The world’s eyes
have turned to Nigeria after the shocking incident of abduction of 276
schoolgirls from a government school in Chibok, in Borno state of Nigeria.
Islamist radical group Boko Haram has claimed responsibility.
The Group has threatened
to use the girls as child brides as a new tactic. Previously, it has employed
the tactic of pressing young boys into service in the form of child soldiers.
The group has
been terrorising Nigeria but only the mass kidnapping brought the attention of the
world to Nigeria. Since its campaign which began five years ago, it has
murdered over 4000 people and caused half a million to flee their homes. This
has created large swaths of ghost towns in the arid North of Nigeria.
In addition to
pervasive poverty, residents of capital Abuja and town of Lagos have come to
suffer frequent car bombs. This is the daily grind for 170 million citizens of the
most populous nation of Africa.
The kidnapping
of the girls might have escaped attention too, if not for two social media campaigns. The first was a support group on Twitter angered
by the slow response of the Nigerian government which found a worldwide
following under the hash tag #bringbackourgirls. It found following from the
likes of Michelle Obama, Angelina Jolie and Pakistani activist, Malala
Yousafzai.
A second
campaign by Boko Haram galvanised the international government machinery to action.
In a horrifying tape released on Monday, the group leader Abubakar Shekau
threatened to auction the girls as slaves.
Whether Shekau
has as many captives is still unconfirmed, but the tape with its dangerous
sexual tone has unleashed an international frenzy. Help has been pledged from
the White House to Downing Street to free the girls through military action.
Nigeria’s insurgency has come under the global spotlight, overnight.
Boko Haram, like
most radical groups, finds followers by portraying modern, secular government
as immoral and corrupt. This is easy to believe given the problems that Nigeria
faces. Despite being the eighth biggest producer of oil in the world, it
remains desperately poor especially in Muslim dominated North where 70% of
people subsist on less than a dollar a day.
Thus, when a
cleric named Mohammed Yusuf formed Boko Haram in late 90’s in Borno’s capital,
Maiduguri, he was able to garner popular support. He was bent upon imposing Sharia
law (floggings and amputations) and to ban Western education –Boko Haram means Western
Education is sinful. The leaders of the group want to convert Nigeria into a
theocratic state but the soldiers are all derived from the poor.
When Boko Haram
took up insurgency, the Nigerian government met it with a robust response. A
battle in Maiduguri in 2009 left over 600 dead and Yusuf was captured and executed.
Surviving members fled to Niger, Chad, and Mali. Here, they received training
from the Al Qaeda. By 2011, Boko Haram was back in Nigeria, pursuing a fresh
Jihadist agenda. This time the leader was Shekau, a former follower of Yusuf.
Today, much of
North East is under the control of Boko Haram. It is against this background
that the US and British anti-terrorist experts arrived in Abuja yesterday.
Though priority is rescuing the girls, they will also assist the Nigerian
government with anti-terrorism strategy.
If you wish to
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