The Nigerian situation is a complicated mess.
Firstly, age old rivalries and animosities earlier suppressed by military governments ruling the nation in the past has been re-ignited by growing economic inequalities caused by lack of regulation and standardization of education in northern Nigeria.
Secondly, increasing private delivery of service in Nigeria, especially education, has left a vulnerable section of the northern masses to grow up in the arms of extreme Islamists. Education being served does not prepare kids for the modern economy and most northern kids are now caught in cold traps of poverty.
Thirdly, several years ago, northern political elites who lost access to power by accident in Nigerian's new found democracy sought to regain power by promoting governance through sharia laws, unfortunately this ended up hoodwinking the northern people into voting them in en-masse .
Many years later, no democracy dividends, and the growing poverty have made many poverty stricken masses to grow disenchanted with the politicians who misruled them. Now you have an extremist minority seeking alternative ways of living and running their lives. The sharia laws that were promoted by northern political elites to win votes have progressively created an intolerant religious environment that promotes Islamic lifestyle that is not compatible with modern businesses and this has caused capital to flow out of northern states and this has left many of the communities devastated and hopeless and this has increased radicalization of many of the youths in this section of the country.
All these issues mentioned in the preceding paragraphs have created an environment that our clueless Nigerian president has not been able to get a handle on. In one sense, he has refused to engage with the issue intelligently. In another sense, he has chosen to play dirty politics with the issue.
Unfortunately Nigeria's new democratic environment has created more problems for the common military men who were removed from power. Now they have no jobs nor sources of livelihood unlike the years they were part of the ruling class that benefited immensely from economic opportunities. These common military men, mostly ex service men from northern Nigeria are the ones, in my opinion, trading in arms and promoting Boko Haram and the ones that have complicated the mess in the environment that was earlier exploited by northern political elites.
This is my attempt to put a story together behind what is being reported in the news. I hope I can continue further at some point.
