Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani activist who survived being shot in the head by the Taliban, has urged Nigeria's government to spend more on the country's crumbling education sector, on a visit to express solidarity with more than 200 girls abducted by Islamists.
Speaking on the day designated Malala Day by the United Nations, the teenager said Nigeria's president, Goodluck Jonathan, had promised that for the first time he would meet parents of the missing students, who have been held in captivity by Boko Haram since April. Malala turned 17 last week, and celebrated her birthday with some of the girls who escaped the mass abduction in Chibok, a village in the militants' heartland of Borno state.
"The president promised me … that the abducted girls will return to their homes soon," Malala said after a 45-minute meeting with Jonathan at the presidential villa. She did not say if the president had shared any fresh details about an operation that parents say they have been told next to nothing about.
Boko Haram, whose contempt for western cultural influences is reflected in its name – Hausa for "Western education is forbidden" – is a growing threat to Nigeria as a whole, beyond its north-eastern enclave. In a video released this weekend, the militants' leader, Abubakar Shekau, claimed responsibility for a 25 June double bomb blast in a Lagos fuel depot which, if confirmed, would be the first time the sect has hit the coastal hub a thousand miles to the south-west.
Shortly after boarding her school bus in 2012, Yousafzai was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman. In a parallel atrocity, Nigeria's Taliban-inspired insurgents kidnapped more than 300 teenaged girls during a night-time attack on their dormitory in April. The Chibok school had opened specially to allow them to take their exams, as many in the state had closed after Boko Haram had torched dozens of others.
In a speech that was sometimes interrupted by outbursts of applause, Malala also touched upon India's rape crisis, and children forced out of the school on both sides of the conflict in Gaza and Syria. She later said it was "unfortunate" that Nigeria spent only 1.5% of its annual budget on education. "Education is the best weapon through which we can fight poverty, ignorance and terrorism," she added.
The comments provoked a presidential spokesman to defend the Jonathan administration, saying it had spent more than any other on education.
"Dear brothers and sisters, my message to the honourable President Mr Goodluck Jonathan is that he should realise that people have elected him and it is his responsibility to listen to his people who are asking 'bring back our girls'," Malala said, prompting a standing ovation.
Two senior security officials and a diplomat told the Guardian that they believed the Lagos blast was likely from a car bomb and a suicide bomber. But the female suicide bomber appeared to have botched the attempt, which caused no casualties. Police officials said it was caused by an accident in the crowded fuel depot, which has previously recorded explosions.
"A bomb went off in Lagos. I ordered [the bomber] who went and detonated it," Shekau said in the video, which shows him surrounded by gunmen.
Officials believe Boko Haram has been trying for some time to break out of its northern enclaves, but has been limited by a lack of resources and supporters in the south, though generations of Muslims and Christians have migrated there for economic opportunities.
"The idea that they only want to revive a northern, Islamic enclave is false. They don't see themselves as being geographically confined to the north – this is an ideological battle to them and it's not dictated by geography," a security official said.
Security sources have long pointed to the group's inability to gain a foothold in the south, and some believe the Lagos bomb may have been the work of a group or individual inspired by Boko Haram. Shekau has been known to claim responsibility for attacks suspected to be the work of another Islamist group or a criminal gang, and in the video he gets the name of the Lagos state governor wrong.
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