003 general elections where arms and ammunition were purchased by some politicians and handed to young people in an attempt to influence the elections. But after the elections, many young Nigerians, angered by high rates of unemployment, turned the weapons against their sponsors and the Nigerian state.</p>
<p>Another example is the role played by the Oodua Peoples Congress, a group that advocated for an autonomous region for the Yoruba speaking southwest Nigeria. The congress started its agitation in 1994, a year after the annulment of the 1993 presidential election won by M.K.O Abiola, a member of the Yoruba ethnic group. Their dominant message was the alleged marginalisation of the Yoruba ethnic group.</p>
<p>And in 2009 the Boko Haram insurgency erupted after the brutal murder of Mohammed Yusuf, an Islamic cleric based in Maiduguri who had started a movement seven years earlier to push for an end to corruption and action against inequality. He also supported Islamic practices in the northeast region of Nigeria. Yusuf was arrested by the police and died in custody in 2009. Many members of his sect immediately staged a peaceful protest. Protests later became violent when they started targeting police offices and police posts across the North.</p>
<p>Now there is a resurgence of opposition in Biafra. It echoes back to 1967 when the then military governor of the Eastern region of Nigeria, Col. Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu declared the Igbo speaking East independent from Nigeria. This followed Igbos in the North being targeted after the first military coup d&#8217;etat that ended Nigeria’s first republic. The 1966 coup, mostly led by military officers from the Igbo speaking east of Nigeria, was perceived by many in the North to have specifically targeted and killed many Hausa/Fulani politicians from the Northern region.</p>
<p>Economic inequality cannot be separated from the root of all these developments. Nigerians are frustrated because they can see economic inequality growing at a faster pace than ever before and no one seems to be doing anything about it.</p>
<p>Will these agitations lead to an outright war in the scale of the 1960s civil war? There is no categorical answer to that. But I doubt that there will be another civil war on the scale of 1967-1970, although there may be large scale violence.</p>
<h2>A history of violence</h2>
<p>Violence has always been part of the history of economic and political marginalisation in Nigeria.</p>
<p>Examples can be drawn from the mass violence that led to the 1967-70 civil war as well as the ethno-religious violence of the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and the 2000s. These included the Zango Kataf conflict, Maitatsine riotsin the North between 1980 and 1985, the Agbekoya farmers uprising in the West 1968-70, the first iteration of the resurgence of Biafra by the Ralph Uwazuruike-led Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra in 2000 and the national protests against the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election won by Chief M.K.O. Abiola.</p>
<p>Many of these mass actions started as protests against perceived injustice. But they were aggravated by the forceful response of the Nigerian government. The protests all paralysed state activities. But none threatened the survival of the Nigerian state more than the oil related conflicts in the Niger Delta.</p>
