African press review 15 April 2015

Prayers, processions and protests for Nigeria's Chibok girls, as President-elect Muhammadu Buhari lays out his agenda to fight Boko Haram terrorism and militancy in a high profile New York Times op-ed.

The Nigerian press welcomes the holding of special events to mark one year without news about  the school girls abducted by Boko Haram from their college hostel in Chibok.

Punch says 219 female pupils, representing each of the yet-to-be-freed Chibok children, took part in a procession in Abuja while in Lagos, two young men added a small bizarre twist to the event by chaining themselves onto the Third Mainland Bridge for two hours.

ThisDay carried out a roll call of special solidarity rallies held around the world in Denmark, the United Kingdom, Ireland, the European Union, at the UN Headquarters in New York and even with a Nigerian family in the North Pole.

The Nation covered a moving protest outside the education ministry in Abuja where kids dressed in red shirts held up placards bearing the names of the Chibok girls, and messages addressed to Buhari that they believe he can see to their return.

As the girls began a second year in captivity, the Guardian says many Nigerians tired of the secrecy and blunders which characterised the current administration’s handling of the Boko Haram insurgency are desperate to have Buhari sworn in sooner than later.

Vanguard publishes an opinionated New York Times article written by Buhari in which he lays out the priorities of his administration. In the hot-selling piece, Buhari wonders how a terrorist group like Boko Haram was allowed to act with such impunity and why it took the Jonathan administration two full weeks to even comment on the crime.

According to the journal, Buhari also accuses his predecessor’s party of ruling the country for so long that self-interest becomes their point of focus instead of the duty of service to citizens’ problems.

The Nigerian Tribune highlights a portion of the New York Times article in which Buhari addresses the key issue of education. Boko Haram, he wrote, feeds off despair. He pointed out that by attacking a site of learning and kidnapping more than 200 school girls, it sought to strike at the very place where hope and the promise of a better Nigeria is nurtured.

In South Africa, Mail and Guardian highlights a letter by Pakistani Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai criticising Nigeria and the world for failing to help free the Chibok girls.
Yousafzai, who rose to international fame after being shot by the Taliban for campaigning for girls’ rights to education, described the teenagers as her sisters. In the message of solidarity, love and hope she vowed to be on the forefront of people who will make sure that world leaders secure their release.

Mail and Guardian quotes a new UNICEF report published on Monday revealing that 800,000 of the 1.5 million people displaced by Boko Haram violence were children. According to the paper, more than 300 schools were destroyed between January 2012 and December last year, with at least 196 teachers and 314 school children killed during that period.