:00:00. > :00:00.on BBC News Channel, Our World. Yalda Hakim investigates Boko Haram
:00:00. > :00:00.` the Islamic militants behind the abduction of dozens of schoolgirls
:00:00. > :00:12.and many other acts of violence in Northern Nigeria.
:00:13. > :00:17.Boko Haram. Until April of this year, few had ever heard of these
:00:18. > :00:26.ultraviolent Islamist militants. Or their charismatic leader Abubaker
:00:27. > :00:39.Shekau. But a mass abduction of over 200 cool girls changed all of that.
:00:40. > :00:45.The slogan became a rallying cry. We cannot afford to fail them by being
:00:46. > :00:52.in different. Filming openly in northeastern Nigeria is difficult
:00:53. > :00:57.and dangerous. But Our World has been their undercover, deep into the
:00:58. > :01:07.heartland of the militants where innocent people are caught between
:01:08. > :01:17.the guns of Boko Haram and the brutality of Nigeria's security
:01:18. > :01:49.forces. We found a land of hopelessness, desperation and fear.
:01:50. > :01:55.This is the unity fountain in downtown Abuja, the Nigerian
:01:56. > :01:59.capital. Every day, a small but determined group of protesters
:02:00. > :02:02.gathered to demand that the government here works to release the
:02:03. > :02:10.schoolgirls who were taken by gunmen from the town of Chibok in
:02:11. > :02:14.northeastern Nigeria. Weeks and months have passed and there is
:02:15. > :02:19.still no sign of the girls but these demonstrators come back day in and
:02:20. > :02:23.day out demanding for the girls to be returned. For the government, is
:02:24. > :02:27.has become an international embarrassment and they just want the
:02:28. > :02:29.issue to go away. Since the girls went missing in April there have
:02:30. > :02:34.been no concrete operations to try been no concrete operations to try
:02:35. > :02:38.to rescue them. But dozens more women and children have been
:02:39. > :02:42.kidnapped and hundreds more Nigerians killed adding to the
:02:43. > :02:49.thousands who lost their lives since Boko Haram started its campaign in
:02:50. > :02:53.2009. We cannot live with this insecurity. Our development is
:02:54. > :02:58.compromised by the scale of terrorism. We cannot be completely
:02:59. > :03:05.unconcerned about the fact that we are losing the sacredness and
:03:06. > :03:15.integrity of our human existence in Nigeria to a bandit group. So, how
:03:16. > :03:22.has this happened in the country recently billed as a future African
:03:23. > :03:28.superpower? And adjust to our Boko Haram? I will be asking these
:03:29. > :03:34.questions of those in authority here and meeting victims of the
:03:35. > :03:41.militants. But we have also had a journalist filming in Maiduguri, in
:03:42. > :04:08.the conflict zone. He went in under cover for his and his interviewees
:04:09. > :04:14.safety. We will call him Savi. He travelled to Maiduguri, the regional
:04:15. > :04:18.capital of Borno state, one of three eastern regions under a state of
:04:19. > :04:24.emergency. Driving north from Abuja, the situation becomes more
:04:25. > :04:32.militarized and Nigerian army road blocks are commonplace. Borno state
:04:33. > :04:41.was once known locally as the home of peace. But that nickname now
:04:42. > :04:47.seems bitterly ironic. Until last year, Maiduguri itself was the
:04:48. > :04:52.sender of Boko Haram activities but they have since been pushed out of
:04:53. > :04:57.the cities into nearby rule areas. Once a major trading hub with a
:04:58. > :05:01.population of over a million, the whole town is now surrounded by a
:05:02. > :05:10.series of defensive earth blocks built by the Nigerian army. All his
:05:11. > :05:14.interviews had to be done anonymously as people here are too
:05:15. > :05:20.scared of reprisals from either Boko Haram or the Nigerian security
:05:21. > :05:24.forces. One truck driver told him that to Boko Haram had effectively
:05:25. > :06:06.taken control of many of the main roads across the region.
