BI | It's now been two months since terrorist group Boko Haram kidnapped
more than 200 Nigerian school girls in the country's unstable north.
Despite new aerial patrols from U.S. drones, no progress has been made in locating them. This past week, former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo said some of the girls may never return home. And ordinary Nigerians are accusing the Nigerian government of trying to stifle their pleas to keep the situation top of mind.
In an op-ed on Project Syndicate, former British PM Gordon Brown goes a step further, discussing the gruesome reason for why the campaign may have already been lost:
...it is likely that in the month since Boko Haram released a video of the girls flanked
by gunmen, the girls have been split into groups of 40-50. If one group
is rescued by force, the others will be murdered, creating a serious
tactical dilemma for the Nigerian government’s special forces.
And,
as the world’s attention shifts to other global trouble spots, such as
Iraq, intense international scrutiny is giving way to what seems like
silent acceptance of the girls’ fate. The fight to maintain global
support has become an uphill one for Nigerian President Goodluck
Jonathan, despite his direct appeal to the whole world for help in
securing the girls’ release.
A Times of India report says
the Nigerian government has now turned to the Sri Lankan government for
advice in counteracting the movement, given the latter's experience
defeating the Tamil Tigers. That campaign resulted in tens of thousands
of civilian casualties. So it seems like whatever , the price for doing
so may be extreme.
