Free Republic

A growing trend of African countries promising to free up money for social spending by slashing fuel subsidies will test public faith in governments, amid widespread fear the cash will vanish in a haze of graft and mismanagement. Nigeria, Ghana, Guinea, Chad and others have all cut back on expensive fuel subsidy programmes in recent months. For economists, the cuts have been an encouraging sign, raising hopes that reforms are taking root in the continent even as it braces for the fallout of the European debt crisis. For millions of Africans, however, the changes have created nothing by pain. Nigerians...

President Goodluck Jonathan is living the toughest week of his political career as tens of thousands of Nigerians take to the streets in the longest national strike in the nation's history, at the same time as an increasingly deadly Islamist group continues its relentless sectarian onslaught, prompting an upsurge in Christian-Muslim violence. The crises presented by the protests against gasoline-subsidy cuts and the communal violence may be quite different, but both are symptoms of years of government abuse and corruption. After four days of deadlock, Jonathan has begun negotiating with labor unions, hoping to end the strike that has paralyzed...

The Islamist terror group Boko Haram’s escalating war against Christians and a violent nationwide protest against the end to government fuel subsidies have brought Nigeria to the edge of civil war. Boko Harem began its current escalation with the Christmas Day suicide bombing of St. Theresa’s Catholic Church in Niger state, an attack which killed over 50 people. The bombing of St. Theresa induced Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan on December 31 to place the Muslim-dominant northern Nigerian states of Borno, Yobe, Niger and Plateau — areas that have been witness to most of Boko Haram’s attacks — under emergency rule....

Nigeria, Jan 11 – Ethnic and religious violence in Nigeria claimed 16 more victims, with gunmen killing eight in the north and a mob torching an Islamic school in the south, as a fuel strike added to the deadly tension. Amid the sectarian and social turmoil, Nobel literature prize laureate Wole Soyinka, one of the country’s most respected voices, warned that the continent’s most populous nation was heading toward civil war. A two-day old general strike has paralysed the country and sent President Goodluck Jonathan’s government — already battling a spate of bloody attacks by the Islamist sect Boko Haram...

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan is facing a double challenge with a series of sectarian attacks by the Boko Haram Islamist group and deadly protests over a fuel subsidy removal. When he took over the presidency of Africa’s most populous nation in 2010, Goodluck Jonathan seemed destined to live up to his name. But that was until recently, when a steady drum-roll of bad news from Nigeria appeared to be reaching an alarming crescendo. On two different fronts, Jonathan is facing challenges that are threatening the stability of Africa’s largest oil-producing nation. A wave of violence blamed on the Boko Haram...

... But the country's oil wealth is in the Christian-dominated south and little has reached the long-neglected north, which has fanned regional resentment. Boko Haram's growing expertise in terrorist attacks, in which hundreds of people have been killed, has deepened suspicions it has developed links with al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, the jihadists' North African arm. In November, it was disclosed that the U.S. Army has sent 100 Special Forces soldiers to Nigeria to provide counter-insurgency training for national troops engaged against Boko Haram, the country's largest military deployment since the 1967-70 Biafra war. This opened up a new front...

Reports from across the country indicate that the nationwide protests called by organised labour and civil society groups to kick against government's decision to remove fuel subsidy was largely successful. From the nation's commercial capital, Lagos to Kaduna, from Abeokuta to Akure, Kaduna and Kano and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, there was no commercial activity as shops, offices, schools and petrol stations around the country closed on the first day of an indefinite strike called by unions. In Lagos streets were totally deserted as thousands people have gathered at Gani Fewehinmi Park at Ojota where they listened to speeches...

A fresh wave of violence targeting Christians claimed by Islamist group Boko Haram has rocked Nigeria, with over 20 people killed in attacks on mourners and church worshippers. The deadliest of the attacks hit the town of Mubi in northeastern Nigeria on Friday, when five gunmen opened fire on Christian Igbos at a house as they mourned the death of a friend killed in a shooting the night before. Various death tolls were given. Residents and a relief official reported up to 17 dead, while police said 12 were killed, with between two and five people killed the previous night...

When Nigeria's Islamist terror was confined to its northern states, politically correct Western opinion was able to get away with spinning the violence as six of one and half a dozen of the other. An outrage in Jos, for example, would be put down to 'religious tensions' between the Muslim and Christian communities. It was almost as if elements in the Western media were desperate for stories of Christians behaving badly. But the politically correct spin is now becoming increasingly untenable following Islamist terror group Boko Haram's Christmas Day attack on St Theresa's Roman Catholic Church in central Nigeria, close...

(Reuters) - Hundreds of Christians have begun to flee northern Nigeria after dozens were killed in a series of attacks by Islamist militants who issued an ultimatum to Christians to leave the mainly Muslim region or be killed, witnesses said Saturday. A Nigerian newspaper Tuesday published a warning from Boko Haram, a movement styled on the Taliban, that Christians had three days to get out of northern Nigeria. Since the expiry of that ultimatum, attacks in towns in four states in northeastern Nigeria have left at least 37 people dead and hundreds of Christians are fleeing to the south, according...

