A senior Lecturer at London Metropolitan University, Dr. Adebisi Adewole, has branded Nigeria- based group, Boko Haram as a cover up mechanism employed by certain political figures in

Nigeria to air their grievances through violence, and warned  "it is just a new face of what has been happening in Nigeria in so many years".

 Dr. Adewole said current disturbances in Nigeria were not about the rejection or hatred for western civilization as claimed by Boko Haram, because they “ wear shirt, listen to radio and

 watch television which are products of western civilization," but a calculated agenda by these politicians to forment trouble in the country.

“It is a mechanism that is used as a cover up for political grievances of certain people who lost out in the last elections, because in Nigeria it is believed by sections of the country that rulership must come from the north, and the northerners have been trying very much to hold on to that.” he said.

 Dr Adebisi Adewole made these remarks on yesterday’s edition of Straight Talk, a current affairs programme of Voice of Africa Radio that looked at the activities of Boko Haram in the light of the recent bombing of the UN headquarters in Nigeria in which the group claimed responsibility for the attack.

 The university professor said people from northern Nigeria have dominated almost forty years of Nigeria’s military rule and so believed that power must remain in the north but could not believe that a southerner became the president and would try every means to make President Goodluck Jonathan unpopular through the acts of violence.

 He noted” before the elections, certain political leaders vowed to make the country ungovernable for the president if they lost the elections,

and they are living by their word, and are using this Boko Haram people and some other sects to perpetuate their evils”

 Dr. Adewole blamed President Jonathan’s administration for not discharging their duties to protect the lives and properties of innocent Nigerians and said, 

“Jonathan knows these people, he knows where they are, he knows their sponsors, why is he so weak that he is not able to act to protect lives and properties of Nigerians, so the answer to this problem is in the hands of Jonathan” he added.

 He called on the government of Nigeria to ensure that criminal activities are not perpetuated in any part of the country and added “bombing the country creates problems for Nigerians and also people who are intending to invest in Nigeria, whichever way you look at it, it gives a negative propaganda and creates a negative image of Nigeria to the outside world.” He noted.

By Florence Simpson -Voice of Africa Radio