First it took almost three weeks for the Nigerian President to address the country on the incident.
In September, "#BringBackGoodluck2015" banners appeared
on the streets of the Nigerian capital, Abuja, ostensibly the work of
supporters of the President, who had somehow assumed it would be a great
idea to make political capital out of the #BringBackOurGirls campaign.
It took a backlash to make the President's spokesman put out a
disclaimer.
Journalist Tolu Ogunlesi
And this week, just before the news of the latest kidnappings broke, a military court in Abuja convicted 54 Nigerian soldiers on charges of mutiny, and cowardice in the face of Boko Haram, and sentenced them to death: a symbolic victory for Boko Haram if ever there was one.
The icing on the cake was the news, in October, of a ceasefire with Boko Haram. Military units obeyed the prompting of their commanders. Boko Haram didn't.
If the immediate reaction of the Nigerian government to this latest
incident is anything to go by, no lessons have been learned from April.
Tolu Ogunlesi
Tolu Ogunlesi
By the time it dawned on
the world that the ceasefire was a ruse, Boko Haram had launched a
devastatingly successful offensive, capturing several towns in Adamawa
State, including the hometown of Nigeria's most senior military officer,
Chief of Defense Staff Alex Badeh, a man given to inopportunely boasting, of the impending end of Boko Haram.
Today, eight months after
the abductions, none of the girls has been rescued. The handful of
girls who escaped did so on their own, not because a band of
special-forces soldiers set them free. And lest we forget, this week's
incident is not the first since April; Boko Haram has never once let up
on its attacks on civilian targets.
Perhaps the most
important lesson from the last eight months is this: that outrage, no
matter how focused it is, or how much it trends on social media, is not
what stops terrorists. Especially not groups like Boko Haram and ISIS,
so steeped in brutality that even al Qaeda has been compelled to disavow
them.
The outrage has its uses,
no doubt. It can help jolt government out of its nonchalance, in the
face of several distractions (like the general elections forthcoming in
February, in which President Jonathan will be seeking a second and final
term), and force it to pay attention to matters like equipping the
military. At the beginning of December, Nigerian journalist Aliyu Tilde toured towns recently liberated from Boko Haram by Nigerian troops, and reported an upswing in morale on the part of the Nigerian military.
Outrage can also turn
ordinary citizens into crusaders against poor governance, and make them
more likely to exercise their voting rights in the quest for something
more inspiring.
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Why didn't our girls come home?
But only a demonstration
of superior military force will make a lasting difference, and ensure
that Boko Haram is reduced to a position in which it can no longer
routinely carry out these kinds of attacks. Negotiations will be
meaningless; Boko Haram under Abubakar Shekau has repeatedly insisted it
will not negotiate with the government.
That superior force will be the result of a combination of factors.
Improved intelligence
gathering is one. One defining characteristic of the Nigerian military's
moves has been its largely defensive nature. It has tended to stay one
step behind Boko Haram; occupied mainly with fighting to capture towns
seized by Boko Haram, instead of preventing Boko Haram from seizing the
towns in the first place, or abducting civilians.
"If you don't have good
information you have nothing," says Mohamed Kashkoush, a retired
Egyptian Major General, now on the faculty of the Regional Center for
Strategic Studies, in Cairo. "Good information makes you act in advance,
not react."
Training is another matter. The relatively higher rates of success Cameroon appears to be enjoying
in its confrontations with Boko Haram may in part be due to the
training its forces have received from abroad. It is not clear if any of
the several offers of support that Nigeria received following the April
abductions translated into action. Now would be a good time to revisit
them.
The United States
government can also play a role in re-engaging with Nigeria, regarding
the sale of game-changing military hardware. In recent months the
Nigerian government has expressed its frustration with the attitude of
the Americans, who are wont to insist that they cannot supply arms to
countries that violate human rights. (Puzzling when one considers the
sort of regimes the U.S. routinely considers military allies). Human
rights groups say the Nigerian military is a serial offender; the military continues to deny this.
While we wait for
progress on these fronts, one thing is already clear. If the immediate
reaction of the Nigerian government to this latest incident is anything
to go by, no lessons have been learned from April. Several hours after
the news broke, no word emerged; from the President or his office, or
from the Defense Headquarters. This is probably going to be like April
all over again.
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