Boko Haram kidnaps 20 kills 12 in Cameroon

The Boko Haram Takfiri militants in Nigeria have stepped up attacks in neighboring countries, kidnapping 20 people in Cameroon and exploding a car bomb in Niger. Security sources and residents said on Monday that the militants abducted 20 people aboard a bus in northern Cameroon and then killed 12 of them. The kidnapping occurred on Sunday when the victims’ bus came under attack in the town of Koza near the border with Nigeria. The Takfiri militant group is known for carrying out deadly attacks in Nigeria since the beginning of its operations in 2009. However, launching assaults on people outside Nigeria is not very common. In an attempt to rout the militants in Nigeria, neighboring nations of Niger, Chad, Cameroon, and Benin have decided to set up an 8,700-strong force to fight Boko Haram, prompting the Takfiri terrorists attacks in those countries.

As the war against Boko Haram intensifies, the perception that it is wedged by disaffected and jobless youths who oppose and hate Western Education is becoming pedestrian. The sophistication of the command and operational structures of Boko Haram leaves no one in doubt about this reality.    The weapons deployed to commit the ongoing pogrom appear to have been acquired and brought to the war zones through a complicated network. It is hard to believe that a conflict of this magnitude can occur without a complex network of individuals and organizations supporting Boko Haram’s criminal war effort. It may be reasonably suggested that it is a political establishment serving distinct interests in Nigeria and Cameroon. In Nigeria, it has never sought ransom for the many victims it has abducted. In Cameroon although officially classified as a nebulous or illusive enemy, it has turned abduction for ransom into a lucrative business. 

Boko Haram in Nigeria is a child of Nigerian history and the impunity of Northern Nigeria’s Military establishment. Armed conflict is part of Nigeria history. It is also a business which has enriched many.  People including generations unborn learn from history. The savaged brutality meted on civilians and civilian objects in Nigeria pre-exist Boko Haram. These acts of impunity were some of the methods deployed by successive military regimes, most of them from Northern Generals to accede and sustain power. The ongoing slaughter by Boko Haram follows the same pattern which in 1966 led to the Nigeria/Biafra War. The underlying cause of the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Southerners, mainly of the Ibo ethnic groups in the North was never comprehensively investigated, if at all.  There is no gainsaying that had the crimes been investigated, the result would have pointed to some powerful individuals within the Nigerian Military structure of Northern origin. For these, political power and control of the economy could only be attained through scapegoating communities whom they perceived as serious competitors.