Leela Jacinto writing in Foreign Policy. Does a decent hatchet job on the Islamic Republic of Pakistan’s Honour and Dignity aka H&D.
Going by her name, she appears to be a person of Indian origin, possibly either Mangalorean, Goan or East Indian. Any one know?
Nigeria Is Not Pakistan
The state isn't trying to use Boko Haram as a political tool -- it's just been totally useless in doing anything to defeat it.
BY Leela Jacinto
MAY 8, 2014
Pakistani President Mamnoon Hussain was scheduled to arrive in the Nigerian capital of Abuja on April 21 with a group of around 70 officials and business leaders for a three-day visit aimed at boosting bilateral trade.
Days before Hussain's arrival, a Pakistani Embassy official in Abuja told reporters the presidential agenda would include discussions on how Pakistan could help Nigeria address its energy and domestic gas challenges. Pakistan providing energy expertise -- fancy that! This from a country where power cuts grind factories to a halt, bodies decompose in morgues, and the rich are forced to fan themselves in the peak of the summer heat when their backup generators blow up from overuse. The heart of the problem is corruption, of course, which everyone knows but no one seems capable of handling.
After decades of covering the AfPak region, my standard of comparison is so skewed that I tend to see hope where most of my colleagues only smell despair. I know the bar has been set too low, for instance, when I start comparing the Islamists' women's rights track record to the Taliban's. If outage-hit Pakistan can offer its energy distribution expertise to Nigeria, it makes for an interesting study in the pecking order of mismanaged states.
But in the end, the lights went out on that plan. Hussain -- sometimes known as Pakistan's "invisible" president -- canceled his Nigerian visit. Not due to security concerns, insisted a Pakistani Embassy official in Abuja, but nobody believed him.
In the week leading up to the Pakistani presidential visit, the Nigerian militant Islamist group Boko Haram raised its profile in the terror charts, conducting attacks that have shocked even the group's fellow jihadists. …………………………………..
In the immediate aftermath of the April 14 kidnappings -- a critical time for security experts to start tracking abductors and their hostages -- as the days turned to weeks, my horror turned to panic as I heard some Nigerian journalists on the airwaves explain that even in countries with far better militaries, such as Pakistan, terrorism takes time to tackle.
Let's be clear: Terrorists may be clever, committed, well-trained, and well traveled. They may employ asymmetrical tactics, seeking soft targets and sowing a level of terror disproportionate to their military abilities. But in the end, jihadi groups are only as effective as states, governments, and security services enable them to be.
When terrorist threats or insurgencies drag on for years, with death tolls running into the thousands and with millions displaced -- as has happened in Nigeria and Pakistan -- there are invariably policy and structural issues at play.
In Pakistan, as we all know, the problem is official duplicity. Yes, since 2004, more than 4,000 Pakistani soldiers have been killed in security operations in the lawless tribal areas, according to military statistics. Pakistani officials often cite these figures when they are confronted with U.S. allegations that they are an insincere partner in the war on terror.
But the awful truth is, the victims of Tehrik-i-Taliban (or the "bad Taliban") are also victims of a shortsighted Pakistani military-intelligence strategy of supporting Islamist groups -- including the Afghan (or "good") Taliban -- in order to try to extend "strategic depth" (as it's known in policy circles) in neighboring Afghanistan. Nothing is going change this: Pakistan will not stop trying to spread its influence in Afghanistan or getting at India. This problem is here to stay.
In Nigeria, the picture is more nuanced. It involves poverty, corruption, geographical and sectarian grievances, impunity, inefficiency, and some levels of local political complicity. These are problems this former British colony has battled since independence.
But here's the good news for Nigerians who compare themselves unfavorably to the other former British colony in South Asia and who are seeking counterterrorism training and cooperation from Pakistan: The Nigerian problem is inefficiency, which is easier to tackle than an official, intractable policy of duplicity. …………………………………….
From here :
Foreign Policy
– on the floor the house and then stood in front of the desk of the speaker to offer prayers along with Jamat-e-Islami’s Sher Akbar Khan and Jamshed Dasti. The protest seemed to have worked: the deputy speaker hastened to adjourned the session and everyone left the hall. 
