Niger Attacked By Boko Haram

Militants believed to be connected to Boko Haram attacked several towns in Niger, as well as a two suicide bombings in the capital of Chad, N’Djamena, on Monday. The suicide bombers in N’Djamena targeted the police academy and police headquarters in the city. Militants attacked the Nigerien villages of Lamina and Ungumawo near the Nigerian border, killing several civilians and burning down several buildings. Both Niger and Chad have deployed troops to aid Nigeria in their conflict against Boko Haram. The bombings in N’Djamena killed twenty three people and wounded over a hundred more, and are the first such attacks in Chad.

In response to the bombing, Chad launched several airstrikes on Boko Haram positions. Chad’s government gave no information on the location of the Boko Haram targets, but the Nigerian government stated that no Boko Haram positions in their own country were bombed by the Chadian Air Force. However, Chad has bombed targets in Nigeria before when they entered the fight against Boko Haram back in January.

Ever since his election as President of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari has been meeting with the leaders of Chad and Niger and with his own military chiefs and proposes moving the military’s command post from the Nigerian capital, Abuja, to the city of Maiduguri, right at the heart of Boko Haram’s power in Borno province. There is some merit in doing so; a common complaint from Nigerian soldiers is that the commanders are too detached from the reality of the front lines, and that they are frequently low on supplies.

Despite the problem of a lack of supplies in Nigeria’s campaign against Boko Haram, the United States has until very recently been reticent to aid Nigeria. This hesitance is attributed to claims of alleged human rights violations by Nigerian soldiers. Buhari has stated that he is launching an investigation to such reports, however there is no evidence that such issues were resolved in the short time Buhari has been in office. This raises questions as to whether there was a true correlation between the human rights claims and the lack of cooperation from the U.S.  Now that Buhari has taken office the U.S. has decided to send $5 billion in aid to the regional task force fighting Boko Haram. The United States previously aided the other nations present in the coalition directly, but never Nigeria.

The democratic transition from former President Jonathan Goodluck to current President Buhari seems to have signaled enough change to unleash U.S. funds and cooperation.  The only track record for leadership the U.S. can reference for Buhari is his short tenure as a military dictator in the 80’s, administrative roles in the oil sector, and as a repeated presidential candidate.