Grim outlook for Nigerian schoolgirls

The fate of the abducted Nigerian schoolgirls is still not known after the country’s mercurial president, Goodluck Jonathan, backed down from a deal with their Boko Haram captors to swap them for some of the group’s jailed members.

Meanwhile, the world’s interest in the incident is waning. Other matters, such as the coup in Thailand and Ukraine’s presidential election are grabbing the attention of the media.

Diplomacy grinds on. Jonathan was in Paris at the weekend to discuss the crisis with Foreign Ministers from Europe, the United States and Israel. US Secretary of State John Kerry grumbled that it seemed to be left to the Americans to do the hard yards in helping Nigeria locate the hostages. However, its drones and a small band of 30 ‘civilian and military specialists’ seem helpless to break the deadlock.

Kerry is wrong – other countries have so-called ‘experts’ in the field, but what they are doing, and whether they have achieved anything is far from clear.

Internally, the schoolgirls issue is becoming a political football, with the country’s opposition parties blasting Jonathan for his inaction and apparent inability to bring law and order to large parts of the north of the country. Jonathan’s supporters hit back claiming some opposition leaders are secretly sponsoring Boko Haram because they are in sympathy with the group’s aims of introducing Islamic Sharia Law throughout the country.

So what happens next? That would seem to be up to Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau. At the very worst he might decide to start executing the girls one by one, releasing videos as he does it. That would certainly regain international attention but at terrible cost.

Jonathan could restart the negotiating process, but after this breakdown, which involved the respected Nigerian journalist Ahmad Salkida putting his life on the line to act as a go-between the Government and Boko Haram, there must now be a significant, possibly unbridgeable trust deficit on both sides.  

Western nations could do more, to the point of putting boots on the ground to bring some order to the lawless north of the country, but their involvement would be resented and probably obstructed by the Government in Abuja.

What is likely to happen is what Shekau has threatened to do all along – sell the girls into marriage either in parts of Nigeria under his control or in neighbouring countries. Money from hostage deals and raiding banks are Boko Haram’s main source of income, which it needs to fund the purchase of its sophisticated weaponry.

Some girls will manage to escape – at least two have reportedly died from snakebites. The fate of most will probably never be known.

Then Boko Haram will revert to its main activity of burning villages, terrorising populations that do not bend to its will and continuing to impose its perverted idea of Islam on as much of Nigeria as it can. Salkida is ignoring social media outrage as irrelevant as, of course, it has proved to be.  

Outrage is useless without action to back it and in the last few days both the Nigerian and Western governments have proved they have no answer to the tactics of those who preach insurrection and terror in the name of Islam.