International Business Times quotes Africa Center Director J. Peter Pham on Boko Haram’s pledge of allegiance to ISIS:
More recently, [Boko Haram has] rebranded, swearing allegiance to the Islamic State group and renaming itself the Islamic State’s West Africa Province. In March, an audio message by an Islamic State group representative announced that Boko Haram’s pledge had been accepted by the militant group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and went on to congratulate “our jihadi brothers” in West Africa.
“It’s been a courtship that has been a long time coming,” J. Peter Pham, director of the Africa Center of the Atlantic Council, an international-affairs think tank based in Washington, said in an interview with International Business Times. “It’s as close to a marriage of equals as we’ve ever seen.”