:06:07. > :06:11.This Welders said that while the situation had stabilised in the
:06:12. > :06:23.city, the rule areas were a completely different matter ``
:06:24. > :06:48.welder `` rural. Boko Haram is the group's local
:06:49. > :06:53.nickname. It translates roughly as Western education is a sin. Hundreds
:06:54. > :06:57.of state schools across the Northeast have been attacked and
:06:58. > :07:08.almost all those in Borno state have closed down. Boko Haram have not yet
:07:09. > :07:20.attacked Islamic schools or other areas. This young child told our
:07:21. > :07:28.reporter that the she was still dared `` she. Admissions at the
:07:29. > :07:32.University of Maiduguri are down by 80%. Some of those who spoke to him
:07:33. > :08:03.were too scared even to do anonymous interviews on camera. Many people
:08:04. > :08:09.have now fled the conflict zone altogether. I am on my way to the
:08:10. > :08:15.northern city to meet a family who left the region seven months ago and
:08:16. > :08:18.have joined the 650,000 other Nigerians the UN says have been
:08:19. > :08:55.internally displaced by this conflict.
:08:56. > :09:41.Tell me what happened at your school?
:09:42. > :09:50.So just to our Boko Haram and what do they want? Worn out of the
:09:51. > :09:57.grinding poverty and marginalisation of northeastern Nigeria, the group
:09:58. > :10:13.was founded in 2002 by an Islamist called Mohammed Youssef who was
:10:14. > :10:21.himself, a radical. This man, and Abuja `based political analyst knows
:10:22. > :10:29.them well. From their inception, they grew as a theocratic agenda to
:10:30. > :10:39.turn Nigeria into an Islamist state. The see themselves as the
:10:40. > :10:45.Taliban of Nigeria and they pursue their ideology with the use of force
:10:46. > :10:50.and violence. The group turned to violence in 2009 following a police
:10:51. > :10:58.crackdown and after Mohammed Youssef was killed in police custody, a new
:10:59. > :11:03.leader emerged, Abubaker Shekau. Boko Haram then became much more
:11:04. > :11:07.aggressive, targeting churches, schools, military facilities and
:11:08. > :11:15.making widespread use of car bombs and kidnapping. Little is known
:11:16. > :11:21.about Abubaker Shekau, he has surrounded himself with a cultural
:11:22. > :11:29.fear. But our interviews and footage shed new light on his life and
:11:30. > :11:35.mindset. He spent his formative years here in Maiduguri but even by
:11:36. > :11:40.local standards, he lived in abject poverty in this house in the slum
:11:41. > :11:48.quarter of the city. And this is the actual room he rented. After being
:11:49. > :11:51.expelled from a small local Islamist school for his increasingly
:11:52. > :11:56.fundamentalist views, he then enrolled in this government`run
:11:57. > :11:58.Islamic school. One former classmate who has never spoken to the media
:11:59. > :12:40.before the members him as a loner. This man was once well connected to
:12:41. > :12:45.what became Boko Haram. Although he claims to have left the group, well
:12:46. > :12:49.before it turned to violence, he knew Abubaker Shekau personally.
:12:50. > :13:52.This is the first time he has spoken publicly.
:13:53. > :14:00.In his publicity films, Abubaker Shekau is usually brandishing
:14:01. > :14:04.Kalashnikov, and dressed in military fatigues. But a colleague explained
:14:05. > :14:32.this is all a carefully constructed image.
:14:33. > :14:41.Abubaker Shekau and his insurgents are terrifying the local population.
:14:42. > :14:44.But so are some elements of the Nigerian security forces. Their
:14:45. > :14:52.record in this conflict is decidedly mixed. On March 14 this year, Boko
:14:53. > :15:02.Haram filmed this audacious assault by the group on these barracks in
:15:03. > :15:06.Maiduguri. During the course of the attack, the insurgents freed over
:15:07. > :15:13.1000 prisoners who had been detained for being suspected members of, or
:15:14. > :15:22.sympathises with, Boko Haram. These inmates included women and
:15:23. > :15:24.children. Many of the prisoners who were members of Boko Haram
:15:25. > :15:29.apparently left with their comrades, but numerous other D10 is
:15:30. > :15:33.simply went home. Among those who escaped, was this fruit seller, who
:15:34. > :16:35.our undercover research met in Maiduguri. `` researcher.
