The West pays too little attention to the threat of Boko Haram, according to the Catholic Archbishop of Jos, and it needs to show the kind of resolve the international community has shown over the attacks in Paris.
Ignatius Kaigama was speaking to the BBC after the most recent Boko Haram attacks including 23 people killed by female suicide bombers – one aged only 10 – in the northeast city of Maiduguri on 10 January, and the recent slaughter in Baga where 2,000 are feared dead. He also said that the Nigerian military is unable to tackle the Islamist militant group.
The Archbishop’s concern about the failure of the Nigerian Army echoes statements made to World Watch Monitor in October 2014. After an ill-founded announcement by the Nigerian government that it had reached a truce with Boko Haram, Rev. Samuel Dali, President of the Church of the Brethren in Nigeria, said he wanted to see practical action, ‘not just a statement on the news’.
Stephen Davies, an Australian mediator, who has tried to secure the release of the kidnapped Chibok girls concluded after his failed mission in October 2014 that the cause of Nigeria’s failure to control Boko Haram could be partly found inside the government itself.
