Kaduna State has just had its first possible case of Ebola, in Zaria. A law student from ABU is presently quarantined pending the results of tests to confirm if he has the virus or not.
Yesterday the Director of the CDC gave a warning that EVD is spiralling out of control. He said that if the international acts quickly, it can be contained but the window of opportunity is closing rapidly. He is predicting a rapid increase in cases before it can be brought under control because it is moving faster than anyone anticipated. He also warned that the longer it continues the greater the likelihood that it will spread to more countries.
Meanwhile in the north east of my country, Boko Haram has now seized the strategically important town of Bama, despite denials from the military that government forces are losing control. Initially the BH fighters were driven back, but Nigeria Air Force pilots, mistaking the Nigerian army troops for BH, bombed our own forces, many of whom abandoned their guns and even their boots and joined the thousands of civilians fleeing to Maiduguri. Some Nigerian soldiers stationed in Maiduguri recently refused to deploy to Gwoza in an apparent mutiny, claiming they lacked the weapons to tackle the better-armed insurgents. It seems highly likely that BH are trying to encircle Maiduguri and capture it to make it their new capitol in a copy of what Islamic State has done with Mosul. If BH take over Borno State, it is also likely to take over a lot of territory in northern Cameroon. UNHCR now estimates that there are now 39,000 Nigeria refugees in Cameroon, 50,000 in Niger and 1,500 in Chad.
One Chatham house researcher thinks that unless the military changes its strategy it will be faced with an interminable insurgency:
In a paper for the Chatham House international affairs thinktank, Marc-Antoine Perouse de Montclos said Nigeria’s military faced fighting “an interminable insurgency” unless its strategy changed.
Military force should combine with police, judicial and local government reform as well as social and economic development to win hearts and minds in the troubled, impoverished region, he added.
But greater, direct military involvement from foreign powers, including neighbouring countries, “could incite the movement to open another front”, the researcher said.
The whole country is becoming destabilised just as we're in the period running up to our next presidential elections. This is not good. If GLJ is blocked from the presidency in 2015, or runs and loses, there is a real danger the country could erupt. On the other hand, if Jonathan runs and wins, the violence in the north will continue to burn, and very likely escalate.