Ship of Fools: Nigeria: How is this not headline news?

Thread: Nigeria: How is this not headline news? Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by Makepiece (# 10454) on :

I was shocked to read this story today about the abduction of school girls in Nigeria:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-27037181

What shocks me more though is that this article is nowhere near the 'front page'. The headlines relate to the Ukraine, Hillsborough memorials and Lee-Travis. Why is it that such a serious incident is not headline news? If this occurred in USA or Australia it would be. Is it simply that western news agencies don't employ journalists and photographers in this part of Africa? Is it that it doesn't form part of any ongoing narrative that the media has latched on to? I don't know but it seems strange and unsettling to me that dramatic events and injustices are virtually ignored when they occur in the heart of Africa.

Posted by Og, King of Bashan (# 9562) on :

This seems to be an ongoing lament with Africa stories- the Central African Republic is going through horrible things right now, but you don't see it in general Western news. I suspect the editorial decision is based on an assumption (which might be accurate) that most people have only a vague idea that Nigeria exists and probably are not going to click on a story about it, so why spend resources covering it? We hold up the media as the fourth estate, but they are beholden to advertisers. At least half of the stuff that gets shared on your facebook wall is a distorted version of a story with an angle drawn in that is intended to generate clicks- it's how they stay in print.

The best bet in my book is to turn to media whose business model depends on getting attention from the internationally minded reader. I personally rely on the Economist for succinct summaries of stories from various parts of the globe.

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

As it so happens, it is near the top of the Daily Mail front page.

Posted by Soror Magna (# 9881) on :

If all the daily acts of violence against women were headline news, there wouldn't be room for anything else.

Posted by Highfive (# 12937) on :

Q. Why isn't this headline news?
A. It is now headline news.

[ 16. April 2014, 03:13: Message edited by: Highfive ]

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Soror Magna:
If all the daily acts of violence against women were headline news, there wouldn't be room for anything else.

Even by the standard of other daily acts of violence against women the abduction of 100 school girls is fairly shocking. What is more shocking is that not only does the Western media not really care, neither apparently does the Nigerian media or the Nigerian authorities.

Nobody seems to have bothered to find out whether 100 or 200 school girls have gone missing. There are no details of a rescue or follow up plan. They are very interested in the bombing of commuters in Abuja, but school girls in a poor, North-eastern corner of the country being abducted doesn't seem to be a pressing issue and no-one is holding them to account.

Posted by seekingsister (# 17707) on :

A simple answer is that there was a bombing in the suburbs of Nigeria's capital and so that has been the main story from that country in recent days.

Boko Haram has been kidnapping people, bombing churches, and exacting mayhem in that Northeastern region for some time. As shocking as this particular story is, there are sadly many others that have happened around there.

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

There have not been many abductions on this scale although as you say the mayhem has been depressingly consistent. There are terrorist bombs in many major cities around the world, but they continue to be higher profile than things happening in rural poverty.

Having said that, during the morning I can see more major news providers covering the story, what remains shocking to me is the lack of detail in the story as a result of non-investigation of the event on the ground in Nigeria. For which the Nigerian media and authorities are largely culpable.

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

Meanwhile, the UK Home Office is deporting Nigerian girl Aderonke who has already been tortured and given the death sentence and sought asylum here.

Posted by ToujoursDan (# 10578) on :

As an interested party (I've been to Africa twice and am returning later this year), I listen to the Podcast from the Voice of America English to Africa Service. Boko Haram's activities (and the Nigerian government's equally brutal responses) are usually top story news. This low-grade civil war has been occurring for several years. Analyst seem split between whether Boko Haram is a true ideologically/religiously driven organization that wants to establish a fundamentalist Muslim state or whether they are more of a band of people trying to sow unrest with no true motivating agenda.

When I visited Sénégal in 2008 I noted that the very tolerant Sufi version of Islam was slowly being replaced by a far more hardline Wahabi version, mostly funded by Saudi oil money. No doubt that this is happening in Nigeria as well.