<p>Beginning with the state murder of Niger Delta rights activist Ken Saro Wiwa in November 1995 and crystallising in the insurgency against oil corporations and the state, protest action in the Niger Delta have affected the production and sale of oil which is the mainstay of the Nigerian economy.</p>
<h2>How Nigeria got here</h2>
<p>The resurgence of ethno-religious protests in Nigeria can be traced to the fact that wealth circulates among a small group of elites. Although they come from all ethnic and religious groups, they resort to fanning ethno-religious sentiments when they feel there’s a threat to their wealth. Cries of marginalisation becomes the dominant cry when they’re out of power.</p>
<p>The election of President Muhammadu Buhari in 2015, triggered new tensions. This is because he is considered a member of the Northern elite. Immediately after his election protests began supporting self-determination or secession by various groups from the South. These included the Indigenous People of Biafra in the South East as well as groups such as the Niger Delta Avengers in the South-South.</p>
<p>Control of Nigeria’s oil resources in the Niger Delta always comes into the mix. Recent clashes involving the Biafra group in Port Harcourt – capital city of oil rich Rivers State – must be understood in that context. It is no surprise that once again, the Niger Delta is at the heart of the current clamour for secession just as it was between 1966 and 1970 when oil extraction started taking root in Nigeria.</p>
<p>But there are important differences between today’s protests and those staged earlier in Nigeria’s history. The main ones include the fact that people are mobilised differently, and the way in which information is disseminated and consumed.</p>
<p>News travel faster than it used to and unfounded rumours spread like wildfire. Fuelling the tensions is the fact that hate speech is rife. The state is as guilty as the agitators. Voices of reason and objective analysis are lost in the noise especially now that everyone with a smart phone has become a ‘journalist’. In the confusion, the road to anarchy looms large over Nigeria.</p>
<h2>What’s to be done</h2>
<p>An inclusive economic and political system is the only solution. The current public discourse is focused on political restructuring along ethnic lines. The calls for a political arrangement where major ethnic groups will have control over their geographical areas as well as resources therein might help. The danger is that rather than unify Nigeria, it would further divide the country along ethnic and religious lines.</p>
<p>What’s missing in the conversation is the fact that the environment for violence and oppression of most Nigerians has come about because of the way in which the country’s economy is structured. The elitist economy cuts across all ethnic groups. The disenfranchisement, marginalisation and exploitation defy ethnic colouration.</p>
<p>For restructuring to be meaningful, Nigeria must create an inclusive economic and political system where ethnic and religious affiliation will no longer be a defining factor in economic and political participation. What Nigerians need, and are clamouring for, is a country that will accommodate them regardless of ethnic or religious creed. Political, religious and ethnic tolerance is the key to economic and political success, therefore economic and political inclusivity must account for greater tolerance for it to be effective.</p>