:16:36. > :16:42.Others met a different fate. Amnesty International reports that in the
:16:43. > :16:46.hours following the breakout, hundreds of escapees were rounded up
:16:47. > :16:54.by a Nigerian security forces and vigilantes and executed in cold
:16:55. > :16:57.lard. The Nigerian military issued a statement saying they had repelled
:16:58. > :17:03.the barracks assault with heavy human casualties on the terrorists.
:17:04. > :17:10.`` in cold blood. But they had never responded officially to the
:17:11. > :17:19.allegations of mass executions. Our research also heard stories of the
:17:20. > :17:22.incompetence. This man works for the government militia formed to support
:17:23. > :17:28.regular Nigerian troops in the north`east. At a joint mission to
:17:29. > :17:50.attack a Boko Haram based did not end as he had expected.
:17:51. > :18:02.The militia man told us the army wanted to avoid a face`to`face
:18:03. > :18:25.confrontation with Boko Haram's well armed gunmen.
:18:26. > :18:27.Our undercover research also heard first`hand accounts of military
:18:28. > :19:52.brutality from this 58`year`old man. The Nigerian authorities say
:19:53. > :19:58.criticism of the handling of Boko Haram is unfair. There has been a
:19:59. > :20:02.lot of accusations that the military is corrupt and that they are aiding
:20:03. > :20:05.and abetting Boko Haram, and therefore the fight against the
:20:06. > :20:12.insurgency is becoming even more difficult. You should... I think the
:20:13. > :20:15.difference between the military institutions and individuals. And
:20:16. > :20:18.there is no institution that you will not have good people and bad
:20:19. > :20:24.people within it. So you admit... No, I am not admitting, because I
:20:25. > :20:29.have no evidence. Yet a human rights report and Amnesty International
:20:30. > :20:33.have spoken to locals that say the military uses force themselves and
:20:34. > :20:36.unlawfully detained people in the name of capturing these insurgents.
:20:37. > :20:42.It was a report that came out this year, on the period between 2011 and
:20:43. > :20:48.2012. We are talking of issues at the moment. But it is still accusing
:20:49. > :20:53.the military of using heavy`handed tactics. That is being investigated
:20:54. > :20:58.at an institutional level. We as the military will don't want to comment
:20:59. > :21:01.on it until all the processors have taken through. You have no comment
:21:02. > :21:05.on allegations the military had used force or unlawfully detained or
:21:06. > :21:11.tortured people in the name of capturing insurgents. No. The
:21:12. > :21:14.military would not do that. It is a professional force. Whatever it will
:21:15. > :21:17.do would be within the specifications of international
:21:18. > :21:26.practices. For the Nigerian authorities, their seeming inability
:21:27. > :21:29.to make any progress in the case of the kidnapped Chibok schoolgirls has
:21:30. > :21:33.become symbolic of their failure to deal with the insurgency as a whole.
:21:34. > :21:42.The credibility of the government is now at an all`time low. Until these
:21:43. > :21:45.girls are rescued. And the government is in a bind. If they
:21:46. > :21:49.used force to rescue these girls, and they turn out tragically, the
:21:50. > :22:00.government will be accused and blamed. And if they agree to swap
:22:01. > :22:06.the government will still be blamed and accused of surrendering to a
:22:07. > :22:11.terror organisation. Another possibility, unbearable though it
:22:12. > :22:18.is, is that the Chibok girls may never come home. We can't afford to
:22:19. > :22:34.fail these girls. You know, we failed them in that they trusted as
:22:35. > :22:39.`` the society. The society said that education was important. They
:22:40. > :22:42.trusted society, they showed for school and exams, and they were
:22:43. > :22:48.carted away by these wicked fellows. We failed them once in not being
:22:49. > :22:53.able to abort their abduction. We can't afford to fail them by being
:22:54. > :23:17.in different to the possibilities of their rescue.
:23:18. > :23:22.Hello once again. Friday turned out to be a pretty stormy affair for
:23:23. > :23:26.some parts of England and Wales. As the heat of the afternoon got going,
:23:27. > :23:29.we saw quite a lot of storm activity gradually easing its way in lanes as
:23:30. > :23:32.you see here, one from the South Wales through the heart of the
:23:33. > :23:35.Midlands and East Anglia. Another one a little bit further towards the
:23:36. > :23:37.north. And some odd rogue showers just following on behind, tending to
:23:38. > :23:38.gradually fade