How can Nigeria's security situation be dealt with?

Our leaders have fall us especially those of us from the North. They left a legacy of impoverishment, unemployment, Illiteracy.

They sow the seed of disdain amongst us and our fellow country men.Now you are either this or that. We can't walk and work freely anymore. Our Good for nothing youths have being indoctrinated to believe they are more superior to the others amidst poverty, unemployment and what have you.
THIS IS ABSOLUTELY CRAZY...

DANLAMI
ABUJA
[Personal details removed by Moderator]

President Goodluck Jonathan should handle the matter maturely.
We all knew that those agrieved losers are causing the problem.
Toure.

Nigeria is not a country and I am afraid it will never be. When Nigerians meet abroad the first thing they want to know is what tribe the other is from. In my opinion it is a way identifying friend or foe.

For religious, tribal and or cultural reasons the northern part of Nigeria has never identified as one country with the southern part.

It is the reason why there was a civil war in the sixties and 41 years later the country is more divided than ever.

Crude oil reserves which is located mostly in the south is the countrys only major source of revenue and I believe it is the only reason the north is not seeking succession today.

My guess is one day when the oil runs out or the world's oil economy is replaced with renewables, Nigeria will most probably split into two or more parts just like Sudan did this year.

President Goodluck Jonathan now, you are talking the talk and walking the walk, by you consenting and signing the FREEDOM OF INFORMATION BILL (FIO). I say loud and clear, on behalf of all patriotic Nigerians CONGRATULATIONS!!!. This singular bold act of yours, will bring in a lot of converts, who were not very sure, on which side of the fenc,e you were standing to your side, Now Nigerians let us come together, work together and above all give President Goodluck Jonathan a benefit of the doubt. May The Almighty God bless Nigeria and may THe Almighty God, continue to guide the leaders of Nigeria. Now the press and the public have no more complaints. The press in particular should now give us a vibrant, responsible, verifiable and imperical journalism.

The constant religious violence in the north is a manifestation of forced marriage.
I know the politcally-correct answer would be to ignore the obvious and say that Nigeria should remain united as one country. However, in my opinion, the only way to solve the religious violence in the North is a national referendum to let the North secede and form it's own country. It is has increasingly become obvious that the Northerners do not want to be a part of secular one-Nigeria. Muslims and Christians in the south not only live together peacefully, they often inter-marry. Northern Muslims continue to be a big thorn on Nigeria's side. Like any marriage, when and if it becomes abusive, divorce is the solution. No couple or a country should be forced to remain in a violently abusive union.

What Nigeria is experiencing should be seen as the darkest period before dawn. The citizens are becoming a lot more aware of the corruption by the leaders and their cohorts: living in extreme opulence where the masses cannot attain their basic physiologic needs! the leaders and their cohorts send their children abroad because they have left the schools unfunded! They also seek better health care abroad while the masses die from minor ailments in their hospitals! It is normal to see security unrest in any country where the gap between the rich and the poor is very wide and the privileges of the poor are never considered. We can see the wave of uprising surging through the Arab nations....the youths are becoming more and more aware. When change becomes the only alternative left, Nigeria will embrace it. Let's see what changes President Jonathan will make....if he chooses the right cabinet because that might mark the start point.

The Nigerian crisis is far from being curtailed. The reasons are not far fetched. The Electoral process needs to be totally reformed. This is an evidence that the people are not complacent with their government. I think the Niger Delta should be given a fairer control over their resources....Olalekan Olanisa from Los Angeles-USA

The new government should review the policies to match what the Nigerian people need and use media to communicate the changes.By so doing, the Nigerians will appreciate that their cry has been heard and concidered by the new government.Thanks be to BBC for keeping us updated.
Eelu Samuel,Kampala-Uganda

There is nothing to do with the Nigerian security or stop violence in the country if not dividing the Country which is the only divine solution to every problem in the country. The notherners are terrorist people with their so called jihad and etc. The nation is divided and is divided for real. No peace if no independent is made to the different tribalities.

The violence and instability in Nigeria, like in many other African countries is deeply rooted in the its origin and will be very hard to defeat completely. During the Scramble for Africa starting from 1881, the invading, occupying, colonizing and annexing European powers carved out arbitrary boundaries between groups of African people and forcefully maintained them in a union. Groups that were completely different and incompatible were forced into one country. Nigeria is just one of the victims this process. The Muslims of Northern Nigeria and those of Northern Cameroon were naturally suppose to be one country or two independent countries, same as the Christians in Southern Nigeria and Southern Cameroon.
If you look at Europe and South America, most of the national boundaries are "natural". In the 14th century, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Norway were one country. Differences and problems started to emerge because the were different people. The union was finally dissolved and their natural boundaries emerged. Even later unions between Sweden, Finland and Norway could not be maintained.
It will be an enormous (but possible) task if the UN can muster the courage to right this historical wrong on Africa and carve (at least some parts) of Africa into its natural boundaries. Many politicians will laugh at this, but this is the only way to bring genuine and lasting peace to most parts of Africa.

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It is obvious that the North and the South of Nigeria cannot really co-exist as the same country. These tensions are indeed repeated all over Nigeria - a colonial creation - but it is evident that Southerners (who are mostly Christian) can live together quite easily, and that Northerners (who are Muslim) can also exist peacefully by themselves. It is the mixing of these two groups (which are placeholders for significant ethnic differences: northerners descending from the Muslim caliphates of the last few hundred years in north-west Africa, and southerners from groups with origins in sub-saharan Africa) that ignites problems along religious (and, therefore, roughly ethnic) lines.
Just as happened in Sudan's case, and in Eritrea, and will undoubtedly happen in many other African countries (Congo DRC especially), Nigerians need a referendum on whether they want to stay on as one country, or whether the south and the north should each be allowed to be their own country. The results are easy to predict, too: the poorer, resource-lacking north would want to continue as part of Nigeria, but the richer, resource-endowed and more populous south would vote for secession. The resultant 2 countries could then co-exist in peace, with a population exchange that gives southerners in the north the chance to relocate to the south, and vice versa.
Otherwise, we are set for a perennial repeat of this senseless bloodletting.

