17th July, 2012
Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan expressed hope Tuesday that the spate of deadly attacks by Islamist sect Boko Haram which have claimed hundreds of lives would soon end.
“There is some hope and, God willing, the issue of Boko Haram will also come down,” Jonathan said during a meeting of members of his ruling People’s Democratic Party in Abuja.
The president lamented growing insecurity in some parts of the country, particularly recent sectarian violence in central Plateau State, which claimed some 100 lives.
“Security is very fundamental,” he said, promising to work with the Plateau state government to end the unrest.
The Boko Haram insurgency in the Muslim-dominated north and in the national capital Abuja has killed more than 1,000 people since mid-2009.
Thousands have also been killed in violence between ethnic Muslim Fulani herdsmen and mainly Christian villagers in Plateau state in recent years.
Plateau state is in Nigeria’s “Middle Belt” region, on the dividing line between the mainly Christian south and majority Muslim north in Africa’s most populous country.