Monday 30 June 2014

Greece’s surprising request after turning down World Cup bonus

The Rio Report

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Whether it be their surprising Euro 2004 success a decade ago or their dramatic qualification from this year’s World Cup group stages, Greece tend to be a team of feelgood moments.
Their latest warming turn of events comes courtesy of a Greek report which suggests the squad have politely turned down a bonus from their Prime Minister, Antonis Samaras, for reaching the knockout phase for the first time in the famous tournament’s history.
Instead, they requested that the cash be used to build a brand-spanking new training centre for the national side so that they can continue to provide better results for their country.
A very brief letter read, according to NewsBomb.gr:
"We do not want extra bonus, or money. We only play for Greece and its people.
“All we want is for you to support our effort to find a land and create a sports center that will house our national team ".
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Compare and contrast this to Cameroon threatening not to show up in Brazil at all prior to the World Cup kicking off over bonus rows.
Then, earlier this week, 3 million dollars had to be shipped out to Brazil so that Ghana would see through their third and final group stage match against Portugal.
Neither of those sides made it to the last-16. Greece did.
That alone says a great deal about the importance of integrity and national spirit, even in a sport as high-profile and rabidly-competitive as football.

Sunday 29 June 2014

Congrats Fayose; Lesson for Fayemi and APC

Vanguard News - Latest updates from Nigeria, including business, politics, entertainment, fashion, health, technology, naija lifestyle
By Dele Sobowale
“The “Yes-man” is the enemy; your best friend will argue with you…” Aleksander Solzhenitysn, Russian author and human rights activist.
It was like a thunder bolt. I supported Fayemi; but, I had reasons to believe that he might not win the election. Still, I was prepared for a very close contest. The result, confirming the overwhelming preference of the people of Ekiti State for Fayose, was stunning and totally unexpected. So, let me start by extending my congratulations to Governor-elect, Ayodele Fayose – whose election has, at least, blown away one long-held myth. We now know that the people of Ekiti State don’t respect scholarship any more than other Nigerians. Here, we were living witnesses to a mere HND holder taking two PhD holders, one of them a Professor, to the cleaners. It was not just a victory for Fayose; it was an emphatic rejection of Fayemi. I cannot remember an election in which the losing candidate lost in every Local Government – including his own. For once, the APC (ACN) was so thoroughly thrashed; there was no chance for anybody to claim the election was rigged. Even the excuse of intimidation of voters sounds puerile as to leave observers wondering if these “progressives” intend to learn from their mistakes. They have lost three contests in a row – Ondo, Anambra and Ekiti.
The obvious question is: what went wrong? Let me start with a personal experience with regard to the debacle at Ekiti State to provide some of the answers from which APC and Fayemi (he still has a political future despite this loss) might learn.
Gov. Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti (l) and Governor-Elect, Mr Ayo Fayose, during Fayose's visit to the Governor in  Ado-Ekiti on Monday
Gov. Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti (l) and Governor-Elect, Mr Ayo Fayose, during Fayose’s visit to the Governor in Ado-Ekiti on Monday
The first and most obvious weakness of the “progressives” in the South West is the almost total domination of the party by one person. In fact, it had reached a stage when it could be regarded as hero-worship of the worst kind.
“When all think alike; no one thinks very much.” Walter Lippmann, 1889-1974. (VANGUARD BOOK OF QUOTATIONS p 245).
