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We have never considered that any portion of Nigeria is under Boko Haram’s control, says military
By Madalena Araujo, CNN
Boko Haram is not considered to be in control of any part of Nigeria, the country’s top military spokesman told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Thursday in the wake of what has been described by Amnesty International as the terror group’s “deadliest attack” to date.
“Yes, the activities of terrorism - they are prevalent in certain isolated communities, here and there. It is part of the reality of the moment, we recognize such as a thing to be addressed, but we have never considered that any portion of Nigeria is under their control,” Major General Chris Olukolade said.
He said that while the extremists’ “activities may be prevalent in such places, we have in plan the appropriate measures to reverse any of their activities now and ensure minimum effect on property and civilians, and ensure that in the process of flushing them out of the areas where they operate now we don’t cause collateral damage to our individuals.”
Nigerian government has failed to protect women from Boko Haram, says new report
By Madalena Araujo, CNN
The Nigerian government has failed to protect its women from a disturbing range of abuses by Boko Haram, the author of a new Human Rights Watch report told CNN's Michael Holmes, in for Christiane Amanpour, on Monday.
From being forced into marriage and even to commit murder to rape in captivity, dozens of former hostages have described the extent of the abuse suffered at the hands of the Islamic militant group.
“What has happened now is that those girls, those students have failed to return to school because they are afraid of being re-abducted and so the failure to protect also fuels the violations of other rights, including the right to education and the rights to live in a secure environment,” Mausi Segun, Nigeria Researcher for Human Rights Watch, said.
The group’s largest single attack took place in April, when 270 schoolgirls were taken from Chibok in the northeastern state of Borno.
To illustrate the authorities’ seeming inaction, Mausi recounted one episode where the police did not request a potentially valuable testimony from a girl who managed to escape her kidnappers.
Nigeria minister admits bad communication on missing girls, vows safer schools
By Mick Krever, CNN
The Nigerian government did not adequately communicate with the press about the nearly 300 schoolgirls abducted by Boko Haram, Nigerian Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala admitted to CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Thursday.
“This is a very delicate situation with an unpredictable group. And I think that maybe this is one of the areas where we have not been able to communicate as well as we can.”
“The president has two daughters,” she said. “These children are our children. But we did not communicate that well.”
Critics say that far from just releasing bad information, the government released demonstrably false information.
Just days after the kidnapping in April, the Nigerian military announced that all but a handful of the girls had been released; that claim was soon disproved, and the girls are still missing.
“I don’t know how that happened,” Okonjo-Iweala said. “The issue now is not whether we are criticized or not criticized unfairly. I think we should forget about all that.”
Borno Governor: Deal with devil if it means getting back kidnapped girls
By Mick Krever, CNN
The governor of Nigeria’s Borno State, where nearly 300 schoolgirls were kidnapped, told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Thursday that the government should negotiate with Boko Haram – make a deal “with the devil” – if it means bringing the girls back.
“The issue of not negotiation, of not negotiating with the terrorists – it’s out of the question,” Kashim Shettima said. “If it means talking to the devil, it mean the devil can come down, we can get back our girls.”
Boko Haram, the group that kidnapped the girls, “are a bunch of raving lunatics,” Shettima said.
A month has passed since the girls were kidnapped, and the Nigerian government has been accused of not acting swiftly or efficiently enough to protect villages in the region threatened by Boko Haram.
Sharon Ikeazor, a member of Nigeria’s opposition, told Amanpour that “most of the girls in school had their cell phones” when they were kidnapped.
“They had contacted their parents,” she said. “So they knew when the attack was happening, and the villagers around had reported to the military.”
The government, she said, “could have saved those girls.”
Click below to watch Amanpour’s full conversation with Shettima and Ikeazor.
Opposition speaks on Nigeria's nightmare
CNN's Christiane Amanpour speaks with the governor of Borno State and a member of the opposition.
Amanpour asks PM Cameron to join #BringBackOurGirls
Appearing on the BBC's Andrew Marr show on Sunday, CNN's Christiane Amanpour asked fellow-guest UK Prime Minister David Cameron whether he would join the #BringBackOurGirls campaign.
"I don't know, prime minister, whether you would like to hold this and join this campaign," she asked, holding up a sign with the now-famous hashtag written on it.
"Happily," he said, according to the BBC.
Photo courtesy the BBC.
