Daily Times

In what can only be described as the stuff of nightmares, more than 200 schoolgirls have been kidnapped from a rural high school in the town of Chibok in the northeast of Nigeria. This blatant abduction took place last month and the story is generating plenty of hype because it has been over three weeks and the girls have not returned from the clutches of their kidnappers, the Islamist group Boko Haram, which is being termed Nigeria’s worst terrorist threat. The young girls were taken at night by some 200 heavily armed militants who came in large pickup trucks. Reports suggest that more girls had been abducted but about 58 of them had managed to escape from the trucks they were cramped in, leaving the number of girls left with Boko Haram around 200. As can be expected, Nigerians are outraged, not just by the crime but by the fact that the international media has failed to project the gravity of this situation to the rest of the world. After the dastardly kidnapping, Boko Haram claimed that it was forcibly marrying these girls to its soldiers and reports suggest that some of them have met this repulsive fate. However, the latest news about the girls has been revealed by the terror group saying that it intends to sell the girls into slavery. This is a crime most vile, targeting the most vulnerable members of Nigerian society — its young girls.

Boko Haram, which means western education is forbidden, is loosely modelled on the Taliban movement, deriving its inspiration from a medieval interpretation of Islam. The group became more active in the early 2000s in northern Nigeria, targeting symbols of government and authority. Now they are spreading their brutality throughout the country in attacks that are becoming more outrageous and daring in their sheer cruelty. They have attacked churches, civilians and schools — they slit the throats of dozens of male students in Yobe this February for being part of a western education system. In response to their latest transgression, schools in the region have been shut down. Now, when Nigerians are out on the streets screaming for the world to take notice, the US has promised to dispatch military, intelligence and law enforcement officials to help solve the crisis around the whereabouts of these girls and to get them home safely. This is a truly heartbreaking story but it serves as a reminder of the danger of allowing such warped Islamist groups to operate and spread their venom. Pakistan is now in the midst of a Taliban onslaught because we did not take heed of the gravity of the situation when the militants were blowing up girls’ schools in the northern part of our country. Nigerians should learn from our mistakes and tackle the Boko Haram problem head on before a full-scale war is declared by these fanatics.*