Military.com quotes J. Peter Pham on the role of US Africa Command in the rescue efforts of the more than 200 Nigerian schoolgirls abducted by the terrorist organization Boko Haram:
At AFRICOM, Rodriguez, along with Gen. Carter Ham before him, faced the problem of “offering assistance without trampling on Nigeria’s rather prickly sensitivities” over its self-image as the “giant of Africa,” said J. Peter Pham, director of the Africa Center at the Atlantic Council.
Boko Haram gained power in mostly Muslim northern Nigeria after decades of neglect by authorities in the mostly Christian south, Pham said in an interview.
The Nigerians, the international allies and AFRICOM will now have to face up to “the recognition that Boko Haram is a challenge that defies a truly military solution,” Pham said. “There is no purely military solution.”