Fatima Akilu's office is located within a smart new building near the Nigeria's National Assembly in the capita city Abuja. The building houses the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) which is drawing up the Federal Government's non-military strategy for tackling the Boko Haram insurgency in the country's north east. Akilu, a softly-spoken academic with international experience, has been brought in to design and run the country's first ever Countering Violent Extremism Programme. This is a sophisticated and research-based attempt to understand and address the causes and effects of the insurgency. It is clearly needed. Whilst I have been in Nigeria there have been three large Boko Haram attributed bombings in the north, the last of which targeted the Central Mosque in Kano, and was coupled with the bombers opening-fire into the crowd of worshippers before they were lynched and their bodies burned. The final death toll stands at over one hundred. The Emir of Kano and former Governor of the Central Bank, Mallam Sanusi, vowed that the people of Kano "will not be intimidated." Last week two female suicide bombers (a phenomenon Elizabeth Pearson covers for us here ) attacked a market in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno [...]
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