March 30, 2015
...Rather than a display of important regional cooperation (click here) in the battle against Boko Haram, the visit instead pointed out some of the confusion and resentment that are creating tension among neighbors. The soldiers from Chad and Niger had succeeded here, but there was not a single Nigerian soldier to be found. The force members were bewildered to find themselves as foreign liberators without any help from the Nigerians.
Even
as the Nigerian government, with a national election looming, insists
that its forces have chased Boko Haram fighters out of much of their
northern territory, the deserted streets and all-foreign force here
paint a different picture. Hundreds of thousands of Nigerians still
cannot return home to towns that have been, nominally at least, freed
from Boko Haram.
But
the foreign soldiers here said they do not want to occupy somebody
else’s country, and worry that the Islamist fighters will simply return
if they leave and the Nigerians have not arrived to take over....
