Nigeria: Obsession Confronts Reality
22nd July 2021
In the Moslem north state governors and other local politicians complain of the inability of the security forces, controlled by the national government, to restore order and allow essential commerce to resume. It is now claimed, with some justification, that Boko Haram-related deaths in the last decade are not just the 35,000 killed by Boko Haram members, but that number and the collateral deaths resulting from lower living standards, less medical care and infrastructure in general. That puts the total Boko Haram caused deaths in a decade to over 300,000. The Islamic terrorists have had help from the growing number of non-religious gangs and tribal militias that adopt the Boko Haram terrorism tactics but just do it for the money, not as part of some plan to install a religious dictatorship in the north. This mass banditry has been growing in the northwest and spreading south, where it meets stiff resistance from areas that are not majority-Moslem, as is most of northern Nigeria. The northern politicians don’t like to dwell on the fact that in the north Moslem politicians often profit from the growing outlaw culture. Such collaboration was considered normal before the Islamic terrorism proliferated in the last fifteen years.