Who is Boko Haram?

Boko Haram is a terrorist group which has been steadily taking over the country of Nigeria for the past several years. It has killed more people than terrorist groups such as ISIS (from 2010 to 2016 Boko Haram killed 29,360 people compared to ISIS killing 18,070.)

As a radical terrorist group, Boko Haram categorizes itself as “Muslim” but follows ideals starkly different than any religious laws Islam prescribes. They disregard “Western ideals” such as women’s rights, education, and voting. They target civilians, especially women and children, and were responsible for the kidnapping of the 300 schoolgirls in 2014.

Why should you care?

If they are allowed to take control of the entire country, inflicting terror and destruction in the process, they might expand outside of Nigeria, and potentially take over other African countries. At the rate they are growing, there may be little hope for the nation’s future. Nigeria has been fighting Boko Haram since 2002 and has been unable to defeat them. Clearly, the Nigerian military needs significant help in order to achieve this goal.

In February, the United States sent a dozen troops to Nigeria to train soldiers, and in a recent phone call with the Nigerian President, President Trump promised to reopen negotiations on the sale of attack planes to Nigeria, which are valued at around $600 million. However, this sale has been criticized as an empty gesture by the US to put down criticism that the US hasn’t done enough to fight Boko Haram, by people like Matthew Page a former State Department expert on Nigeria.

It’s appalling and unbelievable that this situation has gone on for 16 years with no end in sight and no solution for the problems that Nigeria faces against Boko Haram. Few people know who Boko Haram is, or that they are taking over an entire country. The scale of the problem in Nigeria is not consistent to the degree of which it is reported on. Why?

The answer to this question is the lack of focus on issues that matter by the mainstream media. The media largely controls the world’s knowledge of pressing issues. They have the liberty of not publishing stories about nations being overthrown but publishing stories about the Kardashians instead.

The fact that the mainstream media has enough power to contribute to mass amounts of people not knowing about such an important topic in the world is distressing, because if the media has control over the news of Boko Haram not being spread, what else do they have control over and are we not aware of?

Two important questions we have to ask are, why is this issue not being covered to the degree that it should be, and what other global issues are not being solved because of the lack of knowledge people have on these topics?

There may not be a way to force the powerful nations of the world into doing more than enforcing economic sanctions in Nigeria and withholding weapons from them, but there is a way to control the knowledge of the people.

People fighter global issues they are most passionate every day: religious freedom, the rights of women, racism, the basic human rights of people across the world. What would happen if the number of people that knew about Boko Haram doubled, or trip? How many people would stand up and say something, do something, to change this problem? What would powerful leaders of the world see this change and this movement, not just surrounding Boko Haram but other global issues, and decide to use their power to fight for these causes?