'Nigeria: the context for violence' (2006-2013)

[Stan]

There is no oil in Northern Nigeria and hence very few Westerners there. If you've been to Nigeria you'll understand that Nigeria's far North and Nigeria's South are essentially different countries.

I must have misunderstood you slightly when you said a light footprint. I was speaking in generalities for the entire country. But, if BH in fact did bomb the UN building, then they are obviously ready to cross into the South for operations. That would mean it is relatively easy to work on kidnapping and killing. You also indicated that we don't really know who the BH are and to what extent they have infiltrated the government and military. I would take that to mean the BH are already in the Southern region.

I still maintain that it would be politically impossible for the US to operate with the same degree of freedom in Northern Nigeria. Northern Nigeria is not Somalia and any escalation of US involvement would be seen as a triumph of the largely Christian South over the mainly Islamic North.

Fair enough. My point was only that your current administration has most likely already concluded agreements with Western governments and as these things go, they are open ended with a ton of room for expansion and misconception.

(Secondly, given the record of the US Military in Afghanistan and Iraq, it is even debatable whether such involvement would be beneficial - that's a topic for another day. I think I know another group of people who can do the job equally well with minimum fuss.)

Even the former US Ambassador to Nigeria understands this fact.

I completely agree with you. I was merely responding to your comment on the presence of SOF in the region.

The Northern Islamic elite (who are still very powerful politically - largest single bloc in National Assembly) will oppose it. It will deny them of their political legitimacy.

Not sure if that would matter - assuming Goodluck Johnathan has already given the green light to cooperate in anti-terrorism ops.

We must have close to 100 different news publications with new publications being created every other day (and going bust with the same frequency).

You tend to forget that Nigeria is a democracy (albeit imperfect). So people have some latitude to speak their minds. Most of the media is in the South but The Daily Trust is considered the voice of the North.

I am well aware of the fact Nigeria is a democracy and having latitude to speak freely is part of that freedom. What I didn't know was which daily papers tend to be "pro-north" and "pro/south". A good point ! I would (perhaps wrongfully) assume that a pro-north news publication would be promoting BH as terrorists - again assuming BH wants to even be labelled as such. Have they even outright called themselves terrorists ?