It is six weeks since Boko Haram extremists abducted more than 200 teenage girls from their school in Nigeria’s remote northeast. President Goodluck Jonathan says 20,000 troops have been deployed as part of efforts to find and free them and in the broader campaign against an insurgency that has become the greatest threat to Nigerian and regional security. British, US and Israeli forces are now assisting operations to find the hostages with aerial surveillance and expertise.
The emergence of Boko Haram and the abhorrent tactics its members use is part of a wider regional and global phenomenon that requires a multinational response. The hostage crisis, however, has put the spotlight on governance failings that are Nigeria’s alone. Paradoxically, these have worsened as the country’s economy
has grown to become Africa’s largest, weakening the state along the way.
Until now the group that abducted the girls has evaded the security services and controlled the narrative. Last week it showed some of its captives on video, offering to release them only if the government freed incarcerated Boko Haram members. On Saturday, when regional heads of state met in Paris to forge a common response, the group took yet more hostages – Chinese road workers across the border in Cameroon.
The Nigerian government is in an unenviable position. Dealing with terrorists is never easy. Doing so in the full glare of the international media, when the lives of innocent girls are at stake, makes it even less so.
But this is a crisis partly of Mr Jonathan’s own making. Confronted with a crime that has attracted global outrage, he has appeared inept and indecisive. Some of the president’s allies – even his wife – continue to give the impression that they are more concerned with the impact the abductions will have on next year’s scheduled polls than with the fate of the abducted girls.
Nigerians are embarrassed. The resulting pressure from a social media campaign that has attracted followers worldwide does not make it more likely that there will be a happy ending. But it is forcing the government to prioritise the fate of the girls and has refocused national and international attention on how to win the war.
In the short term there is no easy option. The likelihood is that the girls have been split up, complicating efforts both to track them down and to negotiate their freedom. Government officials have given mixed signals on how far they might go in any talks, rightly cautious about rewarding terrorists with prisoner swaps or ransom money.
The terrorists are unlikely to release all the girls at once. Rather, they might escalate their demands after first freeing some. Meanwhile, there is a danger that some or all of the hostages could be killed in any attempt to free them by force.
A peaceful solution to the plight of the schoolgirls may be hard to achieve. The longer-term issue is the chronic failure of the Nigerian military and security services. The campaign against Boko Haram will not be won through force alone. But Nigeria is a country that ought to have a well equipped, functioning military, given its economic size. It does not, thanks to corruption within government and the army leadership. Money budgeted for security is not going where it is supposed to. This has to change.
Nigeria’s western allies are in a difficult position. They could help rebuild the capacity and capability of its military. But this would not be effective unless Nigeria’s leadership showed itself willing and able to implement reform. This applies not just to Nigeria but on the other side of the continent in Kenya, too, where at least 10 people were killed in bomb attacks on Friday.
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