Kofi Annan: I wish Nigeria action had come sooner
By Mick Krever, CNN
Action by the Nigerian government and international partners to go after the group that has held more than 200 girls captive in that country should have come sooner, former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Wednesday.
“I think the government should do all it can to get the girls free,” he said, “and I’m very happy that the U.S., the U.K., and other governments are teaming up with Nigeria to resolve this issue.”
“I wish this had happened earlier, but it is happening, and the Nigerian people are also demanding action.”
Boko Haram abducted 276 schoolgirls last month, and Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan has come under fire after waiting three weeks to publicly acknowledge the kidnappings.
The Nigerian government also now accepted U.S. and British offers of assistance, officials with those governments said.
The kidnapping, Annan said, are “abominable.”
“It is something that should not be happening in modern-day Africa.”
Annan is uniquely placed to address the issue.
Malala Yousafzai: 'Girls in Nigeria are my sisters'
Malala Yousafzai, the world’s most famous advocate for girls’ right to education, tells CNN's Christiane Amanpour that "girls in Nigeria are my sisters."
Yousafzai survived an assassination attempt by the Pakistani Taliban in her native country in 2012. The group targeted her because of our outspoken support for girls' education.
She says that Boko Haram, which kidnapped nearly 300 girls in Nigeria, does not understand Islam.
"I think they haven’t studied Islam yet, they haven’t studied Quran yet, and they should go and they should learn Islam," she told Amanpour from Birmingham, in the UK, where she has been living and attending school. (She is now the face of The Malala Fund.)
"I think that they should think of these girls as their own sisters. How can one imprison his own sisters and treat them in such a bad way?"
You can see Amanpour's full interview with Malala below. FULL POST
Nigeria’s government acting like children, says Nobel-winning author Wole Soyinka
By Mick Krever, CNN
The search for more than 200 girls in Nigeria is now “beyond the capacity” of the government and needs international support, Nigerian author Wole Soyinka told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Tuesday.
“This is a government which is not only in denial mentally, but in denial about certain obvious steps to take,” Soyinka, a Nobel laureate who is often referred to as the conscience of his nation, told Amanpour.
“It’s one of those rather child-like situations that if you shut your eyes, if you don’t exhibit the tactile evidence of the missing humanity here, that somehow the problem will go away.”
It is not just “a Nigerian problem,” he said.
“I’m calling for the international community, the United Nations – this is a problem. This is a global problem. And a foothold is being very deeply entrenched in West Africa.”
Kidnapping children for battle, from Nigeria to Uganda
By Mick Krever, CNN
They come in the night.
Armed militants take young children from their beds, as they sleep: Young recruits for extremist causes.
It happened this week in Nigeria, when heavily armed Boko Haram Islamists kidnapped 200 girls from their boarding school.
And it has been happening in northern Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo, and other neighboring countries for decades – the work of Joseph Kony and his Lord’s Resistance Army.
CNN’s Christiane Amanpour covered Kony’s sick work 16 years ago, for 60 Minutes, when she reported on the abduction of 139 girls from their school.
She spoke with their teacher, Sister Rachele Fassera, who begged for the children’s return.
“He bent down and on the ground he wrote, ‘The girls are 139. I will give you a 109.’ He wrote, ‘I keep 30,’ Sister Raquelle told Amanpour at the time.”
“I knelt in front of him,” she said. “And I said, please give me all the girls. He said, ‘No.’ [crying] Then they started, ‘Sister, they will rape us tonight. Sister, will you come back tonight?’”
“That was the last time I saw them.”
Meet the first gay Nigerian to come out on TV
What is Nigeria's new anti-gay law?
Christiane Amanpour speaks with CNN's Vladimir Duthiers in Lagos, Nigeria about a new anti-gay law.
By Mick Krever, CNN
In 2004, Bisi Alimi did an extraordinary thing.
He went on national television and told his fellow Nigerians that he was gay.
Alimi lived in a country not only where open discussion of sex and sexuality is considered déclassé, but where 98% of his fellow citizens now say they do not approve of homosexuality.
“There were so many things we don’t talk about,” Alimi told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Thursday. “My career was on the line, I was going to be outed by the media.”
It was better, he decided, to come out of the closet on his own terms.
“I have a responsibility to stand up for the community, to give a face to the community, to demystify the old arguments that there are no homosexuals in Nigeria,” he said.
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