Economic inequality lies behind growing calls for secession in Nigeria

<p data-reactid="45">When millions of people in northeast Nigeria faced hunger and attacks by Islamist militant group Boko Haram in March 2016, the government acted: it decided to spend $1.4 million cutting down weeds around the village of Wachakal in order to stop flooding.</p>
<p data-reactid="46">    Six months later, many of the weeds had grown back and 317 million naira (at the time $1.04 million) had been transferred from the company hired to destroy them to a firm founded by the government official in charge of dispensing aid, according to a Nigerian Senate report.</p>
<p data-reactid="47">The report, written by a committee of lawmakers from Nigeria’s upper chamber of parliament, concluded that companies that received contracts for projects including the weeding from a government body overseen by the official, Babachir Lawal, transferred a total of 500 million naira (worth around $2.2 million) to the firm he set up.</p>
<p data-reactid="48">The report publicly called for a criminal investigation into the payments. Central to the probe was whether Lawal was involved in a suspected kickback scheme to divert aid money intended for the volatile northeast.</p>
<p data-reactid="49">The committee said the scheme involved inflating the value of contracts to enrich Lawal and his associates. The report did not provide evidence to show why it believed costs had been enlarged.</p>
<p data-reactid="50">Lawal, 62, is an ally of President Muhammadu Buhari and one of his first appointments. In a written statement responding to Reuters’ questions, Lawal denied wrongdoing and said he had been the victim of a Senate witch-hunt.</p>
<p data-reactid="51">    The United Nations has warned that northeast Nigeria is gripped by one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.</p>
<p data-reactid="52">Boko Haram has burned down homes, destroyed livelihoods and killed thousands of people. Refugees living in camps complain of starvation and disease, while soldiers and police have been accused of rape.</p>
<p data-reactid="53">    A Reuters review of the Senate report’s findings shows how two pillars of Buhari’s presidency &#8211; restoring stability in the northeast and fighting corruption &#8211; may have been undermined by the alleged misappropriation of aid money and food.</p>
<p data-reactid="54">The review draws upon documents detailing bank transfers and corporate records, visits to aid projects and interviews with senior politicians, diplomats and humanitarian workers.</p>
<h3 data-reactid="55">PROMISES UNFULFILLED</h3>
<p data-reactid="56">  The final Senate report, published in May, recommended that Lawal be prosecuted for allegedly flouting procurement rules and breaking his oaths of office.</p>
<p data-reactid="57">He was suspended in April pending a presidential investigation launched after the Senate’s findings first surfaced in an earlier draft of the report.</p>
<p data-reactid="58">The investigation into Lawal, ordered by Buhari, was headed by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, who delivered his findings to the president on Aug. 22.</p>
<p data-reactid="59">“The president has to look at the report, study it and then make his own decisions,” Osinbajo said, without saying what was in the presidential investigation report.</p>
<p data-reactid="60">   Buhari’s office referred Reuters to the vice president’s comments.</p>
<p data-reactid="61">Despite Buhari’s vows to fight corruption, no major figures have been convicted so far. Boko Haram, who have killed around 20,000 people since 2009, have been pushed back in some areas yet continue to launch attacks, while millions of people in the northeast rely on some form of aid.</p>
<h3 data-reactid="62">MILLIONS OF DOLLARS</h3>
<p data-reactid="63">Shehu Sani, who chaired the Senate committee that produced the report, said overall losses to suspected corruption in various forms in the northeastern humanitarian crisis in recent years had not been determined due to the probe’s specific remit and factors that restricted its scope.</p>
<p data-reactid="64">He said the Senate investigation was limited by the timeframe examined, as it focused on government aid spending since the current administration took office in May, 2015.</p>
<p data-reactid="65">Sani also said some government agencies had refused to cooperate, access to bank account details was limited and the use of international donor funds was not investigated.</p>
<p data-reactid="66">“We can say, conservatively, that over 10 billion naira ($33 million) of monies that were supposed to go to the IDPs (internally displaced persons) were misappropriated or unaccounted for, or misused from different segments of the Nigerian government,” Sani told Reuters.</p>
<p data-reactid="67">He said he was referring to all forms of corruption related to funds involving Nigerian humanitarian aid dating back around three years, and not just allegations involving Lawal. He declined to elaborate further.</p>
<p data-reactid="68">The humanitarian crisis began in 2014. Nigeria’s then-president, Goodluck Jonathan, set up the Presidential Initiative on the Northeast (PINE) to provide emergency assistance to communities and foster economic growth in the region.</p>
