away the newsfeed altogether. peter: you are watching al jazeera. these are your headlines. the u.n. secretary general has agreed -- has asked to end what he has called a suicidal attack on nature. he spoke after an environmental report that highlighted environmental threats. >> we need to make this truly global and transformative. if adopted by every city and company around the world, a global coalition for carbon neutrality can event the worst impacts of climate change.

but we cannot delay. we are running out of time to beat the temperature rise and build resilience for the impacts to come. we need ambition to how we produce our food and manage our water and land. peter: germany has accused iran of playing with fire with breaches of the 2050 nuclear deal. it wants to discuss a return to the agreement. the president of algeria has moved peace protesters has by pardoning jailed antigovernment protesters and calling for early elections. healled for the dissolution of parliament and announced the government reshuffle almost two years after a popular uprising. algeria's crisis seems to be compounded by the coronavirus pandemic. people who died in a huge blast in -- relatives of people who died in a huge blast in beirut

have been protesting. one member investigating was ousted after challenges from senior officials who he accused of negligence. more than 200 people died in the disaster in august and thousands more were injured, many left homeless. nasa's latest mars rover has touched down in mission control erupted in cheers. perseverance sent back its first images. it traveled around 470 million kilometers through space on a mission costing nearly $3 billion. those are your headlines. the news continues here on al jazeera. i will have ache summary for you in about 30 minutes. see you then.

peter: nigerian schools under threat -- armed students have kidnapped students in the north. why are such assaults increasingly taking place and why is a government unable to protect children? this is "inside story." hashem: hello and welcome to the program. schools torn and children held captive for months. it has become common in northern nigeria. gunmen kidnapped dozens, possibly hundreds of schoolchildren in the latest assault on wednesday. one student was killed in the attack. the government has released the name of some who were abductive,

including 20 some students. a rescue operation is ongoing. many of the previous attacks have been blamed on bandits who asked for ransom, but the armed groups are not the only security challenges. they have been overstretched fighting boko haram that carries out similar attacks in the northeast. reporter: at this hospital, doctors and nurses treat students and teachers. and at the science college, concerned parents gather for news. elsewhere in town, security is stepped up just as the state government ordered the closure of schools in areas prone to attacks. schools are increasingly targeted as they offer an opportunity to take many students hostage. >> in nigeria, there is a total absence of an administration

that has become difficult for locals to have anyone to run to and another thing here is the porous border surrounding most parts of that area. if you look at what's happening in places like camerin, especially southern cameron, these countries have not been able to hold up the security onslaught for too long. reporter: this is the second major school kidnapping in as many months. gunmen stormed a school and abducted hundreds of students. but six years before that, in a case that made headlines around the world, or than 270 girls were snatched from a school. at least 100 are still unaccounted for. boko haram claimed responsibility. four years after that, in a neighboring state, the group

took more than 100 students from a school. kidnapping for ransom is a big business. hundreds of nigerians are kidnapped every week for ransom. despite military offensive -- offenses, the problem continues to grow. 18 persons were seized traveling in a bus not far from where the latest kidnapping took place. eight have managed to secure their freedom. although there are not sufficient -- not official statistics, it is estimated $20 million is paid in ransom money to kidnappers and this in a country, africa's largest country, or poverty is on the increase. hashem: let's bring in our guests. a former director of nigeria state security service and a

security analyst. and the executive director of the west african network for peace building. come to the program. the government is being blamed for not doing enough to stop what has become basically armed bandits in nigeria taking advantage of isolated villages, poorly guarded schools most of the time without fences, they launch their attacks and kidnapped children. security forces, where are they? mike: the people have the right to blame government. if the government fails to provide for the problem, i think the government will be addressing and you can see they

are coming with fresh ideas. hashem: you have heard mike talking about the need to change the way security forces operate, but this seems to be something missing here, basically how the army and police, there's no intelligence gathering because some people say they heard about plans to kidnap schoolchildren in that particular area and before no decision was taken by the government. what do we need to do to stop this from happening once again in nigeria? chukwuemeka: i think i argue with mike. i think a fundamental thing that needs to happen is we need to

decentralize as much as possible the security architecture. i think that for a very long time, we tend to ignore local capacity and through the reporting mechanism, i am thinking we will improve on the information management process and that would be the police or security agents who would be ahead of the crime. what i see more is they are ahead of the security agents and that is because we tend to relegate the intelligence mechanisms and want a siation where the police or the army who are not from those l@@alities are posted to those places and without any kind of nexus between what they do and what intelligence can do and that has affected the chain of communication and the chain of

information. it can be very difficult for local intelligence to play a role in this. hashem: as a former director of state security service and for our viewers to understand what's happening, it is difficult for many people to think about more sources to restructure security forces. we are not talking about a sub-saharan country grappling with resources, we are talking about one of the wealthiest nations in the african continent. still it is facing massive problems when it comes to security. mike: it is facing a lot of challenges. if you recall, these bandits, some of them are foreigners. although -- we need to

decentralize our security architectures. from different background -- there is no way you think you can work very well with state governors who believe they are not in charge of security. [indiscernible] but i think we have better

