Reuters, Yola :
Boko Haram says it is building an Islamic state that will revive the glory days of northern Nigeria’s medieval Muslim empires, but for those in its territory life is a litany of killings, kidnappings, hunger and economic collapse.
The militant group’s five-year-old campaign has become one of the deadliest in the world, with around 10,000 people killed last year, according to the Council on Foreign Relations. Hundreds, mostly women and children, have been kidnapped.
It remains the biggest threat to the stability of Africa’s biggest economy ahead of a vote on February 14 in which President Goodluck Jonathan will seek re-election.
But while it has matched Islamic State in Syria and Iraq in its brutality – it beheads its enemies on camera – it has seriously lagged in the more mundane business of state building.
“The Islamic state is a figment of their imagination. They are just going into your house and saying they have taken over,” said Phineas Elisha, government spokesman for Adamawa state, one of three states under emergency rule to fight the insurgency.
Unlike its Middle East counterparts wooing locals with a semblance of administration, villagers trapped by Boko Haram face food shortages, slavery, killing and a lock down on economic activity, those who escaped say.
Boko Haram says it is building an Islamic state that will revive the glory days of northern Nigeria’s medieval Muslim empires, but for those in its territory life is a litany of killings, kidnappings, hunger and economic collapse.
The militant group’s five-year-old campaign has become one of the deadliest in the world, with around 10,000 people killed last year, according to the Council on Foreign Relations. Hundreds, mostly women and children, have been kidnapped.
It remains the biggest threat to the stability of Africa’s biggest economy ahead of a vote on February 14 in which President Goodluck Jonathan will seek re-election.
But while it has matched Islamic State in Syria and Iraq in its brutality – it beheads its enemies on camera – it has seriously lagged in the more mundane business of state building.
“The Islamic state is a figment of their imagination. They are just going into your house and saying they have taken over,” said Phineas Elisha, government spokesman for Adamawa state, one of three states under emergency rule to fight the insurgency.
Unlike its Middle East counterparts wooing locals with a semblance of administration, villagers trapped by Boko Haram face food shortages, slavery, killing and a lock down on economic activity, those who escaped say.