It got to the point when all everybody had to do was to wait for directions from “the Leader”. Even the media organizations established to support the political movement suffered from the same fate. Individually brilliant, all the columnists were forced to tow the line. Once you read the heading, you know what the conclusion would be. The APC and its leader are always right and PDP and Jonathan are always wrong. Shockingly, some of the people writing the nonsense are also PhD holders and even professors.
Group-think, as this phenomenon is called, had largely contributed to the delusions which led to the Ekiti disaster; and it may not be the last such embarrassment APC will suffer in the South West or beyond. But, let me now point out how this political culture had undermined Fayemi in Ekiti – because I was involved.
There has not been a single year in the last thirty during which I have not traveled to Ekiti State at least six times. Half of those trips invariably involve passing through the state capital – Ado-Ekiti. The last three years and nine months were not different in that respect. Thus, in 2012, I was in Ekiti for five days, on three occasions, on fact finding for a potential investor in that state. It was a very good opportunity to discover how people in various communities felt about their governor. What I found out was disturbing; very disturbing. Contrary to the propaganda which the party’s media organs and their best and brightest columnists were feeding the public, there was an almost total disconnect between the government and most of the people. Ekiti is a one industry state; and that industry is GOVERNMENT. Within that “conglomerate” teachers can be regarded as first among equals within the government establishment. Once teachers rightly or wrongly feel aggrieved, the government is in trouble. Somehow, in his desire to upgrade teaching services, Fayemi had antagonized the teachers and they were waiting to take their pound of flesh.
On reaching Lagos I sent a letter to Fayemi through one of his top officials requesting for an appointment. After a week a call came through telling me the Governor was out of the country but I will be contacted later. Till today, nothing happened. Undaunted, I sought out a mutual friend who was/is very close to Fayemi. One day the mutual friend invited me to a wedding where he was sure Governor Fayemi would be present and a meeting would be arranged. It was perhaps the worst day for me to go out of my house. With arthritis on my right arm killing me and severe gout on my left wrist hurting like hell, on a day with heavy downpour and no driver, I still went to the venue of the reception at UNILAG – all in a bid to warn Fayemi that he was not being told the whole truth. Unfortunately, the Governor, at the last minute, after church service, departed for Ado-Ekiti. It was the most painful outing ever in my life; it was all in vain.
Meanwhile the “Yes-men”, including my friend who turned his formerly interesting column to a series of Ekiti/Fayemi propaganda pieces, kept on peddling the things which must have been music to Fayemi’s ears – while keeping from him the unpleasant truths he should have known at least a year or two ago. If Fayemi is in search of reasons, he should look his “friends” in the face and tell them off.
Four months ago, on another visit to Ekiti, I was stunned by how what started as mild resentment had congealed into outright rejection of Fayemi’s second term quest. By then, I had also concluded that I will still support him for reasons I mentioned about four weeks ago; but, it was clear to me that the people had turned against him. I still strongly believe for the wrong reasons. I also believe that two years from now, if not sooner, the people of Ekiti will wake up and wonder if they were under a spell for voting out Fayemi. Fayemi, I hope, has also learnt a lesson. Court jesters and praise singers do more harm to public officials than his opponents. Flatterers never tell the whole truth.

