Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan declared a state of emergency on Saturday in parts of the country plagued by a violent Islamist insurgency, and ordered shut the borders with Cameroon, Chad and Niger in the northeast.

Coming nearly a week after radical sect Boko Haram set off a series of bombs across Nigeria on Christmas Day, including one at a church that killed at least 37 people and wounded 57, Jonathan told state television the measures would aim to restore security in troubled parts of Nigeria's north.

"The temporary closure of our borders in the affected areas is only an interim measure designed to address the current security challenges and will be resumed as soon as normalcy is restored," he said. He added that his chief of defence staff had been instructed to take other "appropriate" measures, including setting up a special counter-terrorism force.

Sectarian strife
The blasts have raised fears that Boko Haram, a movement styled on the Taliban and whose name means ‘Western education is forbidden’, is trying to ignite sectarian strife in Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation and top oil producer.

Jonathan has been criticised by the opposition and Christian groups for what they said was a slow response to the bombings. "The crisis has assumed a terrorist dimension," Jonathan said. "I therefore urge the political leadership (in northern local governments) to give maximum cooperation to ensure that the situation is brought under control."

North-south divide
He listed the northern local governments affected by the decree, including a part of Niger state near the capital Abuja, the northern half of the conflict-prone city of Jos, and parts of Yobe and Borno in the remote, semi-arid northeast.

The bombings by the northern-based movement have strained Nigeria's already fractious north-south divide. Jonathan, a Christian from the south, upset many northerners by running for and winning the presidency in April, which in the eyes of many tore up a tacit deal to rotate the top job between a northerner and a southerner every two terms.

More than 500 people were killed in post-election violence in the north after Jonathan's victory, reflecting long-standing northern grievances about perceived alienation and exclusion by the central government from the fruits of national oil riches, concentrated in the south.

“We will crush the terrorists”
Earlier in the day, Jonathan visited the scene of the deadliest Christmas attack, on St. Theresa's Catholic church in Madalla, on the outskirts of Abuja. "We will crush the terrorists. If there are institutions which are harbouring terrorists, we will deal with them," he told weeping relatives of the victims gathered in the church, amid tight security by dozens of armed soldiers.

Traces of the devastation were still evident, with the church windows shattered and glass on the ground. National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) spokesman Yushua Shuaib said authorities were on "full alert" for more attacks. "The government has put security throughout the federation, including near the flashpoints. We are optimistic, but we are fully mobilised," he told reporters.

The government held an emergency meeting with security officials on Thursday and is also looking at using other channels to stop the conflict, which started as a local northern problem but is fast destabilising the whole country.

Source: Reuters