Joint action needed against Boko Haram

The world should not forget the 219 girls that were abducted over eight months ago from their school in northern Nigeria, and they have still not been brought back to their families and homes. Boko Haram terrorists took the girls from their school by force and apparently kept some as prisoners while selling others into slavery and sexual abuse. The outrage shocked the world, and led to a growing outcry to rescue them from their miserable fate, epitomised by the social media campaign with #BringBackOurGirls. It became a celebrity fad to support the campaign which may have been shortlived but while it lasted did a lot of good in raising global interest in the fate of the girls.

The media attention exposed the lacklustre efforts of the Nigerian government which to this day has still not found the girls and has done little to stop the continuing violence spreading across Nigeria and engulfing the neighbouring states of Cameroon and Chad where the terrorists have camps and bases. It is incumbent on Nigeria to take the lead in stopping this growing disaster which is not going to fade away. This weekend terrorists killed more than 2,000 people in a town on the border with Chad. It is clear that the governments of Chad and Cameroon are not able to police their territories effectively, and it is becoming obvious that Nigeria cannot do so either. In the vast savannah which they share it is easy for terrorists to hide and dodge the security forces.

The answer is for these three governments to take some extraordinary steps to share information and build a joint military force which is able to cross borders and take on Boko Haram and its dangerous allies. This force will need outside help and the international community should be willing to support the work. If nothing is done, the terrorists will become deeply embedded in the huge savannah that stretches from Sudan to the Atlantic, and would offer them an invaluable jumping off point to attack other countries on the way to Europe. The way half of Mali fell to extremists is a hint of what might happen if nothing is done.