This country deserves good news

Vanguard News - Latest updates from Nigeria, including business, politics, entertainment, fashion, health, technology, naija lifestyle
By Denrele Animasaun
“The bread which you hold back belongs to the hungry; the coat, which you guard in your locked storage-chests, belongs to the naked; the footwear mouldering in your closet belongs to those without shoes. The silver that you keep hidden in a safe place belongs to the one in need. Thus, however many are those whom you could have provided for, so many are those whom you wrong.” -- Basil the Great
Long may the Eagles soar?
May I extend my absolute delight that the Nigerian team made it to the knock out stage? It was a joyous occasion especially when we all were rooting for One Nigeria team.
How much is our vote worth?
The Ekiti people have spoken and they have voted for Ayodele Fayose for governor of the state. It does leave a bitter taste (pardon the pun), when one knows that both main candidates did give raw and cooked rice to the people in the state prior to the election. Long after the rice have finished would it be worth their votes, I wonder. Call me a cynic, but this is not a proper way to conduct a free and fair election, it taints the result, which by the way, was largely a safe and trouble free by Nigerian standards.
If this stunt becomes the trend next year, then Nigerian voters are being taken for a ride and politicians are insulting the populace by indicating that everyone can be bought. I hear that one politician said that if you are given gifts by the political parties, by all means take it but vote for who you really want. Such sound advice. The state was battle-ready with over 30,790 policemen, soldiers and members of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps in attendance. It is interesting to know who picks the tab and whose instructions these armed personnel were following. How I wish they could deploy such numbers to Chibok and its environs.
An Ekiti State University student displaying a bag of rice he got from Ayo Fayose
The outgoing  governor has being  magnanimous in accepting the result and wishing the governor-elect his best wishes. Governor Fayemi in a broadcast in Ado -Ekiti, said he has no option than to accept the result of the election and congratulate Fayose “if indeed the outcome of the election is the will of the Ekiti people”.
This is very reassuring and only wish this was the attitude many will take in the face of political defeat.   Being in politics is not  a do-or-die and our  politicians should  know that  the gravy  train cannot go  on forever. In most countries, you go into politics to help shape the lives of the people for the better and to represent the people you serve. At the end of the day, if the lives of the people that voted for the individual does not change for the better, then the voters are equally to blame for the way they voted. We have to consider also that people with criminal records or a dubious past should not shoe in and or hold public office, that like getting the cat to watch the meat!
“An empty stomach is not a good political adviser.” — Albert Einstein
Remember Chibok Girls
“If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.” — Mother Teresa
The young girls have been missing for over 70 days and still more abductions, killings and bombings continue in and around the same area. The government spokesmen have been telling the people that they should go about their daily lives and they (the government and security agency) are actively waging war on BH. They say this from the safety of their fortified garrisons.
I do not think people can rely on the thinly veiled reassurances, not when people have become sitting ducks and their lives decimated and traumatised by tragedy and wanton brutality.  Nigeria, where is the compassion?
This week alone, Abuja was rocked by explosions with several fatalities and causalities. Over 60 women were hijacked and forcefully taken away by the terrorists, among those abducted are children between the ages of three and 12.
The Damboa local government officials said they were afraid to speak out because of the controversy surrounding the Chibok abductions, with Nigeria’s government coming under heavy criticism for its slow response.
The newly appointed religious leader, the Emir of Kano, former Central Bank Governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, said the attack had “traumatised every one of us” while visiting the wounded in hospital. Yes, those who know feel it but who do they turn to their grief and anguish to? The government do not think it is their bag.
In April, Abuja bombings killed 120 people. In May, twin car bombs in the central city of Jos left more than 130 people dead, and a car bomb at a bus station killed 24 people in the Christian quarter of Kano, a Muslim city.
This Monday, bomb exploded at a medical college in Kano killed at eight people. Last week, at least 14 died in a bomb blast at a World Cup viewing site in Damaturu, a state capital in the north-east
An explosion shook Apapa in Lagos last Wednesday. The twin blast which affected four buildings, including two banks has reportedly claimed five lives. Bomb experts and security operatives have yet to prove that indeed a bomb was detonated.
The Public Relations Officer, National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Mr. Ibrahim Farinloye, said the explosion was caused by gas cylinders. And that people should not be unduly concerned. No people are convinced, they are on hyper vigilance mode and this has a physical and mental health consequence on the lives of our people. We will continue to pray for the return of the girls and when they do, in whatever state they are in. They and their family will need a lot of support and intervention. For the politicians, you cannot throw money on this problem. We need security, better lives for our young and good standard of living. Piece meal and empty pronouncement just won’t cut it.
Dear Madam,
RE: NO IFS, NO BUTS ONLY MERIT WILL DO
Your article in the Sunday Vanguard of yesterday (June 22, 2014) was a breath of fresh air. Indeed, you hit the nail on its head; you identified the hydra-headed monster that has and still is preventing us as a nation from meaningful progress. The issue at stake here is at the core of ALL our problems in Nigeria.
We threw merit away long, long ago and we have nothing but retrogression to show for it. It can be said that not doing things on the basis of merit is the very foundation of corruption. Nobody makes the right democratic choice by looking at issues through the coloured spectacles of ethnic and religious bias. We would have a truly great nation built on strong democratic values only when we stop allowing ethnic, religious or other prejudices from determining who leads us.

Saturday 28 June 2014

IS IT TIME FOR NIGERIA TO DISINTEGRATE? yes!

