President Obama made no mention in his State of the Union speech Tuesday night about the escalating attacks Boko Haram is executing in Nigeria. The U.N. Security Council has reportedly thrown its support behind plans by African countries to plan out a multinational force to fight Boko Haram.
According to reports, the terrorist Islamist organization has killed thousands of individuals and abducted hundreds of children around northern Nigeria for over five years. More recently, several hundred were slaughtered during the group’s latest violent attack in the city of Baga.
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest only told a reporter, who asked recently why the U.S. has not done more in Nigeria, that “There obviously is a counter-terrorism cooperation relationship between the United States and a number of countries in Africa, including Nigeria. And that kind of cooperation has been valuable in the past in trying to help central governments in Africa and other places in the world, frankly, combat some of these extremist elements in their countries.”
The activities of Boko Haram became more well known after the organization kidnapped over 200 schoolgirls from the town of Chibok last year.
The Twitter hashtag #BringBackOurGirls went viral as a result of political activists’ efforts. The commentators and reporters see that Obama has moved on from the issue. As The Chicago Tribune’s Clarence Page points out, the president along with his administration are clearly ignoring the regular massacres in Nigeria, writing, “When the world pays little attention, the tyranny wins.”