It has been eight weeks since the Islamist extremist group Boko Haram abducted more than 200 girls from their school dormitories in Chibok, in northern Nigeria’s Borno State. The Chibok girls – kidnapped simply because they wanted an education – have become a powerful symbol of a global struggle for equal rights and opportunities.
Without further G20 action, the pandemic-induced recession will only deepen, hurting the world’s poorest and most marginalized people the most. Because the group represents 85% of global GDP, it has the capacity to mobilize resources on the scale required – and its leaders must do so immediately.
Although any joint EU action should be welcomed, the current COVID-19 response plan hardly amounts to a radical break with business as usual. Far from a long-awaited embrace of debt mutualization, the newly proposed European recovery fund risks being both politically unpalatable and economically inadequate.
LONDON – It has been eight weeks since the Islamist extremist group Boko Haram abducted more than 200 girls from their school dormitories in Chibok, in northern Nigeria’s Borno State. The geopolitical implications are now ramifying across Africa.
Chad, Niger, and Cameroon are being drawn into the crisis, owing to growing suspicion that some of the girls are being held on their territory. And, though a recently signed memorandum of understanding offers Nigeria security assistance from the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and other powers, residents of remote villages in northern Nigeria, fearful of night raids by Boko Haram and running out of food and supplies, are fleeing to mountain caves or bigger towns.
The governor of Borno State is warning that failure to help his embattled schools will be disastrous for the rule of law throughout Nigeria. Already, the country is being called the “kidnap capital of the world,” with 1,000 reported abductions in the last year alone.
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