Hope For Nigeria

Joseph Ebimone

it was Frantz Fanon who said that “every generation must out of relative obscurity discover its mission, fulfil it or betray it”. In the aftermath of the Kano terrorist attacks and the seven decades of routine ethno-religious mass killings in the North, our generation must as Frantz Fanon said confront the unique mission of our time which must be fulfilled through the choice of freedom over slavery and of self determination over internal colonialism. 

It should be clear to all and sundry that the freak contraption known as Nigeria is not sacred, it is purely and simply a British creation designed first and foremost to service her imperial interests and not for the benefit of those who inhabit the geographical space. Given the history of Europe, which not surprisingly is the bloodiest continent in human history with the 1st and 2nd world wars originating from Europe, the later ending as recently as 1945 and the many nationalist battles fought across many generations on ethnic lines including the recent ethnic conflicts in Bosnia, Herzegovina, Serbia etc, the British knew they were creating in Nigeria, a tinderbox of contradictions and endless conflicts, but never bothered because the servicing of her imperial interests was more important than the cohesion or unity of their colonial subjects. To date the European Union has refused to let Muslim Turkey join the EU because they want to avoid creating religious contradictions within the European club.

Mental laziness which manifests in a fear to try something new or take on daunting challenges is a phenomenon that has kept the black race in perpetual retrogression and slavery. While the white race and other races are willing to take on daunting challenges, going to the moon and overcoming all kinds of formidable situations, the black race is content to sing, dance and give all kinds of silly excuses why nothing can be done. Paralysed by a fear of every challenge, the black race has remained to date the most unprogressive of all human species. It is this same mindset of a fear of something new, a fear of challenges that those who argue to keep a failed Nigeria exhibit. They prefer to remain in a nation that is a hopeless jungle of failure rather than take on challenges to chart their own destiny, they prefer to remain in slavery rather than try freedom, they prefer to live under oppression rather than fight for their rights and dignity. Dr James David Manning once said that the black race was found to be the most suitable for slavery because then as now are always willing to accept any situation without a fight. This is the exactly the mindset that those who argue for one Nigeria exhibit.

There is no sane argument to keep Nigeria. It is a nation consumed by injustice, hatred, self destruction, it is also the most failed nation on earth incapable of providing the most fundamental right, which is the right to life without which any other right cannot exist and of providing the basic essentials such as electricity, pipe borne water etc. These are basic amenities that are taken for granted in the poorest African countries. In spite of being the 6th largest oil producer in the world and the largest in Africa, Nigeria imports fuel. There is no other nation on the face of the earth with this level of failure. It is a nation that dehumanises her citizens and strips them of every human dignity. A nation that makes animals out of men. A nation that is at best a human zoo. There is a reason why Nigeria has failed so exceptionally and it is her irreconcilable contradictions.

Any careful observer will realise that “one Nigeria” has always been a scam which even the loudest advocates do not believe in. It’s only been a convenient ploy to loot the nation. The so called one Nigeria leaders have contributed more to the destruction of Nigeria than anyone else. In anticipation of the nation’s eventual collapse, all of them are busy building their future outside Nigeria. These leaders send all their children abroad, buy houses abroad and stash their wealth abroad, yet these are the same leaders that sing “one Nigeria”. How long can we be fooled? Indeed is Nigeria not an already disintegrated nation? What is left of a nation where ethnic groups are returning to their enclaves because of ethno-religious crises or where a section of the country introduces sharia laws in violation of the constitution, or where terrorists bomb and kill innocents in churches and other locations on account of their religion and ethnicity? Must we wait for everyone to be killed before we realise that Nigeria cannot work? 

Nigeria is a nightmare. We need to finally confront the reality of it’s impossibility as a viable nation and break-it up. The Scottish have just scheduled an independence referendum for September 2014 after centuries of union with Britain. In 1991, the Soviet Union, a nuclear world power disintegrated. In 1947, Pakistan seeking a separate nation for Muslims seceded from India. In 1993, following a referendum, Eritrea seceded from Sudan. In 1992 Yugoslavia disintegrated leading to more than 8 new nations. In 1993, Czechoslovakia disintegrated. In 1971, Bangladesh seceded from Pakistan. In 2002, East Timor seceded from Indonesia and in 2011 South Sudan seceded from Sudan. There is thus a long precedent of self determination by many nations around the world. Most importantly, none of the new nations have ever regretted their decisions to separate from their former nations in spite of whatever challenges they might be facing. There is no reason why the aftermath of Nigeria’s breakup scenario will be different.

