The Nigerian president, Goodluck Jonathan, has challenged Boko Haram to identify itself and state clearly its demands as a basis for talks.
The radical Islamist group killed more than 500 people last year and another 250 in the first weeks of 2012 in gun and bomb attacks in the West African country, according to Human Rights Watch.
“If they clearly identify themselves now and say this is the reason why we are resisting, this is the reason why we are confronting government or this is the reason why we destroy some innocent people and their properties … then there will be a basis for dialogue,” Jonathan said in an interview with Reuters in the capital, Abuja,on Thursday.
“We will dialogue, let us know your problems and we will solve your problem, but if they don’t identify themselves, who will you dialogue with?”
Jonathan said there was no doubt that Boko Haram had links with jihadi groups outside Nigeria.
Responsibility claim
Jonathan’s remarks came as the purported leader of the group issued new threats in a message posted on YouTube, while also saying that last week’s attacks in Kano were over the torture of its members.
“We were responsible,” a voice identified as that of the suspected Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau, says in audio played over a picture of him.
“I ordered it and I will give that order again and again. God gave us victory.”
A purported spokesman for the group had earlier claimed responsibility for the co-ordinated bombings and shootings on January 20 in Kano, Nigeria’s second largest city, which left at least 185 people dead.
Police stations were the main targets.
A voice identified to be of ’Boko Haram leader’ Abubakar Shekau claimed responsibility for the Kano attacks [AFP]
The man said to be Shekau says in the message that “we attacked the security formations because our members were arrested and tortured. Our women and children have also been arrested”.
He then issues another threat: “They should know that they also have wives and children. We can also abduct them. It is not beyond our powers.
“Soldiers raided an Islamic seminary in Maiduguri and desecrated the Koran. They should bear in mind that they also have primary and secondary schools and universities, and we can also attack them.”
The authenticity of the message could not be independently verified, but the photo matched with previous ones said to be of Shekau and the voice was similar to earlier recordings.
In the latest development in Kano, unidentified armed men abducted a German working for a construction company in the city on Thursday, police said.
Musa Majiya, a police spokesperson, said the man, an engineer, was abducted at a construction site by two armed men in a sedan who “came and handcuffed him and put him in the boot and zoomed away”.
He said that police were investigating the incident.
Sect’s background
Boko Haram, whose name means “Western education is sinful”, was formed in 2003 in the remote, northeastern city of Maiduguri.
It launched an uprising against the government in 2009 that security forces crushed in days of fighting that killed an estimated 800 people.
Mohammed Yusuf, Boko Haram’s then-leader, was captured and died in police custody during those battles, prompting vows of revenge from other members of the group, which they now seem to be honouring in attacks on security forces and authority figures.
The group’s members have said they want to impose Islamic law across Nigeria, but the Nigerian president doubts they have clear aims.
“There is no clear thing to say: this is what we want,” Jonathan said in the interview to Reuters.
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