[Tripoli Post] A 14-minute YouTube video that analysts say has revealed the Nigerian President's miscalculation of the hard boy threat, is heightening tensions between Nigeria's government and a violent Islamist sect President Goodluck Jonathan... 14th President of Nigeria. He was Governor of Bayelsa State from 9 December 2005 to 28 May 2007, and was sworn in as Vice President on 29 May 2007. Jonathan is a member of the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP). He is a lover of nifty hats, which makes him easily recognizable unless someone else in the room is wearing a neat chapeau...
has promised to destroy.
The video opens with graphics of spinning flowers and crossed AK-47s. Bubble letters identify it as a message to Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan made by the group that calls itself People Committed to the Propagation of the Prophet's Teachings and Jihad, more commonly known as Boko Haram.
... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. Currently wearing a false nose and moustache and answering to Jama'atu Ahlus-Sunnah Lidda'Awati Wal Jihad, or
Big Louie...
The group's suspected leader, Abubakar Shekau, is seated with four armed and masked men. He tells viewers the Nigerian President was boasting two weeks ago when he said the government would destroy the group within three months.
"We have sworn and we are telling you, Jonathan, that there is nothing that you can do to stop us," Shekau says.
Taking war to the "doorstep"
University of Abuja senior lecturer Abubakar Umar Kari is reported saying by VOA, that the President's statement and Boko Haram's video have succeeded in heightening tensions in the country.
Kari says the group should be identified as an international terrorist organization and Nigerian security forces should get assistance, like specialised training, from other countries.
Boko Haram has been blamed for the Easter Sunday bombing that claimed dozens of lives, but it has not taken responsibility. The group is believed to have killed about 1,000 people since it began violent operations in 2009, including attacks on churches, the UN headquarters, cop shoppes and other government buildings.
Kari says the video will succeed in scaring the people, because they are more likely to believe Boko Haram threats than government assurances. On Easter Sunday, a Nigerian newspaper quoted the defence minister as saying more than 95 percent of local governments had been secured against the threat of Boko Haram.
International Crisis Group senior analyst Kunle Amuwo says it is impossible to be 100 percent sure the video represents Boko Haram, a fractured sect with no clear structure. He says the video is a response to what he calls the "naive" statement by Nigeria's President. Amuwo says that even if the President had the capacity to crush the group, he never should have said so publicly.
Amuwo also says Boko Haram's presence in Nigeria is misunderstood by foreign critics who say Nigeria needs to develop the impoverished, mostly-Moslem north to lessen the threat. Amuwo says if violence was simply a product of poverty, terrorist attacks would be nation-wide.
Besides costing lives, Boko Haram attacks have also stagnated many local economies and made travel more dangerous and time consuming. Kari says military checkpoints can double time on the road, and innocent people have been shot by nervous security officers under the constant threat of attack.