ALJAZEERA: The kidnapping of some 276 schoolgirls by radical Boko Haram rebels has thrust Nigeria’s security crisis into the global spotlight and even spurred calls for Western intervention. Once seen as the most powerful force in West Africa, Nigeria’s military has been embarrassed first by its failure to protect innocent girls in Nigeria’s violence-ridden northeast and — three weeks into the feckless search to bring them back — evidence that it knew about the plot four hours in advance.
But the kidnapping, from a school in the remote town of Chibok, is merely the latest instance of military incompetence in Nigeria that helps explain the government’s inability to quell an insurgency now in its fifth year.
Chibok was not the first time Nigerian soldiers have failed to act when given forewarning of attacks on the country’s north, where Boko Haram is strongest. Just two days before the kidnapping, gunmen slaughtered hundreds in the nearby town of Kala Balge, in Nigeria’s northeastern Borno state. The state’s senator said the closest military post knew of the attack but chose not to respond to a distress call because the area was “not within its jurisdiction.” There have been many other such reports… (more)
