Africa in Transition

The Voice of America reports that the death toll from a “Boko Haram” attack on a federal government college the night of February 24-25 has reached fifty-nine. The method of the slaughter was characteristically horrific; the male students were deliberately locked into their dormitory and burned to death, those who tried to escape had their throats cut. The female students were unharmed but sent home with instructions to abandon western education and to find husbands. The campus appears to have been torched. The college was an obvious “Boko Haram” target. It was a secondary boarding school run by the federal government, drew students from all over the country, and was secular. The diffuse elements of Boko Haram seem to have a common hatred of the federal government, secularism, and western education. A government college embodies all three. The governor of Yobe state, where the killing took place and which is one of the three states under a state of emergency because of Boko Haram, noted that the few soldiers assigned to the school had apparently been withdrawn hours before the attack and failed to arrive at the campus until noon the following day, hours after the attackers left. Why? Many others are asking the same question. A Muslim non-governmental organization, Muslim Rights Concern, issued a public statement that raises important issues: “Why is Boko Haram always attacking when they are supposed to be on the run? Why are our troops always on the defense? Is it true that Nigerian soldiers merely sit and wait for the group to attack? Is it also true that there is poor welfare for soldiers posted to the area? Is it true that soldiers in the region use their own money to pay for treatment? Who is keeping sophisticated weapons from reaching Nigerian soldiers fighting Boko Haram?” And so forth. Meanwhile, parts of the Nigerian press are reporting that a member of President Jonathan’s public relations staff writing under a pseudonym is insinuating that “suspended” governor of the Central Bank Lamido Sanusi is linked to Boko Haram. Sanusi, a banker with an international reputation, formerly the occupant of high government appointed office, and the grandson of an emir of Kano is precisely the type of “renegade” or “false” Muslim that Boko Haram targets, more than Christians. The insinuation is ludicrous. Meanwhile, we are waiting for the answers to Muslim Rights Concern’s questions.

South Africa has been ground zero in the HIV/AIDS tragedy. In 2011, about 5.6 million people were HIV positive, about 12 percent of South Africa’s population. According to the Economist, the HIV/AID disease burden was born disproportionately by blacks, 13 percent of whom were HIV positive. For Coloureds it was 3 percent; for whites, 1 percent. South African women also carry a disproportionate burden; they account for more than half of all new cases of infection. Health Minister Dr. Aaron Motsoaledi commented in February 2014 that the mortality rate doubled in the country between 2006 and 2007, a statistic characteristic of a war zone. In 2014, he went on, 49 percent of maternal deaths are attributable to HIV/AIDs, and the child mortality rate (children who die before the age of five) is 35 percent because of HIV/AIDS. The disease also makes people vulnerable to other diseases. “A lot of cancers…diseases like leprosy and TB, which we thought had been defeated, came back because of HIV/AIDS.” He also commented that 43 percent of people who are HIV positive “developed mental health problems.” The slow and unscientific response to HIV/AIDS by the administrations of Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki is one of the greatest failures of the early years of post-apartheid “non-racial” democracy. But, beginning in the later years of the Mbeki administration, there was a turn-around. According to a South African Institute of Race Relations (IRR) spokesperson, the Department of Health distributed almost 400 million condoms (male and female) in 2011/2012. Condom use at first sex increased from 18 percent to 66 percent between 1996 and 2012. According to the IRR, those who use condoms at first sex are likely to continue to do so. The Department of Health has also launched a campaign to circumcise as many men as possible. According to Dr. Motsoaledi, “we have circumcised one million men–we are going to quadruple it and circumcise four million men by 2016.” (Male circumcision significantly reduces the risk of contracting HIV.) He said that the campaign to reduce mother-to-child transmission of HIV is working: “it is now markedly low at 2.7 percent. At one stage, it was 8 percent. We want it to go below 1 percent or if possible 0 percent.” According to the IRR , the new infection rate has decreased by more than 50 percent since 1999. There has also been a dramatic increase in the number of South African HIV/AIDS victims receiving antiretroviral treatment. Here, the United States has been an important partner. According to the American embassy in Pretoria, the President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (PEPFAR) has invested more than $4.2 billion in South Africa’s HIV and TB programs. Unusual for PEPFAR partners, the South African government has assumed greater managerial and financial responsibilities for these programs, now investing about $1.5 billion annually of its own in countering HIV and AIDS. The payoff can be seen in South Africa’s significant increase in life expectancy, from fifty-four years in 2005 to sixty years in 2011. South Africa still carries a heavy HIV/AIDS burden, and will do so for a long time. But, the South African government’s campaigns against HIV/AIDS are a major achievement.

The radical Islamist insurrection in northern Nigeria gets most of the Western media attention, when it is not crowded out by the president’s recent “suspension” of Lamido Sanusi, the governor of the Central Bank. But, ethnic and religious violence continues to bedevil the Middle Belt, especially Plateau state.  Accordingly, the Interfaith Mediation Center’s Community Peace Action Network does a service by issuing a February 24 Bulletin calling attention to “incessant attacks by unknown gunmen,” despite a large, official security presence. The Bulletin catalogs the recent carnage: a February 20 attack on a village with thirteen killed and nine injured. A February 21 attack where nine children, two women and two men were killed. A February 21 attack with five killed and five injured, and another attack the next day where eleven people, mostly children, were killed. The killings are blamed on Hausa-Fulani Muslim herdsmen when the victims are Christian Barome farmers and vice versa when the victims are Fulani. Though in some attacks on Barome villages, the security services were blamed. This is a familiar pattern. New, however, seems to be that the killers are wearing army uniforms and move about in trucks painted in army colors. Killers in the north are also often reported to be wearing army clothes, but the Interfaith Mediation Center does not link the Plateau killings with the north. Escalating violence also may also reflect contentious local government elections scheduled for February 25. The governor, Jonah David Jang, who is from the People’s Democratic Party, has publicly said that there is “no opposition party” in the state; that did not go over well with the opposition political parties. He also staged a rally in support of President Jonathan’s 2015 campaign for re-election, though the president has not yet announced that he will run. The Community Peace Action Network notes that the refusal to acknowledge opposition political parties in a “violence indicator,” as is the increasing use of ethnic and religious stereotypes. The Community Peace Action Network closes its bulletin with recommendations to curb gunmen use of military uniforms and other steps to increase public confidence in duly constituted authorities. The violence in Plateau state could be a foretaste of what will come in other parts of the country before and after the national elections in early 2015.