Rescuing hostages or kidnap victims is a risky business, especially when your adversary is a terrorist outfit with a reputation for indisputable lethality. Sometimes good intentions can lead to very bad outcome as we saw last year in southern Algeria when intervention by government at a BP natural gas plant left 30 of the hostages dead. Given Nigerian military's less than enviable record in dealing with the Boko Haram militants, nobody was expecting them to mount a daring rescue operation to free some 129 schoolchildren abducted by them from the Chibok government secondary school in Borno state on Monday. Northeastern Borno is one of three states under a state of emergency since mid-May. But nobody expected the military to resort to outright lie to pacify distraught or enraged parents either. On Wednesday, the military said all the schoolchildren have been released only to retract their claim the next day. This "blatant propaganda" and "blatant lie" has only made the Nigerian public more suspicious of the military. The good news is that some 44 schoolgirls have already escaped without any help from government authorities or the military. Some jumped off the back of a truck when they were kidnapped before dawn while others escaped into a forest, which borders their school in Chibok town. We don't know when the rest will be released or escape their captors. What we know is the bloody reach of Boko Haram is spreading with alarming speed. Tuesday's bomb scare at the National Assembly indicates that the militants, once confined to the northeast, can now strike wherever they want in Nigeria, including the capital Abuja. They have bombed Abuja at least three times, the United Nations' Nigeria headquarters suffering a deadly attack in 2011. The abduction and killing of a British and Italian hostage in 2012 in northern Nigeria marked another worrying new development in the violence unleashed by the militants. Even the Monday kidnap was not the first of its kind. Boko Haram militants have previously attacked several schools killing pupils and teachers, as well as state targets such as police, army and government offices. Human Rights Watch says more than 3,000 people have been killed in Boko Haram-related violence in the past five years. What was once a religious campaign against Western culture — Boko Haram means "Western education is sinful" in the northern Hausa language — has now turned into an armed militia. Their murderous campaign includes bombings, shootings and clashes with government security forces. Armed militant groups in Nigeria's northeastern region are nothing new, but Boko Haram has taken the violence to unprecedented levels since 2009. The fact that Nigerian authorities plan to deploy over 6,000 police and soldiers to protect participants in the May 7-9 "African Davos" World Economic Forum gives one an idea of the threat posed by the group. Some view the problems in terms of the popularity of President Goodluck Jonathan. It is true that his government has not been successful in controlling the violence, which worsened under his leadership. The state of emergency he declared in May was seen as a last ditch attempt to show he is on top of the crisis. But the problem is much more than the re-election chances of Jonathan. It is the stability and security of Africa of which Nigeria is the most populous nation and the largest economy. With a population of 175 million, Nigeria is considered a political and economic powerhouse in the continent. Any unresolved Nigerian insurgency has the potential of spiraling into an African problem. Domestically, the murderous activities of the Boko Haram are aggravating the long unresolved tensions between Nigeria's poor Muslim north and its richer Christian south. Many inhabitants of the north fear the army as much as they fear Boko Haram militants. They refuse to cooperate with the army to avoid reprisals by the militants. At the same time, Muslims living and working in the south are the victims of suspicion and persecution. What this means is the Boko Haram violence has to be stopped if Nigeria is to remain united. One way to do this is to drain out the waters in which the insurgents thrive and swim. The government has to fight corruption and address the grievances of the people in the north. The emphasis of Boko Haram's propaganda is the fight against corruption. No less important is the closure of Nigeria's borders with its Sahel neighbors Niger and Chad and also with Cameroon.
