Dear Editor,
Almost a year has passed since two hundred schoolgirls were abducted by Boko Haram militants, but the Nigerian authorities have admitted it was not clear whether they would ever be found.
The abduction of the girls from a secondary school in Chibok in the country’s north east last April drew international attention to the humanitarian crisis caused by Boko Haram’s attempt to establish a mediaeval-style caliphate in religiously mixed Nigeria, Africa’s biggest oil producer.
Buhari, the sitting president whose presidential election win two weeks ago was the first democratic defeat of an incumbent in Africa’s biggest economy and most populous nation, said his administration would do everything it could to defeat the militant Islamist group.
Amnesty International said in a report on Tuesday that Boko Haram had kidnapped at least 2,000 Nigerian women and girls since the start of 2014, many of whom were sexually abused or trained to fight.
With help from Nigeria’s neighbours Niger, Cameroon and especially Chad, the rebels have been forced to retreat from an area the size of Belgium in the last few weeks.
Boko Haram means Western education is forbidden
Many people of the world are of the view that this is a case in which the international community should come together to solve a blight on the sacred landscape of humankind and that we Guyanese in particular should also be concerned for several obvious reasons.
Yours faithfully,
Rooplall Dudhnath