Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari hit the ground running after assuming office in May, vowing to root out Boko Haram which has claimed more than 15,000 lives. But the killing of nearly 200 people in 48 hours of violence in northeastern Nigeria shows Buhari's goal is still far down the road. One reason often given for the failure to stop Boko Haram is the decision by the US to withhold military support following reports of alleged human rights abuses by Nigerian soldiers. Apparently, in its crackdown against Boko Haram, the Nigerian military overstepped legal bounds. It should be noted, though, that when Boko Haram guns down worshippers at Ramadan prayers, shoots women in their homes in front of their children and kidnaps them from their homes, and drags men from their beds in the dead of night and beheads them on videos, they should not be expected to receive a pat on the back for a job well done. Boko Haram is the aggressor and its members are the bad guys. In hot pursuit, Nigerian soldiers might at times transgress the rules of conflict but it is understandable that such violations might happen, given what the military is up against. As for the US denouncing human rights violations to the point of withholding military hardware to Nigeria, America itself should remember that even though it is the so-called bastion of civil liberties, it created Guantanamo Bay, for example, where people are kept for years on end without trial and without charge. It is the US which also invented waterboarding to extract information, which is a crime because it is torture, regardless of what Dick Cheney's dictionary calls it. Perhaps Buhari should take a page from the playbook of Egyptian President Abdel-Fatah Al-Sisi. The day after Egypt's top attorney was assassinated in a car bomb and just two days before a massive attack by the Egyptian affiliate of Daesh (self-proclaimed IS) in Sinai on Egyptian troops and police, Al-Sisi called for amending laws and coming up with new ones that would cut down the number of appeals made by a person charged with acts of terror, a move which could see jail terms and death sentences administered more quickly. The Nigerian military is in the end keen to redeem its image in the international scene and promises to investigate these allegations. Soldiers have been facing court-martial as the force attempts to show it is tackling what it calls indiscipline within its ranks. This could be a way of winning back military support from the West, particularly the US, in the form of advanced training and supply of hardware. Nigeria also needs to work more in tandem with its neighbors. Fighting Boko Haram requires greater cooperation among countries - something that has been lacking - to combat a common enemy. As the terror attacks of last week in Tunisia, Kuwait and France and this week in Egypt and Nigeria point out, one nation alone cannot fight terror all by itself. Concerted efforts are crucial. Resentment and mistrust between Nigeria and its neighbors must be replaced with a total commitment to fighting a shared enemy. This is certainly not the time for frosty cross-border relations because they are affecting military operations. If Buhari is right that the outgoing Nigerian government did not do enough to harness a suitable regional response, now is the time for him to rectify the situation. Low-level communication as well as contacts at the highest level between Nigeria and neighboring countries must be constant and consistent if Boko Haram is to be defeated.
