The utter venality of Boko Haram

The abduction of 276 Nigerian schoolgirls from their dormitories at their boarding school in Chibok, Borno, by heavily armed men of the Boko Haram insurgency on April 14 is outrageous. But equally shocking has been the seeming reluctance on the part of Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan and his administration to try and even look for the missing girls, let alone attempt to rescue them. It took international condemnation and protest marches across Nigeria for the president to finally say he was going to do something.
The announcement of an award equivalent to $300,000 for any information that could lead to finding the girls was long overdue and is welcome. Hopefully this will encourage locals on the ground to collaborate with the Nigerian military in hunting down the Boko Haram terrorists and gaining the release and return of the girls to their families.
From the various press accounts that I have read, it seems that the Nigerian government was reluctant to even do basic investigative groundwork in the northeastern state of Borno, such as sending in plainclothes police to ask locals for information and tips on where to find the girls who have reportedly been taken into the Sambisa forest.
The fact that the authorities regularly shut down the cellphone network in Borno in an effort to hamper the movements of Boko Haram, has also badly affected crucial communications between parents of the missing girls and local police. Hopefully the military and intelligence help pledged by both the US and the UK will allow the Nigerian military to finally track down the girls and capture many of the Boko Haram terrorists who are holding them.
Perhaps more astonishing to me has been the skewed interpretation of Islam spouted by the Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau, who released a video last week claiming that he was going to sell the captured girls, aged 15-18, into forced marriages.
There is nothing Islamic in that, and should be denounced by every Muslim. The fact is that Shekau is a demented criminal and thug of the worst kind, using Islam to justify his brutality and venality. His group has already killed hundreds of young Nigerians, boys and girls, Muslims and Christians, for the alleged crime of studying in westernized schools. This genocide against “western” education is preposterous as the first word in the Holy Qur’an is “Iqra”, or “Read” in Arabic.
In this day and age, schoolchildren cannot only be taught the Qur’an. There is a whole world of scientific knowledge that needs to be explored and taught for these young Nigerians to have a chance at a better life.
Nigeria with its 170 million citizens is the most populous nation in Africa, and its oil-export fueled economy just surpassed that of South Africa as the continent’s largest. But widespread corruption and poverty, plus the fact that Nigeria is one of the most unequal African societies in terms of income distribution, have all without a doubt contributed to the flourishing of Boko Haram.
The Nigerian army did a big offensive against the group last year. Brute force alone will not end the terror group. In fact it may have contributed to the resurgence of Boko Haram since the end of last year.
Nigeria should launch an educational and jobs campaign to win over those attracted by Boko Haram’s extremist and violent ideology. Television and radio campaigns preaching a moderate and balanced interpretation of Islam should be launched. Nigerian officials, both federal and local, should launch campaigns to provide access to quality education to the poorest of the Nigerians and create jobs so that young Muslim men have an alternative to joining Boko Haram. If they don’t, then many more girls will be kidnapped, and Nigeria will be stuck in the Dark Ages.

- The writer is a Saudi journalist based in Brazil.