<p data-reactid="69">PINE had problems from the outset.</p>
<p data-reactid="70">According to a 2014 internal PINE presentation prepared by the then-chairman for the group’s committee, a pilot scheme sent 51 food trucks to Borno state and 10 to Gombe state; none arrived.</p>
<p data-reactid="71">After he became president in 2015, Buhari made Lawal Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) &#8211; Nigeria’s top civil servant. Through PINE, Lawal oversaw millions of dollars of aid.</p>
<p data-reactid="72">The Senate report alleges that most aid contracts in 2016 did not help the needy. Instead, inflated contracts “were awarded to companies belonging to top government officials’ cronies and close associates”.</p>
<p data-reactid="73">It said a company called Rholavision Engineering Limited, which describes itself as “Information and Communication Technology Engineers &amp; Consultants” and was founded by Lawal in 1990, was where money for companies that were awarded contracts by PINE came to first.</p>
<p data-reactid="74">    In his statement, Lawal said he relinquished ties with Rholavision on Aug. 27, 2015, four days before being sworn in as SGF.</p>
<p data-reactid="75">But company registry records show he did not resign as a director until Sept. 8, 2016. In addition, a signed letter from Lawal to the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) dated Sept. 16, 2016 &#8211; contained in the appendices of the Senate report &#8211; said he wished to relinquish his shares in Rholavision.</p>
<p data-reactid="76">“That can’t be true,” said Lawal in a text message when asked about the apparent discrepancy. “This is forged,” he said, when sent a picture of the letter to CAC. He declined to elaborate.</p>
<p data-reactid="77">    Rholavision declined to comment.</p>
<h3 data-reactid="78">SOME WORK DONE</h3>
<p data-reactid="79">In March and August 2016, PINE awarded two contracts to cut weeds and improve irrigation in riverside communities in the northeastern state of Yobe. For some 30 years, the weeds had caused farmland to flood and prevented people from fishing.</p>
<p data-reactid="80">The contracts, worth a combined total of 531 million naira, were granted to Josmon Technologies Ltd. The first contract, awarded in March 2016, was for 273 million naira &#8211; at the time worth $1.4 million.</p>
<p data-reactid="81">The second contract was awarded to Josmon in August 2016. Nigeria’s naira currency lost around a third of its value two months earlier, so the 258 million naira contract was then worth some $845,000.</p>
<p data-reactid="82">Rholavision, the company founded by Lawal, received a contract for a consultancy role in the weed-cutting project. The 7.1 million naira contract was awarded in March 2016 when that sum was equivalent to $36,040.</p>
<p data-reactid="83">Some work was done. Ali Dodo, a farmer in Wachakal, told Reuters that he and others cut weeds around the Komadugu-Yobe river over a month-long period from August 2016. He said contractors paid them 2,500 naira a day.</p>
<p data-reactid="84">Reuters was unable to determine how much was spent on the work in total. Bank records, however, show that Josmon Technologies paid 317 million naira to Rholavision between March and September 2016.</p>
<p data-reactid="85">Monday John Apeh, a Josmon director, told Reuters that “Josmon has no relationship with Mr Babachir Lawal”.</p>
<div class="DPSlot_container_2dHIN DPSlot_inline_1oeo6 in-article-tag"></div>
<p data-reactid="87">In a text message, he said Josmon struggled to finance the PINE contract because the company had been experiencing financial difficulties and would only be paid when the work was complete. That “led us to borrow money from Rholavision’s MD”, he said.</p>
<p data-reactid="88">Josmon said 195 million naira ($637,359) of the 317 million naira it sent to Rholavision was to repay that loan. Apeh declined to comment on what happened to the remaining 122 million naira.</p>
<p data-reactid="89">Lawal said in his statement: “These purely business transactions between the companies cannot be classified as bribes.”</p>
<p data-reactid="90">Dodo, the local farmer, said weeds started growing back within six months.</p>
<p data-reactid="91">Despite numerous setbacks, Nigeria’s government is trying to reboot aid efforts. Buhari replaced PINE with the Presidential Committee on the Northeast Initiative last October.</p>
<p data-reactid="92">In June, the government promised to distribute 30,000 tonnes of grain to people displaced by Boko Haram, after saying more than half of food aid previously dispatched had gone missing.</p>
<p data-reactid="93">Zainab Ahmed, who heads Nigeria’s Inter-Ministerial Task Force on the Humanitarian Response in the Northeast, told Reuters the deliveries would now be guarded by soldiers.</p>
<p data-reactid="94">Coordination between agencies “is not perfect but it has improved a great deal and is getting better,” she said.</p>
<p>($1 = 305.9500 naira)</p>
<div class="Attribution_attribution_o4ojT" data-reactid="95">
<p class="Attribution_content_27_rw" data-reactid="96">Editing by Giles Elgood</p>
</div>


