A debt owed

OVERCOMING its continued embarrassment, the government of Nigeria admitted yesterday that 110 girls who have been missing for a week were actually kidnapped by the terrorist group Boko Haram in the north-eastern region of the country.

No doubt, the admission was slow in coming because it revives painful memories of the mass abduction of 276 girls from another boarding school in Chibok, Nigeria, in April 2014. Nearly four years on, 112 of the girls are still being held.

The latest abduction has also embarrassed the Buhari government, which had vigorously claimed that Boko Haram was on the verge of defeat. It has also drawn criticism that promises to beef up security at schools after Chibok had not been implemented.

Boko Haram, whose name translates roughly from Hausa as “Western education is forbidden”, has repeatedly targeted schools teaching a so-called secular curriculum, and wants to establish a hardline Islamic State (IS) in north-east Nigeria.

The terrorist group has largely escaped the attention of Western nations, who seem to believe that the only terrorists are IS members in the Middle East. The coalition led by the United States couldn’t care less about what is happening in Africa.

But Western countries owe Africa a debt and, whether they believe in the concept of reparation or not, the removal of the terrorist Boko Haram is a duty that they cannot escape.