Nigeria’s Islamist Reckoning

(Ebenezer Obadare – Council on Foreign Relations) Days after their coordinated attacks on schools across three communities in the southwestern state of Oyo during which they abducted thirty-nine pupils and seven teachers, the gunmen behind last month’s dastardly incident went one step further by decapitating fifty-seven-year-old Michael Oyedokun, a mathematics teacher. The father of two was the second teacher to die at the hands of the yet to be apprehended marauders, sharing the unfortunate fate of Joel Adegboye Adesiyan, forty-eight, who was reportedly executed as he tried to shield his pupils. Measured on a historical scale, the most recent attacks were far from the worst. Boko Haram and its affiliates’ decades-long campaign to impose a Shariarist theocracy on the country has entailed infinitely more abductions and gorier killings. – Nigeria’s Islamist Reckoning | Council on Foreign Relations