The United States of America on Monday urged President Goodluck Jonathan led administration to tackle an Islamist insurgency in the north by bringing jobs and development to the deprived region, and it pledged to support the government in the task.
The US Under Secretary for Political Affairs, Wendy Sherman said that the United States was looking to establish a consulate in Kano, the biggest city in the North and a recent target of attacks, as well as a number of other ways to help it fight radical Islamist sect Boko Haram.
The group, which styles itself on the Taliban, has been blamed for almost daily shootings and bombings that have killed hundreds of people in the past two years.
“Regarding the security concern, we agree with President Jonathan that this must be holistic approach. That it is about security, it is about development, it is about jobs,” Sherman said during the first stop of an African tour that also takes in Zambia and Kenya.
“Together we will do whatever we can, from intelligence sharing, to assistance, to development, to security training.”
Analysts say the remote northeastern state of Borno, where the sect is based, is as poor as some of Africa’s most impoverished countries.
Washington’s plan to open a consulate in Kano comes as violent Islamist movements spread across West Africa and evidence is emerging of links between Boko Haram and al Qaeda’s North African wing, which has several bases in the Sahara.
“We are working very hard in seeing if we can open a consulate in Kano,” the State Department’s number three official told journalists after meeting with the Minister for state of Foreign affairs, Viola Onwuliri.
Last week, the Joint Military taskforce said it had killed five Boko Haram militants and arrested, as they tried to burn down a secondary school in Borno State.
Suspected sect members have torched 10 schools in northeastern Nigeria the past few days, say authorities, in what would be a new twist in the insurgency.
Boko Haram’s name means “Western education is sinful,” after the anti-Western teachings of its early spiritual leader Mohammed Yusuf, who was killed in police custody in 2009.
