US to fund new anti-Boko Haram ‘Arewa TV’
As part of its engagement with Nigeria to fight insurgency, the US will fund a new 24-hour satellite TV channel in the northern part of the country, the New York Times has reported.
The station will be called Arewa TV, according to the American newspaper in its Friday June 7 edition, and will produce original content, focusing mainly on “themes that reject political violence and violent extremism”.
It will not broadcast “news or political reporting” and will be targeted at reconstructing the minds of the youth who have been exposed to violent extremism from childhood.
It will be produced in Nigeria “by Nigerians”, and will be broadcast in Hausa, the lingua franca of northern Nigeria.
Boko Haram has made some parts of northern Nigeria ungovernable with a campaign of extreme violence that has consumed over 10,000 lives since 2009, according to estimates by President Goodluck Jonathan.
The recent kidnap of hundreds of schoolgirls in Chibok, Borno State, has further put the militants’ activities under global spotlight, with many western countries offering to help Nigeria in its war against terror.
Arewa TV is meant to “support Nigerian efforts to provide an attractive alternative to the messaging of violent extremists”, according to an unnamed US officer who did not give details of the project but simply said it was “under way”.
The discussions with Nigeria began in 2012, the official said, and the project is now almost completed and ready for take-off.
The State Department’s Bureau of Counterterrorism is financing the project with about $6 million, the newspaper reported, but this will be for only two years.
It is going to similar to the programmes run in Yemen and Pakistan, sponsored by State Department and run by Equal Access International, a government contractor based in San Francisco.
Yemen and Pakistan have been battling with terrorism for years.
The Arewa TV project will also provide training to northern journalists, the New York Times reported.
The official did not state if the Nigerian government would be involved in the project at any stage.
Good attempt to win the minds of people. I hope it works cos it will b a very useful tool in enlightening the population and changing their mind sets
When we had regions as mini nations in Nigeria, our healthcare system was far better, and most rich Nigerians never bothered going overseas for medical issues.
But with the kind of Nigeria we have had since Yakubu Gowon, the federal government has so much money that breeds corruption; then Education and Healthcare have become casualties since then.
Until we get back to regionalism or outright balkanization of Nigeria –at least like it was before 1914; that is 2 Nigerias– the rut in Nigeria is only going to get worse.
Dora Akunyili is another casualty of federal Nigeria. May her soul rest in peace –in Jesus name– Amen!
The idea of “Arewa TV” is like flushing money down the toilet. If anyone believes this program will make any dent on Boko Haram, that person doesn’t know the influence of radical islam in Northern Nigeria. Islam is like a grip on the Northern Muslim population, while the Imams and sponsors of religious extremism are in charge and have more money to spend countering this Arewa TV than the US can ever think of spending on the same project. The same outreach which will certainly be dismissed as another propaganda ploy by the “devil” (America).
The only way to compel Northerners to stop Boko Haram in Northern Nigeria or its menace spreading to the elite South and fueling another war in Nigeria is to make Boko Haram an economic drag on the North. Once you decentralize Nigeria into Regions, whereby Regions have to raise their own funds –as opposed to monthly funds from the federal government– the last thing Northern Regions will tolerate is Boko Haram, since its presence will keep away investors the Regions need to stay economically buoyant. Essentially, the North itself will end Boko Haram, since it would have outlived its usefulness, anyway. That is that of being a political tool for grabbing political power for the North. But as long as money always comes from Abuja and the federal government remains a huge price the various ethnic or geopolitical regions want to seize and control, no level of “Arewa TV” will stop Boko Haram, until Nigeria is plunged into another major war.
America’s involvement in this Boko Haram matter is not going to help Nigeria sole the insurgency. The solution lies in the restructuring or balkanization of Nigeria into regions or nations, like was done with old India that was shared by many disagreeable constituents of Pakistan, the current India, etc.