The French live in France, the Irish in Ireland, the Germans in Germany amongst others, so why should so called Nigerians be forced to live with a myriad of disparate ethnic nations that is further divided along religious lines? Amongst former British colonies, three nations namely, Nigeria, Sudan and India were created with contradictions that made them impossible to function by particularly lumping significant Muslim populations with other ethno-religious groups. Out of the three, India and Sudan has disintegrated, only Nigeria remains. There is no nation in the world where significant populations of fundamentalist Muslims cohabit peacefully with other religions and this reality has been vindicated in Nigeria with the endless ethno-religious mass killings in the North. No matter how much we try to pretend, empirical evidence suggests that there will never be peace, harmony nor progress until there is a separation between the fundamentalist Muslims in the Sharia North and the rest. The route of disintegration travelled by India and Sudan must therefore, inevitably include Nigeria and the time is now.....

In defence of ‘stomach infrastructure

PUNCH
BY NIRAN ADEDOKUN

Niran Adedokun
One of the major undoings of the elite in any society is the disdain and disrespect with which they hold the common man. Those who have had a few opportunities in life walk around with some air of superiority, which does the society no good in the long run.
This involves almost all of us, including those who speak eloquent high sounding Marxist language in the effort to convince us that they are on the side of the people. We all just hate and disrespect the mass of the people, even if unwittingly.
It is from the depth of this sneaky disregard that some self-righteous person coined the phrase ‘stomach infrastructure” in explaining what a lot of self-proclaimed reform-minded Nigerians see as the unexpected result of the June 21, 2014 governorship election in Ekiti State.
As a result of the arrogance of most educated sympathisers of progressive politics, we sat down on the arms of our chairs convinced that the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, was destined to win the election in spite of the acclaimed popularity of Mr. Ayodele Fayose of the Peoples Democratic Party and the crack that the defection of Opeyemi Bamidele caused in the APC’s mighty fortress.
When that did not happen, we had to find an explanation in what we saw as the sellout of the populace. I have read several arguments which criticised the choice of the people concluding that they were obviously content with receiving bags of rice and other inducements from politicians like Fayose over the physical development that Fayemi’s four-year administration is said to have brought to the state and the prospects that it holds for the future.
How conceited can some of us be? How unfeeling can we be of the grinding poor conditions under which over 70 per cent of Nigerians, those who really vote, continue to live? How can so many of us who have not even stepped out of Lagos and Abuja depend on sponsored television programmes and judge the mass of our people in such cruel terms? How should even those of us who claim to fight for the people allow the same people suffer double jeopardy, one in the hands of pretentious and uncaring government officials and the other in the hands of those of us who claim to have their backs?
In passing this sort of judgment, we lump ourselves with those in the ruling class who get into positions and forget to cater to the needs of people who voted them into power. On assumption of office, a majority of our leaders import their friends from overseas, or at best from cities like Lagos and Abuja. These friends become the new lords in town in just a matter of months. They ride the latest cars in town, buy the choicest of properties and generally take over our capital cities.
Our leaders pride themselves on the construction of new flyovers, on massive road projects in state capitals, on new government house buildings, on a select model primary and secondary schools, on fantastic hospital buildings that have been approved for construction and the newly awarded city landscaping contracts, all of which are almost always carried out at severely inflated figures.
These are the things that we read about and we glorify political office holders. A leader demolishes a market in the name of beautification without making alternative plans for the poor people who cannot afford to hire new shops and the elite go to town celebrating the latest achievement of the government without giving mind to the hundreds of people whose livelihood have been distorted by that decision. Leaders pursue hundreds of hapless citizens from man-made slums, the elite scamper to buy them over without questions about what alternative provision has been made for those sent packing. We hear of housing schemes in the tens of millions and we wonder where are the low cost housing schemes of the late 1970s and early 1980s? We do not seem to think that the common man should live at all.
But the people see through it all. They are only poor and not stupid. They see the transformation in the lives of the men that they stood in the blazing sun to elect into office just yesterday. They see how they have dumped them for new friends. They see the very big cars that they now drive and how dark-googled men with heavy guns under their jackets scare them from even waving at the people who promised to be their friends forever. They hear about the heavy amounts of money that go into security votes monthly, they know that their children no longer attend school in Nigeria, they realise that the United Kingdom, the United States, Dubai and India have become the hospital for them and their family and that private jets have become their staple means of transport.
They see all of these and cannot reconcile it to their own worsening situation. They hear of new school buildings but cannot afford to send their children there. Hundreds of thousands of their youth roam the streets without jobs. They see hospital buildings but cannot afford to pay, so they suffer and die in silence since no one is thinking about health insurance at the community level. Even the prospects that they will ever get a primary health centre have been taken away by the refusal of the governor to conduct local government election.
In spite of all the promises, they see no improvement in the ways in which they farm, even the access road to their farms have become worse than they were. The back of their wives have bent over from fetching well water, there is no hope that they would ever taste pipe borne water again. Electricity has become an occasional visitor to them. They regret the day they voted this person into office and vow to wait for the day he would come back to them.
Of course, he is bound to come. And when he does, they take what he has for and take what his opponent has and then, go ahead to vote for the opponent. Cunny man die, cunny man bury am, no winner no vanquished!
We then hurriedly pick up our pens and throw words of anger and disappointment at the people who have already suffered so much. We take the moral high ground and vilify them for putting their votes where their stomachs are.
But we are merely being dishonest if not hypocritical. Have we not all come across Abraham Maslow’s “Theory of Human Motivation,” where he suggested that it is almost impossible for man to sacrifice his psychological needs (water, food, shelter and warmth) for anything?
Unless the political elite learn to speak the same language with those who elect them, finding a middle point between the provision of infrastructure and the development of the people, we really, as Americans say, ain’t seen nothing yet!
- Follow me on twitter@niranadedokun
Copyright PUNCH.All rights reserved. This material, and other digital content on this website, may not be reproduced, published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed in whole or in part without prior express written permission from PUNCH.