The solution to the security problem in Nigeria is as easy as ABC. Once the nothern youths start going to school / receiving education they will know the value of life and will no longer be available for the elites who are now taking advantage of their illitracy to be pushing them into the streets with religious and ethnic sentiments whenever the elites want to creat confusion.

Like all conflicts, there is a root cause. And in the case of the Nigeria, this is not the first time that the country is in conflict. I think deep socio-cultural and socio-economic causes of these conflicts need to be investigated. Working with grassroot communities to find out what the problem is would take long but it is the sure way to deal with these pockets of conflict. Once people's burning issues are addressed, they have not reason to engage in continued conflict[s].

The recent violence being fomented in the northern part of Nigeria has got nothing to do with the unity of the country. There are many Christians in the north who are native indigenes, as well as many Muslims in the south who are native indigenes. I m from the southern part of the country, and grew up in a Muslim family and my wife is a Christian. The arguments that Muslims in the north are doing this or that are all misinformation and misrepresentation of facts. If it is as a result of lack of unity, then, the bombing would have been targeted mainly at non indigenes and Christians. The bombing is being perpetrated by those who want the status quo to continue. I believe with time they would get used to it, that things cannot continue, the way it is being done. The hawks in the northern part of the country (both Christians and Muslims) do not want to work; they want to continue to rely on government to survive. That is not acceptable; because everybody must work to make the country great! The request for resource control and sovereign national conference by the people from the Niger delta and the south west of the country respectively, was caused by the unwillingness of these northern politicians to stop misrule and corrupt practices, being perpetrated over a period of 35 years out of 51 years of Nigerian existence. The richest African is from Kano state yet, the state and many states in the north are full of street beggars. All known industries in the northern part of the country are all dead, due to their bad management. The fact that the bombing has never been suicidal indicated that, it is cheered wickedness, with no basis. They simply want to make their states ungovernable. The world is changing and Nigeria is striving to take her rightful place. They have no choice but to follow the train. They can continue to plant bomb wherever and whenever they like, the country will move. My problem is the innocent lives, which these people are killing. It is a matter of time; they would all be rounded up. The president must not negotiate with them.

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Nigeria's problem is as big as the population.A more standing solution is splitting the country into north and south,period.

AS it stand, no leader can curb the unnecessary violence that usually occured in Nigeria, the solution is, let Nigeria practice resource control {confederal system of government} because the major cause of the problem always comes from the politicians, they are creating enemity between the ethnic tribes and as usual the innocent ones falls victim of their adversity.

...and on the so called Islamist group, Boko Haram. May I ask them; what injustice are they fighting for?. Are they saying; until every Nigerian becomes uneducated like them, that they would stop wasting innocent lives?. That is laughable. If they have got so much hatred for western education and ideals, how come, they could talk to BBC News?. Is BBC not a western media?. In fact, I am disappointed that BBC should give such group any prominence on its news website. If the reason was to give them the opportunity to express themselves, that is understandable, but they should be condemned by all. These are wicked group, which are engaged in shedding of innocent blood for heinous reasons and they should not be treated with any respect.
If they don’t want their state (Borno state), to be part of Nigeria, they can apply to the United Nation for secession, instead of towing a criminal line of fighting their perceived injustice. Most of their victims are innocent Nigerian citizens, from their state (Borno state) and some other part of the northern part of the country, including the police and religious leaders. At this juncture, I want to appeal to every lovers of human right, including the BBC and the International Human organisations that they should please come in to condemn this people and not wait, until they are killed extra-judicially by the police, before stepping in to condemn the police or security agents.

Most people know that the solution to this problem is for North and any other region to go their own way. Officially, Nigeria's population is about 150m but in truth Nigeria's population should be close to 170m, so if the country breaks into three each country will still be big enough.

The government should face the truth and table the proposal before the UN with a view to conducting a Referendum to know whether we really want to continue as one country. Most people are tired of the blood-thirsty northerners and would be happy to let them go their own way. They are too violent, very backward and lazy. Their leaders have deceived them for too long; they condemn western education yet they sent their children to the best schools all over the world.

Nigeria is never a country, Nigeria can never be one country - it is an amalgamation of strange bed fellows and until that forced marriage is broken, there is no peace.

Security in Nigeria remains flawed for one big reason: Impunity. Until we live in a country that has law and order, a functional justice system where cases heard to the conclusive end and law breakers punished according to law, there is NO DETERRENT.

When the law remains silent rather than blind, the people take laws into their hands.

Mr. President, the ball is in your court!

Thanks

The problem of security in Nigeria, especially the northern parts, has alot to do with illiteracy, ignorance, poverty and gullibility on the part of the culprits and lack of professionalism, innovation, tactfulness and proactiveness on the part of government's security agents. Very often than not, actions are taken only when there is a situation. No intelligence report, no proactiveness. For a lasting solution, due consideration should be accorded the points raised. All my life has been in Maiduguri and Jos, the two flash points of crisis in Nigeria recently. So, it's obvious I'm speaking from experience.

Division or not, Nigeria,whether north or south,will always have the problem of security,resource control,religion,et cetera.