Nigeria atrocity

Eight more girls were reportedly kidnapped by Boko Haram terrorists in Nigeria overnight. And now, pressure is mounting around the world, for international involvement in Nigeria’s schoolgirl kidnapping crisis. Both in the streets and on social media — millions of people from different countries, are demanding that the United States, and other western nations step in — and help the Nigerian government to find and rescue more than 200 girls kidnapped from their school, three weeks ago.

The Nigerian Association of Hamilton-Wentworth and District plans to hold a rally this Sunday at city hall, to add their voice to the global demands.

There was small progress in the hunt for the missing school girls Tuesday afternoon as the United States offered, and Nigeria accepted — resources to help find the missing girls.

Rallies and protests both inside Nigeria and around the world, have forced Nigeria to ask for outside help, as their own security forces seem incapable, or unwilling to track down, and confront the terrorist group that kidnapped them.

The Boko Haram — a Muslim extremist group with ties to Al Qaeda — has threatened to sell the girls into slavery. Already, two of the kidnapped girls have reportedly been killed — while one — who escaped from the terrorists, appeared on Nigerian television today, with her identity obscured. She said she was too afraid now to return to school, after her harrowing ordeal with the terrorists. Today, Canada’s Foreign Minister John Baird responded to demands in the Commons for greater Canadian involvement, while U.S. President Barak Obama announced, that a special team of military, law enforcement and hostage negotiation experts, will be sent to Nigeria.

And here in Hamilton, the President of the Nigerian Association of Hamilton-Wentworth said time, is critical:

President Obama: “Help from our military and law enforcement officials. We’re going to do everything we can to provide assistance to them.”

John Baird: “Boko Haram’s actions are despicable and they only serve to strengthen our collective desire to fight international terrorism.”

Adeolu Sanyaolu is the President of the Nigerian Association of Hamilton-Wentworth: “We should ber clear that this Boko Haram group is not only targeting Christians, they are also killing Muslims. So it’s not like it’s Muslims against Christians — it’s this group against Christians and Muslims and they don’t have any value for life because they kill kids. We know that as soon as these kids have been taken to the neighbouring countries like Cameroon, Chad — there’s almost no possibilities of recovering them. So that’s why we need something done now and it is now that we have to do it.”

A World Economic Forum is scheduled to begin in Nigeria Wednesday. It’s importance of course, has been completely overshadowed by this crisis. But the situation with the government of Nigeria remains uncertain. Yesterday, — even though she had no constitutional power to do so, the first lady of that nation had two female protest leaders detained by police — accusing them of inventing the story of the missing girls, to discredit her husband and his government.

This Sunday as mentioned — there will be a rally here on the city hall plaza beginning at 12:30pm. Organizers hope not only to show support for the missing girls and their families, but to pressure Ottawa into doing something more concrete, than offering a promise to fight international terrorism.