Friday 27 June 2014

The Nigerian city living in fear of Boko Haram

BBC

Civilian JTF checkpoint in Maiduguri
Boko Haram's campaign of violence in Nigeria recently became a focus of international attention when it kidnapped more than 200 schoolgirls. In their former stronghold of Maiduguri militants have been forced out. But the BBC had a journalist go undercover in the city for his, and his interviewees' safety, and he found residents living in fear.
With a machete in one hand and a stick in the other, an agitated teenager flags us down, pushing his head through the window and quickly scanning the car.
He is manning one of hundreds of checkpoints across Maiduguri, the capital of the north-eastern Nigerian state of Borno, and is a member of a civilian militia known as the Joint Task Force (JTF) guarding the city.
Maiduguri was once the bustling commercial hub of the north-east. Traders arrived from all over Nigeria and from neighbouring countries, bearing goods such as car parts and building materials and taking away cattle and cat fish.

Start Quote

Our greatest worry is for the people in the villages, who are being killed like ants”
Maiduguri resident
But Borno state - the "Home of Peace" as its outdated motto goes - lost its innocence in 2009, when Boko Haram launched military operations to create an Islamic state.
The past five years have been the most tumultuous in Maiduguri's history.
On the back foot in 2010, Boko Haram regrouped to organise a flurry of bombings and drive-by shootings here.
Two years ago, its fighters roamed freely in the streets. People were torn between risking reprisals for reporting them, and being accused of collaboration by the army if they stayed silent.
Fed up with what it saw as government inaction, last year the civilian JTF eventually went house to house, rooting the militants out.
The city is now gradually picking up the pieces, and some of those who had fled have started returning. "We thank God for current peace and we hope it lasts," says a 49-year-old welder.
Yalda Hakim investigates Abubakar Shekau, the man behind Boko Haram
But that peace seems fragile and both the people and the army know it. Boko Haram's leader, Abubakar Shekau, has declared war on all Maiduguri residents, especially members of the JTF.
In many ways, Maiduguri now looks like an island unto itself.
Almost all other parts of Borno are exposed, and villages on the fringes of the city get attacked frequently.
'Hopeless'