operations out of this. hashem: i've heard both of you talk about the need to change the security architecture. where do we need to start when we are dealing with a police force widely seen as inefficient, corrupt, using brutal tactics against its own people. where do you think we should start here? chukwuemeka: i think legislation would be one because, like mike said, the police structure is so centralized from the command and control mechanism so not just the states do not have police, but it would be command and control is not within the parameters of power of the state government. so i think the second thing is to ensure we modernize the

police. i think we need to have a new form of police equipment and machinery which would allow police to do their job. i have always argued we needed this type of policing for this type of crime. that is the only way. they have the issues with which they need to walk. in nigeria, they don't have the kind of motivation to be able to do the kind of work and what you said about accountability, they need to feel the police works for them. hashem: the president has sacked

four of the country's top military generals but nothing has changed ever since. we haven't seen major improvement on the ground. mike: it takes to make an assessment for the service chiefs. they have all been calling for the removal and a president has done that. will use to tackle this in terms of banditry -- i believe if you

come up with fresh ideas, let's give them a chance to see how much they can effect change. hashem: in different parts of the world, bandits usually target people with power or money for ransom. why in nigeria are they targeting poor schoolchildren? is there a political message here? chukwuemeka: my understanding is date -- the insurgents are beginning to lack funding in the only way they can resuscitate themselves and continue to sustain this activity is it goes for soft targets and these schools happen to be the soft targets. once they are able to get that

quantity of students and kids for that month, they call the attention of the states and they are able to use that to sustain themselves. little wonder dayco into those communities for mass abductions. looking for access. hashem: if you look at the map of your country, nigeria, you get a sense almost huge areas are near ungovernable. you have armed groups in the northeast, the bandits gaining moment in the northwestern part of the country, you have the divide between the north and the south, huge clashes between nomadic tribesmen and everywhere you get a sense they are dripping toward chaos. what should be done to stop this

from degenerating into chaos? mike: i think the current responsibility of government or the security of the people -- i believe [indiscernible] we have some challenges. we sympathize with our secretaries because of the political elites they tend to divide the culture. functionally people should protect themselves. how should they protect themselves when the people have surrendered all their rights for

protection? [indiscernible] hashem: if you look at the story from different angles, you have people saying basically security forces are also to be held accountable because when they go after areas where bandits are operating or armed groups like boko haram set fire to villages and they arrest a huge numberf people and they put them in interrogation camps for months and months and this creates an anti-establishment sentiment starting to increase across the country. chukwuemeka: i have no doubt in

my mind that impunity begets impunity. when those who have committed infractions are not held accountable then it it -- it increases the confidence of those who have committed the crimes. if need be, they needed to be looked at to see what is the will of the insurgents and i think once that is done, people will take it seriously. hashem: i was listening to you talk about the need to give the security forces a chance to get together and move forward. but in a country like nigeria

which has a long history of military coups, embezzlement of public funds, the general trust of the political elite is nonexistent, it's going to take some time for people to trust their government is genuine about the need to put an end to what we are seeing on the ground which is the security in different parts of the country. mike: yes, like you said, we have -- they tend to behave but [indiscernible] the institution, i am testing

for bandits -- it is very serious -- don't also forget, where the bandits are going, there is a thin line between boko haram insurgents and these bandits who are also talking about communication. [indiscernible] hashem: we are talking about those incidents as being isolated when in fact they are

interconnected and if we don't solve the real problems in nigeria, i don't see how the political establishment could fix those problems. people in the niger alta are saying we have been exploited by the political establishment and we benefit nothing and this explains why they are turning into armed groups. how can nigeria move forward if they don't sort its biggest challenge which is building a robust and transparent democracy? chukwuemeka: a lot have called for arrests and a lot of people believe and rightfully so that there is no fairness in the structure of the country and

collective resources of the country. if we need to move forward and begin to address some of the systemic issues with the security agents to make progress , most of these issues are very symptomatic and therefore it gives credence to the kinds of things we are seeing and it hasn't been resolved. those are the kinds of things for people who feel marginalized and people feeling a lack of participation in how they manage their own affairs. including the issue of insurgents. hashem: do you have any concerns that those issues we are talking

about were not addressed, nigeria could disintegrate in the future? mike: we should conduct ourselves against something that will night divide us. the political elites have agreed to challenges that are politically generated. they must conduct themselves -- for instance, when you conduct an election that is to or die, you can cause a problem.

we need to address some of these issues. hashem: you have the bandits in the armed groups like boko haram. their paths can easily cross one day. they might have the ultimate goal here in nigeria. could they team up despite the fact they have different agendas and they might see the government as their alternate enemy? chukwuemeka: there is also the issue of it might be environmentally induced. but what is important is they begin to have frank conversations and at a bilateral level begin to engage our countries source of ammunition

and the -- such frank conversation with the west is very important so we have a holistic approach to the problem. hashem: we really appreciate your insight. thank you very much indeed. and thank you for watching. you can see therogram by visiting our website, al jazeera.com. for further discussion, go to our facebook page. you can also join the conversation on twitter. for the entire team here, goodbye for now.

man: the watts towers have been a focal point of cativity for a long time. different man: i knew who i was. i knew that i was an artist. different man: they were working out of a shared need to communicate something based on what they had to work with. woman: because that's what we fought for, the ability to be free to say what we wanted to say. man: you got to a use your art as a tool to bring about social change. woman: we have fine art in watts, and it's been going on 61 years because of the watts towers art center campus.