Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan, whose country’s effort to subdue Boko Haram has been largely ineffective, declared in a speech Thursday that the terror group’s abductions of schoolgirls would be its undoing.
“I believe the kidnap of these girls will be the beginning of the end for terror in Nigeria,” he said at the opening of the World Economic Forum meeting in Abuja.
The abductions and an attack this week that left more than 300 people dead have focused worldwide attention on Nigeria’s fight with terrorists.
The world still doesn’t know what happened to the 276 girls kidnapped almost a month ago, except that Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau said he plans to sell them.
Now, the militants may be going after those trying to find the girls. On Thursday, Nigerian police said one officer was wounded in the neck during a gunfight with suspected Boko Haram militants on the road between Maiduguri and Chibok, where the schoolgirls were abducted April 14.
And on Monday, Boko Haram militants attacked Gamboru Ngala, a remote state capital near Nigeria’s border with Cameroon that has been used as a staging ground for troops in the search for the girls. Some of the at least 310 victims were burned alive. . .