In the weeds: How top official got tangled in Nigerian aid scandal

<div style="display: block; position: relative; max-width: 640px;">
<div style="padding-top: 56.25%;"><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100%; position: absolute; top: 0px; bottom: 0px; right: 0px; left: 0px;" src="//players.brightcove.net/1571595826001/default_default/index.html?videoId=5550205264001" allowfullscreen="" border=0 frameborder=0></iframe></div>
</div>
<p>Six people have been confirmed dead in a suicide attack in Maiduguri, North East Nigeria on Wednesday despite the President&#8217;s order to his service chiefs to end insecurity nationwide.</p>


Suicide bombers kill 6 in northeast Nigeria’s Maiduguri

<div style="display: block; position: relative; max-width: 640px;">
<div style="padding-top: 56.25%;"><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100%; position: absolute; top: 0px; bottom: 0px; right: 0px; left: 0px;" src="//players.brightcove.net/1571595826001/default_default/index.html?videoId=5549151663001" allowfullscreen="" border=0 frameborder=0></iframe></div>
</div>
<p>Chidi Nwaonu, Security Consultant joins CNBC Africa from London to discuss what the Nigerian government needs to do to end the threat of Boko Haram.</p>


Buhari orders service chiefs to end insecurity nationwide

<p>ABUJA (Reuters) &#8211; Separatists calling for the breakup of Nigeria have crossed a red line and the country&#8217;s unity is not negotiable, President Muhammadu Buhari said on Monday in his first speech since returning home after three months of medical leave in Britain.</p>
<p>Ethnic tensions have surfaced in the last few months amid calls for a separate southeastern state, known as Biafra, while some in the restive southern Niger Delta oil hub have called for independence and Boko Haram militants seek an Islamic state in the northeast.</p>
<p>Nigeria is Africa&#8217;s most populous nation with 180 million people, split roughly equally between Christians and Muslims and about 250 different ethnic groups who mostly live peacefully side-by-side.</p>
<p>In a televised speech, broadcast two days after his return on Saturday, Buhari said he followed events in Nigeria on a daily basis during his absence and was concerned by discussions over the possible dissolution of the country.</p>
<p>&#8220;I was distressed to notice that some of the comments, especially in the social media have crossed our national red lines by daring to question our collective existence as a nation,&#8221; said Buhari.</p>
<p>&#8220;Nigeria&#8217;s unity is settled and not negotiable. We shall not allow irresponsible elements to start trouble,&#8221; he said, adding that some ethnic violence was &#8220;fuelled by political mischief makers&#8221;.</p>
<p>Buhari, a 74-year-old northern Muslim who took office in May 2015, handed over power to his deputy, Christian southerner Yemi Osinbajo, when he travelled to Britain on May 7 for treatment of an unspecified ailment.</p>
<p>Osinbajo held talks in June with regional leaders in an effort to quell tension after Muslim activists demanded the eviction of Igbo people from the north over their calls for the creation of a separate Biafra state.</p>
<p>The tensions echoed the build up to a civil war over the secession of Biafra in 1967 which ended with Nigeria&#8217;s victory in 1970, after an estimated 1 million people died.</p>
<p>Buhari also said Nigeria&#8217;s security agencies should not let successes achieved against Islamist militant group Boko Haram in the last 18 months &#8220;be a sign to relax&#8221;, adding that Nigeria would &#8220;reinforce and reinvigorate&#8221; the fight against the insurgents.</p>
<p>Suicide bomb attacks and raids by Boko Haram in the northeast have increased in the last few months, killing at least 170 people since June 1, according a Reuters tally. Buhari had said in December 2016 that the group&#8217;s main base had fallen.</p>
<p>Nigeria, an OPEC member which has Africa&#8217;s biggest economy, is in its first recession in 25 years which was largely caused by low oil prices and the impact of attacks on energy facilities last year in the Niger Delta.</p>
<p>Buhari said it was in the interest of Nigerians to come together to face the challenge of economic security.</p>
<p>Reporting by Felix Onuah, Paul Carsten and Alexis Akwagyiram in Lagos; Editing by Robert Birsel</p>


Nigeria’s President Buhari addresses his nation after 3 months medical leave, this is what he had to say

<div style="display: block; position: relative; max-width: 640px;">
<div style="padding-top: 56.25%;"><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100%; position: absolute; top: 0px; bottom: 0px; right: 0px; left: 0px;" src="//players.brightcove.net/1571595826001/default_default/index.html?videoId=5543616879001" allowfullscreen="" border=0 frameborder=0></iframe></div>
</div>
<p>At one point this year, it appeared that Boko Haram was all but defeated. News reports about attacks were few and far between. However in recent weeks there has been resurgence.</p>


