The kidnapping of some 200 girls in northern Nigeria has sparked world outrage. It\u2019s a perfect media sensation: exotic locale and remarkably nasty kidnappers from a northern rebel movement, Boko Haram.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve long been a connoisseur of Third World nasties, starting way back in the 60\u2019s with Haiti\u2019s voodoo chief, Papa Doc. Most have been nobodies who achieved instant international prominence by shooting off their mouths, making lurid threats and committing some dramatic outrage.<\/p>\n
The latest is Boko Haram\u2019s chief, a certain Abubakar Shekau. This lunatic has become a world bogeyman by kidnapping the school girls, gleefully prancing in front of TV cameras, and vowing to sell them into marital slavery.<\/p>\n
Howls of fury erupted from leftist women\u2019s groups in the US, and from President Barack Obama\u2019s liberal warrior women, Susan Rice and UN ambassador Susan Powers. Hillary Clinton lost no time in jumping on this vote-winning issue.<\/p>\n
In a truly heartwarming gesture, China says it will send \u201cspecialists\u201d to aid the hunt for the missing girls. This is really about China\u2019s race for Africa\u2019s resources and its growing competition there with the US and Europe. The US wants its troops there before the Chinese arrive.<\/p>\n
Few people anywhere cared much about the thousands of Afghan villagers just buried alive by a monster mud slide. Even fewer that Boko Haram\u2019s previous rampages in northern Nigeria have killed over 1,500 civilians. Or that the thuggish Nigerian army and police\u2019s brutal reprisals killed thousands of Muslim villagers.<\/p>\n
Few outraged westerners knew that stealing girls is a traditional pastime in sub-Saharan Africa and child brides are second only to cattle rustling. There was no understanding in Washington that the tribal chaos and bloodshed now seething in South Sudan is merely a continuation of traditional raiding for cattle and women between rival Dinka and Neuer tribes. Washington failed to take this into account when it engineered the breakup of Sudan to create South Sudan as an oil-rich US vassal state.<\/p>\n
American foreign policy reacts to oil and gas as my cats do to catnip. Now, under the pretext of deep concern for the missing schoolgirls, the US and Nigeria\u2019s former colonial master, Britain, are rushing intelligence agents and special forces to this vast nation of 170 million, Africa\u2019s largest.<\/p>\n
Faux humanitarian missions are the rage for western intervention in the Third World. Libya and Syria offer vivid recent examples. US special forces are now operating out of Djibouti and Uganda in east Africa, ostensibly hunting fanatics of the Lord\u2019s Resistance Army, a bunch of drug-crazed primitives hiding in dense forests. The US air base in Djibouti is being expanded to accommodate 4,000 military personnel and more attack drones.<\/p>\n
Nigeria is Africa\u2019s leading oil and gas producer. Over 40% of its exports go to the United States, supplying 10% of America\u2019s energy needs. Nearby Angola has become another major energy supplier to the US.<\/p>\n
Nigeria has important mineral and farming assets. Yet it remains mired in the deepest, shameful poverty. One percent of the population controls all the wealth and steals billions annually. In fact, the UN estimates almost all of Nigeria\u2019s vast oil wealth has been stolen, squandered or stashed in Switzerland. Oil revenues flow directly to the government, then to powerful state governors. The only thing that trickles down to Nigerians is rain.<\/p>\n
Northern Nigeria, mostly Muslim, is dirt poor. Oil wealth goes to the better off Christian south. The north\u2019s Hausa and Fulani peoples have bitterly resented the massive theft of the nation\u2019s resources by the more nimble southerners favored by British colonial rule. In fact, Britain was at fault for creating the multi-ethnic mess that is Nigeria, another colonial Frankenstein state, like Iraq or Burma.<\/p>\n
Boko Haram\u2019s rampage must be seen in this context, a popular uprising against Nigeria\u2019s limitless government corruption, poverty, and resource theft. Boko uses the idiom of Islam but there is nothing Islamic about it. As in other parts of the Muslim world, reformers call for imposition of Islamic law as an antidote to endemic corruption of governments and courts that has been too often fostered by Western colonialism.<\/p>\n
Screaming \u201cIslamic terrorism\u201d won\u2019t defuse Nigeria\u2019s coming explosion. Considered one of the world\u2019s most corrupt nations, Nigeria has to clean up its act \u2013 and fast.<\/p>\n
___________________________<\/p>\n
Eric S. Margolis is an award-winning, internationally syndicated columnist. His articles have appeared in <\/em>TheNew York Times, The International Herald Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Times of London, The Gulf Times, The Khaleej Times, Nation \u2013 Pakistan, Hurriyet, \u2013 Turkey, Sun Times Malaysia and other news sites in Asia. He is a regular contributor to <\/em>The Huffington Post and<\/em> Lew Rockwell. He appears as an expert on foreign affairs <\/em>on CNN, BBC, France 2, France 24, Fox News, CTV and <\/em>CBC.<\/p>\n