Nigeria in 2009
Nigeria in 2009
Area: 923,768 sq km (356,669 sq mi)
Population (2009 est.): 154,729,000
Capital: Abuja
Head of state and government: President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua
In late 2009 Nigeria experienced a constitutional crisis owing to Pres. Umaru Musa Yar’Adua’s prolonged absence from the country. Yar’Adua left Nigeria on November 23 to seek medical treatment in Saudi Arabia for a heart condition. A campaign was launched by influential politicians and lawyers calling for more transparency about his ability to govern or his resignation, but at the end of the year, Yar’Adua remained secure in his post.
Nigerians interpreted U.S. Pres. Barack Obama’s choice of Ghana for his first African state visit as a pointed rebuff to Nigeria’s failings in the realms of governance, transparency, and security. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took up these issues during her two-day visit to Nigeria on August 12–13, challenging the country’s leaders to intensify the fight against corruption, reform the electoral system, implement more equitable development, and end sectarian violence in the Niger delta. Clinton cited a World Bank report that concluded that corrupt practices in Nigeria had accounted for the loss of $300 billion over the previous 30 years. Meanwhile, UN data showed that the country’s poverty rate had risen from 46% to 76% over the previous 13 years.
Turbulence in the Niger delta remained a major stumbling block to internal peace. In May the government launched a sweeping military offensive against rebel groups in the region; though the operation killed and wounded hundreds, it failed to subdue the militants, who later in the year were able to strike beyond the delta, setting fire to an oil depot and several tankers in Lagos, the country’s financial centre. On August 4 the government announced a 60-day amnesty for any militant who agreed to surrender his weapons in exchange for a daily stipend, education, and retraining. Estimates of the number of militants who accepted the amnesty varied from 7,000 to 15,000.
In July, Henry Okah, a leader of Nigeria’s main militant organization, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), was released from prison. Yar’Adua held a highly publicized meeting with Okah in October; the closed-door meeting, which Yar’Adua had requested, occurred after MEND had reportedly threatened to resume hostilities in the delta following the end of a 60-day amnesty. Details of the meeting were not immediately disclosed, though a government spokesman called the talks “fruitful” and a spokesman for MEND described them as “the beginning of the dialogue MEND has been advocating.” Earlier in the month, Yar’Adua had stressed the government’s commitment to finding a lasting solution to unrest in the region. Among other initiatives, the government announced the allocation of $950 million to support public works in the Niger delta as well as a plan to give local communities a 10% stake in the region’s oil and natural gas ventures.
In the north a number of outbreaks of sectarian unrest occurred. In February and again in December, Christians and Muslims clashed in the city of Bauchi, where several churches were burned. The most serious conflict involved Muslim militants belonging to the group Boko Haram, a fundamentalist sect opposed to Western education. Authorities accused the militants of having attacked police stations and other sites in the states of Bauchi and Yobe. Intense fighting between militants and security forces spread to other neighbouring states, forcing thousands from their homes and leaving between 800 and 1,000 people dead—most of them members of Boko Haram. The sect’s leader, Mohammad Yusuf, was taken into police custody but was later found shot to death. Human rights activists pointed out that extrajudicial executions by the police occurred frequently in Nigeria and said that Yusuf’s killing demonstrated the urgent need for police reform.
The year ended with the major embarrassment of the arrest of a Nigerian citizen, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the son of an influential banker, on charges of terrorism and of attempting to detonate a bomb on Northwest Airways Flight 253 from Amsterdam as the plane approached its destination of Detroit on December 25.
by: LaRay Denzer