Nigeria unrest ‘worse than 1960s civil war’

Al Jazeera

8 January 2012

Nigeria unrest ‘worse than 1960s civil war’ 

President Goodluck Jonathan says there are Boko Haram sympathisers in government, judiciary and armed forces.

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan has said that spiralling violence blamed on the radical Islamist group Boko Haram is "even worse" than the country's 1960s civil war.

"The situation we have in our hands is even worse than the civil war that we fought," Jonathan said at a church service on Sunday, referring to Nigeria's 1967-70 civil war that killed more than a million people..

The death toll linked to violence blamed on the Islamist group has not reached anywhere near that level, but Jonathan cited the unpredictability and pervasiveness of the threat.

"During the civil war, we knew and we could even predict where the enemy was coming from ... But the challenge we have today is more complicated."

He said there are Boko Haram sympathisers in government.

"Some of them are in the executive arm of government, some of them are in the parliamentary/legislative arm of government, while some of them are even in the judiciary," Jonathan told a church service for armed forces remembrance day.

"Some are also in the armed forces, the police and other security agencies."