The situation is getting far worse and complicated for the Nigerians than it was during the Civil War. The government has failed to check the Nigerian Islamist outfit Boko Haram who have been attacking and harming the masses regularly. In a recent videotape released on May 5, ‘Boko Haram’ leader Abubakar Shekau has threatened to sell the school girls he abducted from a school in the remote northeast three weeks ago. The girls were taken from their boarding school in Chibok, in the northern state of Borno, on the night of April 14. And it is believed that they are hidden in vast and treacherous forest. Shekau has for the first time taken the responsibility for the April 15 mass abduction and has also warned that his group will attack more schools and abduct more girls. He described the girls as “slaves” and said, “By Allah grace, I will sell them in the marketplace.”
In the video, Abubakar Shekau said the girls should not have been in school in the first place, but rather should get married.”God instructed me to sell them, they are his properties and I will carry out his instructions,” he said. According to the police report, among the 300 girls, 53 of the girls managed to run away from the militants but 223 were still being held. Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan said on the abduction that the government would find the girls and return them to their families. “This is a trying time for this country … it is painful,” he said.
President Jonathan said his administration was doing everything possible and created a presidential committee to go to the affected Borno state to work with the community on a strategy to free the girls. Because of a social media campaign — #bringbackourgirls, international attention on the plight of the missing girls has grown very quickly. The Nigerian Government has reached out to the US for help in hunting down the terrorist and the US has sent military experts to Nigeria to rescue the girls but after this step of US, in return Boko Haram attacked a town in north-east Nigeria in which around 300 people died. The police has offered a $300,000 reward for information leading to Shekhau's capture. US secretary of state, John Kerry said that Washington would do “everything possible” to help Nigeria deal with Boko Haram militants and bring the children home.
In a recent report, Boko Haram's attacks have been increased in number and sophistication since 2010. Islamic extremists have killed at least 244 people in 2013 alone. Violence linked to the Boko Haram insurgency has resulted in an estimated 10,000 deaths between 2002 and 2013. n
