NIGERIA-USA/BUHARI Nigeria's new president pledges effort to free girls kidnapped a year ago

Record ID: 146436

  • Title: NIGERIA-USA/BUHARI Nigeria's new president pledges effort to free girls kidnapped a year ago
  • Date: 18th July 2015
  • Summary: LAGOS, NIGERIA (FILE) (REUTERS) ****WARNING CONTAINS FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY*** VARIOUS OF PRESIDENT BUHARI, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE JOHN KERRY AND OTHER GUESTS SETTLING DOWN FOR A MEETING MEETING IN PROGRESS BUHARI DISCUSSING WITH KERRY VARIOUS OF KERRY'S FACE DAURA, NIGERIA (FILE) (REUTERS) BUHARI ALIGHTS FROM VEHICLE AND WALKS TOWARDS THE VOTING DESK WITH AIDES/JOURNALISTS FI
  • Embargoed: 2nd August 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Nigeria
  • Country: Nigeria
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA5P26KT1DHRV57226ZWIRP584P
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari vowed in April to make every effort to free more than 200 schoolgirls abducted by Boko Haram militants a year ago.
    President Buhari will seek help in fighting militants across West Africa when he meets U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington on Monday (July 20).
    Washington quickly reached out to new President Muhammadu Buhari since his election victory in March and sent U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to his inauguration to underscore U.S. interest in working with his government.
    Tensions emerged between the former government of President Goodluck Jonathan and the Obama administration last year over corruption and human rights abuses by the Nigerian military in its campaign to crush Boko Haram.
    After becoming the first politician in Nigerian history to succeed a sitting leader by ballot, President Muhammadu Buhari promised to "spare no effort" to defeat Islamist militant group Boko Haram.
    The group has killed thousands in its push to carve out a caliphate in northeastern Nigeria.
    Despite the killing of more than a dozen voters by Boko Haram gunmen - who had pledged to derail the poll - Nigeria's election was one of the most orderly in the country's history.
    Buhari won the election with 15.4 million votes to outgoing president Goodluck Jonathan's 13.3 million, a margin wide enough to prevent any challenge.
    The 72-year-old took power in a 1983 coup only to be thrown out 18 months later by another general. He subsequently embraced democracy, running in several elections and despite losing always bouncing back.
    Jonathan officially handed over to Buhari on May 29 at an inauguration ceremony in Abuja.
    Nigeria remains a complex ethnic mix of 170 million people, split between Muslims and Christians, with more than 500 languages.
    Though they mostly live side by side in peace, many harbor disputes that politicians have often used to stoke violence that has worsened over the years.
    Buhari, who said at his inauguration in May that victory could not be claimed until the Chibok girls were freed, is building up a base in Chad's capital N'Djamena out of which regional forces can deploy and attack the militants.
    President Muhammadu Buhari met his regional counterparts in Abuja last month to set up a joint military force against Boko Haram, a sign of his intent to crush the Islamist militant group early in his tenure.
    He also met with the Bring Back Our Girls campaigners last week.
    The militant Islamist group, whose six-year insurgency has seen thousands killed in Africa's most populous nation and top oil producer, caused an international outcry when it took the girls from secondary school dormitories in April 2014.
    Buhari praised members of the Bring Back Our Girls group for their efforts to prevent the missing children being forgotten.
    Earlier this year an Amnesty International report said that Boko Haram had kidnapped at least 2,000 Nigerian women and girls since the start of 2014, many of whom were sexually abused or trained to fight.
    The frequency of attacks by suspected Boko Haram militants in northern states has increased since the president vowed in his inauguration speech of May 29 that the group would be crushed.
    Boko Haram, which has been trying to establish a state adhering to strict Sharia law in northeast Nigeria, controlled an area larger than Belgium at the end of 2014.
    Nigerian and regional forces pushed the jihadists out of most of that territory in the last few months but the militants have a last stronghold in the Sambisa forest reserve and, with the increase in attacks, appear to be growing in strength.
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