WE DIDN’T BRING THEM BACK
#BringBackOurGirls. The call to activism was pleaded from the UN to the red carpet when Boko Haram abducted hundreds of schoolgirls. Ten months later, most are still missing. Nigeria is headed for elections. And Boko Haram has, if anything, only grown str
Jonathan joined outraged leaders in denouncing the attack against France’s satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, yet he will take days, sometimes weeks, to acknowledge attacks in his own country.
Boko Haram, the group that abducted hundreds of young women 10 months ago, has only gotten stronger. And critics say the country’s president and his government have done little to deal with the threat as voters, still haunted by the kidnappings, prepare to go to the polls They are still missing.
#BringBackOurGirls was pleaded from the United Nations to the red carpet, from Michelle Obama to the Pope, but the Twitter activism and all the attention it garnered didn’t help.
If anything, Boko Haram, the group that kidnapped and enslaved 276 young women in Nigeria 10 months ago, has only gotten stronger.
Nigeria’s elections, originally scheduled for Feb. 14, were postponed until March 28, ostensibly to give President Goodluck Jonathan’s government time to improve security.
But the delay was met with allegations of political interference, as Jonathan is in a tight race against opposition candidate Muhammadu Buhari, who is from the northeastern region where Boko Haram is strongest.
Denying the inference, Jonathan vowed in a CNN interview that there would be “serious advancements” against the terrorist group. But how will six weeks help? On Friday, 158 women and children who were abducted in December from Yobe State were reportedly reunited with their families, although there was some dispute as to how they gained their freedom.
On Wednesday, the military said hundreds of militants had been killed and 11 villages recaptured. But it is difficult to verify the military’s claims and, as Reuters noted in its report, “Nigerian forces have in the past been accused of overstating enemy casualties while greatly understating their own and those of civilians caught in the crossfire.”
Boko Haram’s rise to power — from a small group of disenfranchised Muslim men from Nigeria’s north to one of the most virulent terrorist groups today — began in 2009 but has accelerated dramatically.
Since the April kidnappings in the town of Chibok, other schools have been burned, dozens more people abducted, mosques and market places bombed, villages razed. In January, Boko Haram militants stormed the town of Baga, killing with impunity. Hundreds were murdered — possibly as many as 2,000. The little-noted attack took place the same week that 17 people were killed in Paris.
If the number of Boko Haram victims is numbing, then there is this: On Jan. 10, a young girl walked into a crowded market in Maiduguri with explosives strapped to her body. She was no more than 10 years old, witnesses said.
Unlike the fights against other terrorist groups, complicated by intractable regional conflicts, the fight against Boko Haram should be more straightforward.
So why is it not?
Disgust and grief about the Chibok kidnappings united Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country of 177 million.
But politics, economic disparity and religion continue to divide.
Jonathan’s reaction to Boko Haram has ranged from apathetic — dancing at a political rally just a day after the Chibok kid- nappings — to military crackdowns that failed to distinguish between militants and civilians, and only served to further alienate the country’s impoverished Muslim population in the north.
The intense international attention has also waned, overtaken by the rise of the Islamic State, which now occupies parts of Iraq and Syria and threatens the West.
Boko Haram remains the world’s most active terrorist organization but was barely mentioned at last week’s “combating violent extremism” summit in Washington, nor is it part of the regular discourse in Ottawa, where Prime Minister Stephen Harper once denounced Boko Haram as “obviously repugnant to everything that we believe in as Canadians.”
But much of the blame rests with Jonathan’s government, which critics say has done little to combat the group, clean up the underfunded and corruptible military, or address the root causes of the movement — poverty and lack of education — which has allowed the terrorist group to thrive.
In his bid for re-election, he has played down the threat, referring to the problem as a “dark cloud” that hangs over the nation. Jonathan joined outraged leaders in denouncing the attack against France’s satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, yet he will take days, sometimes weeks, to acknowledge attacks in his own country.
Meanwhile, Boko Haram has carved out what analysts are now calling “Africa’s Islamic State,” which is about the size of Belgium.
“They have had the space to get funding, to kidnap, travel, to get logistical help from other groups,” says Nigerian analyst Atta Barkindo.
“They’re able to recruit young people who may never get any help from the Nigerian government and Boko Haram is able to pay them,” says Barkindo, adding they gain more foot soldiers and finances in every town they overtake.
Barkindo says Nigerian soldiers fighting Boko Haram have complained privately about the lack of support and resources — instances where they are left without weapons, ammunition and fuel.
Since September 2014, he says, more than 10,000 officers have been dismissed without benefits. In December, military authorities sentenced 54 soldiers to death for refusing to fight Boko Haram.
With Boko Haram expanding its attacks outside of Nigeria, a multinational force, including military aid from Chad, Cameroon and Niger, has joined the war and is waging an air and ground assault. The African Union has pledged 7,500 troops.
But talk is rarely about rescuing the kidnapped girls anymore. Fifty-seven have managed to escape but it is believed 219 are still being held.
They continue to haunt Nigeria. Until the girls are rescued, Rotimi Olawale wants to keep it that way. Every day, for about two hours as the sun is setting, he demonstrates in Nigeria’s capital, as part of a diverse group, Bring Back Our Girls. “We thought it would take one or two weeks,” he said in a telephone interview from Abuja this week.
In the beginning, thousands came to protest. Now, there are about 60, with as many as 90 on the weekends.
“Sometimes we have parents of the girls come from Chibok, others come who have been victims of terror and they share their stories,” he said.
Olawale is from Nigeria’s southwest and did not know the kidnapped girls, although he has come to know their families. “I am not from that region but we need to take a stand as a nation, as citizens, united.
“We will not allow this to be swept under the carpet, we need to keep pressure on.”