Why isn't it news here? I suspect because Nigeria has always been regarded by westerners as a corrupt and violent place. But Nigeria is now Africa's largest economy and a major oil supplier. If self-interest was our only motivator (and I wish it wasn't) this is something to which we need to pay more attention.

[ 16. April 2014, 15:45: Message edited by: ToujoursDan ]

Posted by stonespring (# 15530) on :

Boko Haram is definitely influenced by Al Qaeda-ism and the broader tensions between Christians and Muslims in northern Nigeria. How does Boko Haram play into the broader conflicts in Nigeria, though, between ethnic/linguistic/religious groups and over natural resources like the oil in the Niger river delta (which is in the southeast, not in the northeast where Boko Haram is active and where they want their Islamist state). Could someone give a summary of the different sources of violence and/or separatism and whether or not they are related in any way?

Posted by ToujoursDan (# 10578) on :

The question is why are these Muslims influenced by Al-Qaeda and why are there tensions now, when these two communities have lived together for a hundred years? The same question could be asked about République Centrafique.

The tensions aren't solely between Muslims and Christians either. The nation of Mali which is almost 100% Muslim fell apart last year when a fundamentalist Muslim group tried to establish an Islamic state in the north. It took French troops to stop that.

West Africa used to be a bastion of rather liberal Islam, but it seems to be changing.

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

President Goodluck Jonathan is an evangelical ...

How come that isn't headline news and ALL that goes with it.

Islam has been in Nigeria a lot longer than Christianity. Which hasn't really got there yet. Not in any positively meaningful way.

[ 16. April 2014, 20:00: Message edited by: Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard ]

Posted by balaam (# 4543) on :

The reason the story is not headline news is because of the word "frequently."

quote:
The attackers are believed to be from the Islamist group, Boko Haram, whose militants frequently target schools.

Man bites dog happens rarely, it's news. Dog bites man happens frequently, it's not news. That's how the media works.

Posted by stonespring (# 15530) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ToujoursDan:
The question is why are these Muslims influenced by Al-Qaeda and why are there tensions now, when these two communities have lived together for a hundred years? The same question could be asked about République Centrafique.

The tensions aren't solely between Muslims and Christians either. The nation of Mali which is almost 100% Muslim fell apart last year when a fundamentalist Muslim group tried to establish an Islamic state in the north. It took French troops to stop that.

West Africa used to be a bastion of rather liberal Islam, but it seems to be changing.

In Mali an ethnically Touareg separatist insurgency in the north got hijacked by radical religious fighters, many of whom were from outside the country. Am I right about that?

Nigeria is so complex because not only does it resemble Iraq in terms of grouping disparate ethnic, religious, and linguistic groups under borders very poorly and greedily drawn by colonial powers, but also, also like Iraq but even moreso, because it has hugely valuable resources unevenly distributed across the country but - unlike Iraq - has a massive and entrepreneurial population base that is causing large economic expansion in spite of the horrendous sectarian violence, various separatist militants, and rampant crime. So there's more money to fight over and buy arms with!

Nigeria is also a burgeoning center of African founded Christian denominations, which move to other African nations and outside Africa with the immigration of Nigerians into other Countries.

Posted by Highfive (# 12937) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ToujoursDan:
When I visited Sénégal in 2008 I noted that the very tolerant Sufi version of Islam was slowly being replaced by a far more hardline Wahabi version, mostly funded by Saudi oil money. No doubt that this is happening in Nigeria as well.

Why isn't it news here? I suspect because Nigeria has always been regarded by westerners as a corrupt and violent place. But Nigeria is now Africa's largest economy and a major oil supplier. If self-interest was our only motivator (and I wish it wasn't) this is something to which we need to pay more attention.

I've never been to Africa. I subscribe to a mailing list by a Pastor in Jos, Nigeria. He's received many Muslims who have converted to Christianity, including former Boko Haram members. From their testimonials, it's clear that Boko Haram receives funding from a Muslim State, but they wouldn't dare say who it was. It seemed extremely politically sensitive. Maybe this Saudi oil money (plastic is also made from oil, btw) isn't just funding terrorism in Nigeria?

