Nigeria at 53: extremist killings, tight security
LAGOS,
Nigeria (AP) — Nigeria marked 53 years of independence Tuesday with
little to celebrate: Scores of families in mourning over killings by
suspected Islamic extremists, security forces on high alert against
feared bomb attacks and the government confronting an internal power
struggle.
Islamic militants continue to terrorize Nigeria's northeast despite a massive 4 ½-month-old military campaign including aerial bombardments. Forty-three students were gunned down Sunday at an agricultural college where attackers also torched classrooms.
On Monday, suspected militants attacked travelers on a main road, beheading 10 and killing another four. Last week, suspected extremists killed 143 civilians, three police officers and two soldiers in an attack on a military outpost — one of the highest tolls from a single assault.
The Islamic uprising poses the greatest security threat in years to the cohesion of Africa's most populous nation and biggest oil producer, a former British colony of more than 160 million people from more than 250 tribes almost equally divided between a predominantly Muslim north and mainly Christian south.
"I admit that these may not be the best of times for our nation," President Goodluck Jonathan acknowledged in an address broadcast to the nation. Our people are divided in many ways — ethnically, religiously, politically, and materially. I cannot hide from this reality."
He announced a "national dialogue" to heal rifts and urged unity to avoid the fate of Syria. Nigeria suffered a civil war in the late 1960s that killed up to a million people.
Islamic militants continue to terrorize Nigeria's northeast despite a massive 4 ½-month-old military campaign including aerial bombardments. Forty-three students were gunned down Sunday at an agricultural college where attackers also torched classrooms.
On Monday, suspected militants attacked travelers on a main road, beheading 10 and killing another four. Last week, suspected extremists killed 143 civilians, three police officers and two soldiers in an attack on a military outpost — one of the highest tolls from a single assault.
The Islamic uprising poses the greatest security threat in years to the cohesion of Africa's most populous nation and biggest oil producer, a former British colony of more than 160 million people from more than 250 tribes almost equally divided between a predominantly Muslim north and mainly Christian south.
"I admit that these may not be the best of times for our nation," President Goodluck Jonathan acknowledged in an address broadcast to the nation. Our people are divided in many ways — ethnically, religiously, politically, and materially. I cannot hide from this reality."
He announced a "national dialogue" to heal rifts and urged unity to avoid the fate of Syria. Nigeria suffered a civil war in the late 1960s that killed up to a million people.
2013 AP
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