Find out more

Watch Our World: Nigeria Undercover on BBC World News from 20:30 GMT on Friday
"Our greatest worry is for the people in the villages, who are being killed like ants - innocent people who are being murdered day and night," says the welder, who like others asked not to be named for fear of reprisals by Boko Haram or the army.
The UN estimates that 650,000 people have been displaced by the Boko Haram crisis, and there has been a steady stream flocking to Maiduguri.
"We are hopeless," says one man who took refuge at an uncle's house in the city with his wife and seven children. "The attackers burnt our village and killed many people."
Shops burnt in a suspected Boko Haram attack in Gamboru Ngala district, Borno State, May 2014
Commercial airlines have yet to resume flights to Maiduguri since the airport was attacked in December, and almost all roads to the city are under Boko Haram control.

Start Quote

When we see Boko Haram and we tell the army, they will say, 'we can't do anything'”
Truck driver
The only "safe route" has also become too dangerous to travel as militants can block it at will, slaughtering travellers and looting trucks.
Many truck drivers would rather keep away from Maiduguri. "If we come across Boko Haram, they will burn our trucks and kill us," says one. He has been transporting goods to Mubi in Adamawa state for more than 20 years.
But Boko Haram controls the normal route, and the detour takes him through Chibok - where the schoolgirls were kidnapped in April - and other places of risk along the way.
line
Boko Haram at a glance
  • Founded in 2002
  • Initially focused on opposing Western education - Boko Haram means "Western education is forbidden" in the Hausa language
  • Launched military operations in 2009 to create Islamic state
  • Thousands killed, mostly in north-eastern Nigeria - but also attacks on police and UN headquarters in capital, Abuja
  • Some three million people affected
  • Declared terrorist group by US in 2013
line
The army does little to help, the driver says. "When we see Boko Haram in their [Toyota] Hilux jeeps and we tell the army, they will say: 'We can't do anything, wait for them to leave.'"
A businessman who used to send at least 10 trucks to Chad each month now barely manages to send two. Lorry drivers are killed and their goods are looted.
The army is encircling the city with trenches and mud walls, heightening the sense of siege.
Defensive mud wall outside Maiduguri
There are also fears of infiltration.
"These trenches cannot provide any real defence," says a local historian and commentator. "In our case, the enemy can enter the fortress and attack from within."
Because of the state of emergency in Borno and the neighbouring states of Yobe and Adamawa, there is a strict 06:00 to 21:00 curfew.
Businesses have to meet the strict deadline and this has resulted in a huge loss of revenue.
Plunge in enrolment
Students are suffering too.
True to its name, which means "Western education is forbidden" in the Hausa language, Boko Haram has killed many teachers and burnt schools they accuse of promoting anti-Islamic values.
Almost all public schools in Borno have closed, except for a handful in Maiduguri.
Applications for places in the local university have dropped from 25,000 for 2012-2013 to fewer than 4,000 a year later, according to one lecturer.
The militants have so far spared Islamic schools, or madrassas.
Almajiri Islamic school in Maiduguri 24 May 2014
But the children at one state-run madrassa said they were still fearful of being kidnapped or attacked by armed gunmen.
The government has made bold declarations about ending the crisis.
But some soldiers have complained that they are not properly equipped to face the insurgents, and one civilian JTF member said he thought the army was keen to avoid a face-to-face confrontation.
When the security forces have moved against the militants, they have been accused of repeated human rights violations - accusations the government has either denied or not responded to.
With the case of the kidnapped schoolgirls unresolved, the credibility of the government and the military is at an all-time low. Many in Maiduguri feel the authorities do not have the will, let alone the means, to take on the insurgency.
That leaves the residents fearful that Boko Haram could return at any time to exact revenge.
Watch Our World: Nigeria Undercover on BBC World News from 20:30 GMT on Friday