JALINGO, Nigeria (AP) — Youths
angry at the Nigerian government's failure to fight Islamic extremists
threw stones Thursday at President Goodluck Jonathan's
electioneering
convoy in the eastern town of Jalingo, breaking windshields and windows
on several vehicles. An Associated Press reporter was unable to see if
anyone was hurt.
Police used tear gas and whips to disperse the mob.
From
Jalingo, Jonathan flew to Yola, capital of Adamawa state, where
officials had declared the route of his motorcade a no-go area. The
presidential cavalcade already had been stoned in northern Katsina city
and northeast Bauchi last week. Youths in Bauchi flung shoes and plastic
bottles at Jonathan's podium at a rally.
In
Jalingo, soldiers guarded billboards and posters of Jonathan, who is
running for re-election on Feb. 14. Protesters shouted that the troops
should instead be fighting the Boko Haram insurgents blamed for the
deaths of some 10,000 people in the past year.
"Why
are they using soldiers and other security operatives? They should be
deployed to Sambisa and fight with Boko Haram, not with innocent
civilians," one youth yelled as he tore down a poster of a smiling
Jonathan.
Sambisa Forest is
where the insurgents have camps and where they are believed to be
holding some of the 276 schoolgirls abducted from a boarding school in
the remote town of Chibok in April — a mass kidnapping that brought
international outrage.
Dozens of the girls escaped on
their own but 219 remain missing, a reminder of the failures of
Nigeria's government and military.
At
a rally in Yola, Jonathan promised his government will do more to help
some of the million-plus people driven from their homes in the
5-year-old insurgency.
"We
are totally committed to the liberation of Adamawa state," Jonathan
pledged. But Adamawa state legislator Adamu Kamale complained Wednesday
that seven villages and Michika town have been under attack by Boko
Haram since Friday and that he has appealed in vain for soldiers to come
and fight the extremists.
It
is unclear if displaced people will be able to vote. Hundreds of
thousands have fled across borders. And it is not known how many remain
trapped in more than 100 northeastern village and towns held by the
insurgents.
Nigeria's
home-grown Boko Haram group has been attacking Cameroonian villages and
troops, broadening the conflict and raising fears among Nigeria's
neighbors.
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