US to Opens TV Channel In North To Combat Boko haram

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.
Video | Boko Haram Kidnapping Tactics, Explained
Some background on the Islamist group that has
been trying to topple Nigeria’s government for
years.
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.
Access to electricity is limited in many rural areas
of northern Nigeria, and few people own
televisions. While some people might be able to
view the programs on cellphones, a U.S.A.I.D.
official recently told members of the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee that Boko Haram
has been targeting cellphone towers to reduce
access to communication services in the region.
Graphic | Five Years of Attacks by Boko Haram in
Nigeria
Jacob Zenn, an Africa analyst at the Jamestown
Foundation in Washington, said other issues could
also limit the effectiveness of the channel. Most
members of Boko Haram speak Kanuri, a
language also spoken in Niger and Cameroon,
though the channel’s programming will be in
Hausa. Mr. Zenn also said that most new
members of Boko Haram are not Nigerians, but
recruits from countries bordering Nigeria.
“Most Nigerians living in the region are aware of
the destruction caused by Boko Haram, and they
are opposed to the group,” he said. So any
program that focuses just on people in the region
would most likely be offset by the fact that the
recruiting pool is transnational.
The terrorist group has had success in using
video messaging, which is a key tool in its
propaganda war against the Nigerian government
and in gaining new recruits. The leader of the
group, Abubakar Shekau, used a video message
to claim responsibility for the abduction of the
schoolgirls, who are from the town of Chibok in
northeastern Nigeria. Mr. Shekau regularly posts
videos on YouTube that feature sermons, appeals
to recruits and footage of attacks.
The kidnapping of the girls “demonstrates the
need for a strong and durable alternative narrative
to the destructive narrative of Boko Haram and
other violent extremists,” a State Department
official said.
Video | Boko Haram Leader Releases Video The
leader of Nigeria’s terrorist group Boko Haram,
Abubakar Shekau, said his group was fighting to
reinstate a medieval Islamic caliphate in northern
Nigeria.
Documents show that the television channel is to
target youths, “either subtly or explicitly,” with
Hausa-language programs that deliver “themes
that reject political violence and violent
extremism,” but do not include “news or political
reporting.”
The State Department is expected to finance the
channel for two years.
Details about the program have come to light in
the wake of attempts by the State Department
and the United States Agency for International
Development to create Twitter-like social media
programs in countries such as Cuba and
Pakistan.
The Cuba effort was widely criticized after The
Associated Press reported that it was set up to
encourage political dissent on the island. Officials
said the effort was part of American public
diplomacy programs to encourage political
discussions, not a covert program to overthrow
the government.
But unlike the social media programs, the satellite
television channel is part of an overall
counterterrorism effort designed to delegitimize
extremist ideology through the use of social
media tools like Facebook and YouTube, as well
as blogs, radio programs and online video games.
State Department counterterrorism officials also
engage with terrorist groups in online forums and
in the comment sections on media websites. The
effort is intended to reach what one State
Department official called the “middle-grounders
— the fence-sitters, the sympathizers and passive
supporters.”
The United States has long had a media presence
in northern Nigeria. The Voice of America offers
general Hausa-language news programs in the
region, but State Department officials said the
new project would go beyond simply providing
information. In addition to the broadcasts,
officials said the project would provide training to
journalists in the region, including women, who
would then be able to produce their own video
content."