Look I'm Not Planning to Make a Habit Out of This.

Replying to comments that is.

However in light of the weekends terrorist bombings that killed around 200 in northern Nigeria the comment my "Nigeria's Strike Seems to be Over " post attracted seems rather timely. You've probably read it before me but if you haven't it's still just sitting there below the post. Basically it asks me to think about what would have happened if rather then backing down over the fuel subsidy the Nigerian government had sent in the military to break the strikes. The answer to that is relatively simple.

Up until about 12 years ago Nigeria was actually run by a military government who were perceived to be biased towards the predominately Muslim north. This perceived bias along with other issues fuelled an armed insurgency in the mainly Christian south centred around the Niger delta region. So it would be reasonable to assume that if Nigeria were to return to a period of military rule or even a period of a state of emergency enforced by the military it would generate enough anger to re-ignite the insurgency in the south. This coupled with the insurgency in the north would significantly increase the risk of the nation being split into two.

This is why the current Boko Harem campaign is causing the Nigerian government such problems. With hundreds of people being killed in attacks almost every week they have little choice other then sending in the army to try and quell the violence. However they've got to do that in such a way as the people feel reassured because they see the army locking up the guilty rather then feeling threatened because they see the army brutally arresting innocent people. In short they have to learn to become an army of occupation in their own country.

On the plus though at least the Nigerian government now only have to deal with one massive problem at a time.