Aiding Nigeria, Rescuing Children

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Nigeria rejected conditions set out by Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau for the release of more than 200 schoolgirls held hostage by the Islamists. The leader of the Nigerian Islamist rebel group Boko Haram had offered to release more than 200 schoolgirls abducted by his fighters last month in exchange for its members being held in detention, according to a video posted on YouTube on Monday (May 12). (Source: AP)

Aiding Nigeria, Rescuing Children

"There are Canadians who have arrived on the ground in Nigeria who are working with the United States and the United Kingdom to work on the freedom of these young girls."
Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird

The Islamist separatist group Boko Haram has planted bombs, machine-gunned civilians, torched and destroyed shops and homes of villagers in the geographic region of Nigeria that they dominate, and
the government of Nigeria appears frozen in an attitude of geographic disinterestedness. Of course there is the inconvenience of Nigeria's military forces being paid very poorly, and the additional nuisance of knowing that some members of the military may be colluding with Boko Haram; somewhat like what occurs in Afghanistan, come to think of it.

The international community has become more aware and definitely more interested to become involved with the latest atrocity visited upon a girls' school in a remote province of the country where the central government seems to feel content with their vision of 'out of sight, out of mind', lacking the incentive to attempt a solution to the rampages of the jihadist hordes.

Delicately referred to as prospective "wives", rather than sex slaves, Boko Haram has sold some of the girls into slavery and seems resolute in its leader's decision to use the greater balance as bargaining chips for the release of their members from government prisons. But then, the vicious and volatile leader of an intransigently violent jihadist group can claim and demand whatever he wishes at any given time; he has the upper hand in this situation.

While the West has rallied to the cause of the missing girls, with the motto "bring back our girls" being front and centre in gathering steam toward amassing international intelligence, security, equipment and forces to the task that Nigeria simply couldn't bother tackling on its own, greater Africa seems removed; neither Nigeria's close geographic neighbours nor a broader African military alliance seeming moved by the plight of the 300 abducted schoolchildren.

That can be understood with a bit of introspection revealing the reality of much of Africa in perpetual turmoil thanks to tribal, ethnic, clan and religious conflict. So the question logically comes up from time to time, when will this vast Continent be prepared to govern itself to the point of leaving its primitive tribal enmities behind to join the advanced civilized cultures of the world?

True, there are times aplenty when those 'advanced civilized cultures' appear just as retrograde as their African counterparts, but these represent occasional lapses, not the generalized culture.

On Tuesday, the Pentagon publicly confirmed that American air force personnel and equipment were actively engaged in Nigeria, using both manned and remotely controlled aircraft to perform reconnaissance fly-over missions of the remote, wooded area where the school girls are believed to have been taken by Boko Haram.

British military planners arrived last week with the intention of assisting local forces. This, after a month had passed since the mass abduction and the cries and pleadings of the Nigerian civilian population to their government to do something finally, to indicate they were concerned with the fate awaiting the children. Leading their government to finally request international assistance where ite had formerly turned down all such offers.

China, Spain and Israel have also offered to aid in locating Boko Haram and locating where the girls are being kept prisoner, forced to convert to Islam (most of the girls were Christian), and to wear body-covering Muslim garb to ensure their modesty, to pray to Allah to convert them into better human beings, even while they are being sexually abused by their Islamist captors.