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

quote:
Originally posted by stonespring:
In Mali an ethnically Touareg separatist insurgency in the north got hijacked by radical religious fighters, many of whom were from outside the country. Am I right about that?

With an injection of well-armed ex-Gadafi mercenaries exiting Libya looking for a good cause to support, compounded with an opportunity created by an army-led coup which resulted in a bit of chaos (ironically the coup was ostensibly in protest at the government's poor handling of the insurgency in the North).

quote:
Originally posted by stonespring:
Nigeria is so complex

It seems to me that Nigeria is, as you say, more diverse than Iraq, with Shia and Sunni Islam (plus the nut-case elements) through to Catholicism, Anglicanism and Pentecostal Christianity, not to mention traditional animism, and some really nut-case cults, and with more different ethinc groupings than you can shake a stick at (and sticks and worse often are shaken at them), more than three hundred languages dividing into several branches of two major language groups among 170 million Nigerians. 50% of which live in cities all mixed up and the other 50% of which lie scattered across the rest of the million km square territory. All served by a corrupt, dysfunctional government trying to make the most of its oil reserves.

[BTW I wish people would stop saying that this latest act of Boko Haram's is not news because it goes on all the time. They aren't kidnapping 200 school children every day. There is something particularly shocking about gunmen turning up and tacking a load of school children about to sit an exam.]

[ 17. April 2014, 05:22: Message edited by: mdijon ]

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:

Islam has been in Nigeria a lot longer than Christianity. Which hasn't really got there yet. Not in any positively meaningful way.

You usually talk sense Martin, but that is rubbish. Please either withdraw it or explain what you really mean.

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ToujoursDan:
The question is why are these Muslims influenced by Al-Qaeda and why are there tensions now, when these two communities have lived together for a hundred years?

Saudi Wahabi groups offer aid with the condition that their clerics be allowed to preach.

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

ken.

Islam came to Nigeria 1200 years ago - C9th AT MOST. It was the dominant culture of the north within 700 years - C16th. It was dominant in the south west (Yaruba) 300 - 1300+/- CE - before that. Christianity arrived with the Portuguese one hundred years AFTER that and didn't really get going until the C19th - on the back of British imperialism.

The Islamic population is being marginalized economically: the oil is in the Christian south. Echoes of Sudan.

I can withdraw nothing Ken. There has not been a true Christian, Christ-like response to Boko Haram - the 'enemy' - and Islam in general. As there hasn't in the CAR.

When there are no Muslims to oppress Christians turn on each other: Rwanda, the Congo, South Sudan.

[ 17. April 2014, 18:52: Message edited by: Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard ]

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

I am fucking fed up with the ignorant racist dismissal of African Christians as not really Christian.

Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :

hosting/

Ken, Hell is that way ------------>

/hosting

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

ken, ken, ken, WHO is? You? Me? And yes, we ALL are. So? And we compare with our Muslim and Hindu and animist and atheist brothers and sisters how? The Interahamwe. The Falange. The Conquistadores. The Crusaders. Etc, etc, etc ... Christians.

Christ wears EVERY human face.

Please answer in Hell if you need to.

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

ken, these lights have been shining in the darkness for me:

Father Xavier Fagba

as I posted at the time

and this most Christ-like of men:

Captain Mbaye Diagbe

[ 18. April 2014, 09:14: Message edited by: Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard ]

Posted by Beeswax Altar (# 11644) on :

William Hague offered assistance to the Nigerian government in returning the girls home safely. I wonder if by assistance he means the SAS. Nigeria doesn't have a military unit with the same capabilities. I suspect this may be their Munich.

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

Martin, no desire to do you a hell thread at all. You are certainly not a racist. You are one of the good guys round here, I usually appreciate your posts very much. That's why I was surprised by what you said. Which is still nonsense, but off-topic here.

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

ken.

I'm sorry for it and I openly ask for you to deconstruct it, challenge it, kick it to death. I want ALL my dross to be purged with fire, even that which I'm blind to and little is left.

Martin

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