Nigeria should focus on development in its impoverished north as well as security to bring an end to an onslaught of deadly attacks blamed on Islamist group Boko Haram, the US ambassador said Wednesday.
US Ambassador to Nigeria Terence McCulley told journalists in a telephone conference his country was helping train the country’s security agencies, but added that the government must reach out to those who feel alienated.
“You’ve got some problems of underdevelopment in education, in sanitation, in clean water, in infrastructure, in power,” McCulley said.
“… Government, by failing to deliver services over the years, has really ruptured a social contract in making people in the north perhaps feel that government isn’t relevant in their lives.”
Boko Haram has carried out scores of increasingly deadly attacks, mainly in northern Nigeria, which has left more than 1,000 people dead since mid-2009.
The bloodiest attack yet occurred on January 20 in Kano, the largest city in Nigeria’s mainly Muslim north, with a series of coordinated bombings and shootings.
Authorities have confirmed 185 dead, while others said the toll may be as high as 250, a number McCulley also cited on Wednesday.
McCulley spoke of US efforts to open a consulate in Kano, saying he hoped it could occur in the next few years.
Many analysts have said that deep poverty, corruption and frustration among youths in the north of Africa’s most populous nation and largest oil producer have helped feed the violence.
There has also been intense speculation over whether Boko Haram has formed links with outside extremist groups such as Al-Qaeda’s north African branch.
McCulley repeated previous assertions from diplomats saying there have been reports of Boko Haram members seeking training from Al-Qaeda elements in northern Mali since 2008, but no hard proof of operational links.
“We believe that continues and it’s obviously something we monitor with great concern,” he said, speaking of the training.
“We don’t see significant evidence of operational links at this time …”
He also pointed out that Boko Haram, long believed to have various factions, “is really many groups”, some of which are more violent than others.
McCulley said the United States had programmes in place to help Nigerian authorities deal with improvised explosive devices and post-blast investigations as well as in identifying and deterring potential suicide bombers.
The United States was also helping Nigeria develop a counter-terrorism strategy that could possibly include a centre for coordinating intelligence, he said.
Apr52012