A state of emergency will do nothing unless Goodluck Jonathan faces up to the political backers of Boko Haram's terrorists Faced with mounting pressure following the Christmas Day bombings of churches by the Islamist group Boko Haram, which killed at least 40 people, Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan imposed a state of emergency in certain parts of the country on 31 December. The measure is in force in some local councils of Yobe and Borno states in the north-east of Nigeria, Plateau state in central Nigeria and Niger state in the north-west – areas where the government says the Islamists have...

The militant Islamist group Boko Haram has given Christians three days to leave northern Nigeria following attacks on churches and other targets over Christmas that left more than 40 people dead. The ultimatum, issued late on December 31, intensifies the threat to Christians in the Muslim-majority North, parts of which are under a state of emergency after the Christmas violence. Boko Haram, which wants to impose Islamic religious law across the country, claimed responsibility for a coordinated series of bomb and gun attacks on churches and the security services in five states on Christmas Day 2011. The majority of the...

Several churches in northern Nigeria were bombed December 25, in what has been described as “Nigeria’s blackest Christmas ever.” The attacks, perpetrated by the Muslim militant group Boko Haram, killed at least 39 people, “the majority dying on the steps of a Catholic church [in Madalla near the capital of Abuja] after celebrating Christmas Mass as blood pooled in dust from a massive explosion.” Charred bodies and dismembered limbs lay scattered around the destroyed church. As usual, the world offered the requisite, if perfunctory, condemnations. Of note, however, is the word so many Western leaders, from the White House to...

MAIDUGURI (AFP) – A purported spokesman for Islamist group, Boko Haram, has issued an ultimatum to Christians in the country’s north and threatened to confront troops after the president declared a state of emergency in hard hit areas. Abul Qaqa, who has spoken on behalf of the group blamed for scores of attacks in numerous times in the past, said he was giving southerners living in the north a three-day ultimatum to leave. “We find it pertinent to state that soldiers will only kill innocent Muslims in the local government areas where the state of emergency was declared,” he told...

Boko Haram warned Christians living in the country's predominantly Muslim north that they have three days to "move away," before attacks target the community.

At least five people were killed in a bomb explosion at a mosque in the northern Nigerian city of Maiduguri after Friday prayers, police sources said. Several more worshippers were wounded and the blast took place as people were leaving the mosque, police said... Maiduguri is the base of Boko Haram, the Islamist group that claimed responsibility for the Christmas Day attacks on churches in Nigeria in which 27 people died. On Thursday, Boko Haram emailed a statement to some Nigerian media that said: "If God is willing we will carry out further attacks." Some Maiduguri residents believed Boko Haram...

Islamist violence has forced NIgerian President Goodluck Jonathan to declare a state of emergency and order the closure of part of the country's borders. Jonathan announced the emergency measures Saturday, labeling the Islamist sect Boko Haram a "cancer" that threatened to destroy Africa's most populated body after a deadly week in which scores were killed by the radical Islamist terror group Boko Haram. Speaking in a broadcast to the nation, the president said, "It has become imperative to take some decisive measures to restore normalcy in the country, especially within the affected communities..." He listed parts of the states of...

LAGOS — An influential body grouping Nigeria's Catholic Bishops Saturday urged President Goodluck Jonathan to hire foreign crime experts to snuff out an Islamist sect blamed for hundreds of deaths. "I call on Mr President to recall the retired experts in criminology and employ foreign experts in this field to assist the active security agents to put an immediate end to the Boko Haram menace," a statement said. Boko Haram is believed to include different factions with varying aims, including those with political links as well as a hard-core Islamist cell that has drawn supporters from young people in the...

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan has declared a state of emergency in parts of the country following attacks from the Islamist group Boko Haram. The measure is in force is areas of the Yobe and Borno states in the north-east, Plateau state in central Nigeria and Niger state in the east. International borders in the affected areas have been temporarily closed. Mr Jonathan vowed to "crush" Boko Haram, which killed dozens in attacks across the country on Christmas Day. Announcing the state of emergency in a live televised address, Mr Jonathan said: "The temporary closure of our borders in the affected...

Medics carry the body of a victim after a bomb blast at St. Theresa Catholic Church inNigeria's capital, Abuja, on December 25."Lagos, Nigeria (CNN) -- Nigeria's Christians are losing faith that the government will protect them from attacks by Islamic extremists and will "respond appropriately" to future killings, the country's leading church group warned Wednesday. In a public message to President Goodluck Jonathan, the Christian Association of Nigeria called the Christmas Day targeting of churches in several cities "a declaration of war on Christians and Nigeria as an entity." The group also criticized its Muslim counterparts for failing to condemn...