The resurgence of Boko Haram

<p><span class="articleLocation">LAGOS</span></p>
<p>At least half of Nigerian government food aid sent northeast for hungry people driven from their homes by Boko Haram has been &#8220;diverted&#8221; and never reached them, a government official said.<span id="midArticle_byline"></span></p>
<p>Some 1.5 million people are on the brink of famine in the northeast, where the jihadist group has killed more than 20,000 people and forced 2.7 million to flee during its eight-year uprising to create an Islamic caliphate.</p>
<p>A programme was launched on June 8 by Yemi Osinbajo, acting president while President Muhammadu Buhari is in Britain on medical leave, to distribute grain to 1.8 million people still displaced by the insurgency, many of whom live in camps.</p>
<p>&#8220;Over 1,000 trucks of assorted grains are now on course, delivering the grains intact to beneficiaries since the commencement of the present programme as against the reported diversion of over 50 trucks in every 100 trucks sent to the northeast,&#8221; said Osinbajo&#8217;s spokesman Laolu Akande in an emailed statement late on Saturday.</p>
<p>&#8220;The issue of diversion of relief materials, including food and related matters, which has dogged food delivery to the IDPs [internally displaced people] would be significantly curbed under the new distribution matrix.&#8221;</p>
<p>Akande said 1,376 military personnel and 656 armed police would guard the food as it was moved from warehouses and distributed to displaced people in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe &#8211; the three states worst hit by the insurgency.</p>
<p>Boko Haram controlled an area of the northeast around the size of Belgium in early 2015 but has since been pushed out of most of the territory by Nigeria&#8217;s army and troops from neighbouring countries.</p>
<p>But the Islamists continue to carry out attacks in the northeast and neighbouring Cameroon and Niger.</p>
<p>Boko Haram killed 14 people in bombings and shootings in the northeastern city of Maiduguri on June 7, in a large-scale attack quelled by the army after several hours.</p>
<p>A U.N. official said this month the World Food Programme had scaled back its emergency plans in the northeast because of lack of funds, now aiming to supply food to 1.4 million people instead of the 1.8 million previously intended.<span id="midArticle_byline"></span></p>
<p>The U.N. says it needs $1.05 billion this year to deal with the crisis in northeast Nigeria &#8211; which, along with Somalia and South Sudan, is one of three humanitarian emergencies unfolding in Africa &#8211; but has only received about a quarter of that sum.</p>
<p>(Reporting by Alexis Akwagyiram; editing by Andrew Roche)</p>


Boko Haram.

Why we are not worried about security threats – Yakubu Gowon

Nigeria’s election security preparedness ahead of 2019 elections

Buhari meets Service Chiefs over Metele Boko Haram killings

Tackling insecurity ahead of Nigeria’s 2019 elections

Could this be the solution to combating violent extremism in Africa?

Dapchi girls freed: Did Nigeria pay ransom for their release?

Boko Haram crises: Update on the missing Dapchi girls

Assessing Nigeria’s security situation

Vigilantism is flourishing in Nigeria — with official support

Nigeria’s Buhari says will not allow state to be dismembered by secessionists

Economic inequality lies behind growing calls for secession in Nigeria

In the weeds: How top official got tangled in Nigerian aid scandal

Suicide bombers kill 6 in northeast Nigeria’s Maiduguri

Buhari orders service chiefs to end insecurity nationwide

Nigeria’s President Buhari addresses his nation after 3 months medical leave, this is what he had to say

The resurgence of Boko Haram

Nigeria says half of govt food aid never reached victims of Boko Haram

News Tips

Advertise With Us

Boko Haram.

Why we are not worried about security threats – Yakubu Gowon

Nigeria’s election security preparedness ahead of 2019 elections

Buhari meets Service Chiefs over Metele Boko Haram killings

Tackling insecurity ahead of Nigeria’s 2019 elections

Could this be the solution to combating violent extremism in Africa?

Dapchi girls freed: Did Nigeria pay ransom for their release?

Boko Haram crises: Update on the missing Dapchi girls

Assessing Nigeria’s security situation

Vigilantism is flourishing in Nigeria — with official support

Nigeria’s Buhari says will not allow state to be dismembered by secessionists

Economic inequality lies behind growing calls for secession in Nigeria

In the weeds: How top official got tangled in Nigerian aid scandal

Suicide bombers kill 6 in northeast Nigeria’s Maiduguri

Buhari orders service chiefs to end insecurity nationwide

Nigeria’s President Buhari addresses his nation after 3 months medical leave, this is what he had to say

The resurgence of Boko Haram

Nigeria says half of govt food aid never reached victims of Boko Haram

News Tips

Advertise With Us

Newsletters