Boko Haram: US To Sponsor 24-Hour TV Channel In Northern Nigeria

Category: Boko Haram News
 

WASHINGTON — The State Department is financing a new 24-hour satellite television channel in the turbulent northern region of Nigeria that American officials say is crucial to countering the extremism of radical groups such as Boko Haram. The move signals a ramping up of American counterinsurgency efforts to directly challenge the terrorist group, which abducted nearly 300 Nigerian schoolgirls in April.

State Department officials acknowledged that setting up an American-supported channel could prove challenging in a region where massacres, bombings and shootings by Boko Haram are common, and where the American government and Western educational programs are far from popular. The group has been known to attack media organizations in Nigeria.

The new television channel, to be called Arewa24 — arewa means north in the Hausa language — is financed by the State Department’s Bureau of Counterterrorism, and it is expected to cost about $6 million. State Department officials would discuss the program only on the condition of anonymity, and offered sparse information about it. But details have emerged in publicly available contracting documents and in interviews with people familiar with the effort.

The project was started last year and is run in Nigeria by Equal Access International, a San Francisco-based government contractor that has managed media programs sponsored by the State Department in Yemen and Pakistan that encourage youth participation in politics, in addition to countering Islamist extremism. Work on the project is nearing completion, but broadcasts have not yet begun.

State Department officials insisted that the Nigerian government was aware of the television project, and that it had not planned to hide American support for the program, which has not been previously disclosed. “However, U.S. sponsorship will not be advertised or promoted,” a State Department official said.

The goal of the channel is to provide original content, including comedies and children’s programs that will be created, developed and produced by Nigerians. State Department officials said they hoped to provide an alternative to the violent propaganda and recruitment efforts of Boko Haram.

Many foreign policy experts, while applauding State Department programs to counter the efforts of Boko Haram and other extremist groups, said the new satellite project faced several challenges in a region with low levels of infrastructure, public services, literacy and security.

Credits: New York Times

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