Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
Explainer: The Boko Haram Massacre in Nigeria
Explainer: The Boko Haram Massacre in Nigeria
Jul 11, 2025 11:01 PM

What’s going on in Nigeria?

During an attack that started January 3 and continued through this past weekend, the African Islamic militant group Boko Haram opened fire on 16 northern Nigerian villages. The death toll estimates range from 200 to as many 2,000 people.

Another 10,000 people who managed to escape have fled to neighboring Chad. Many Nigerians drowned in an attempt to cross Lake Chad to escape what is now described as the “deadliest massacre” in the history of Boko Haram.

Over the past six months, Boko Haram has taken control of more than two dozen towns in northeast Nigeria, most of them in Borno State, and launched attacks into Chad and Cameroon. As Alexis Okeowo notes, their territory now nearly equals the Islamic State’s in Iraq and Syria.

What happened this weekend?

A girl believed to have been no more than 10 years old detonated a bomb concealed under her veil at a crowded northern Nigeria market on Saturday, killing as many as 20 people and wounding many more.

The explosion is believed to be a new tactic in the Islamists’ campaign with Boko Haram’s decision to use perhaps their youngest-ever suicide bomber.

What was the recent criticism by theCatholic archbishop?

The Catholic Archbishop of Jos has accused the western world of focusing on mourning last week’s terror attack in France, while ignoring the ongoing massacre of Nigerians.

“It is a monumental tragedy. It has saddened all of Nigeria. But… we seem to be helpless. Because if we could stop Boko Haram, we would have done it right away. But they continue to attack, and kill and capture territories… with such impunity,” Archbishop Ignatius Kaigama told the BBC.

Archbishop Kaigama said facing down Boko Haram required international support and unity of the type that had been shown after last week’s militant attacks in France.

“We need that spirit to be spread around,” he said. “Not just when it [an attack] happens in Europe, but when it happens in Nigeria, in Niger, in Cameroon.

Over 40 world leaders joined with a million French citizens who marched in Paris on Sunday to honor the 17 people killed in terror attacks in the French capital last week.

Who is Boko Haram?

Boko Haram (which translates to “Western education is sinful”) is the Hausa language nickname for the Congregation of the People of Tradition for Proselytism and Jihad. Founded in 2002, the terrorist group prised of radical Islamists who oppose both Westerners and “apostate” Muslims. Based in Nigeria, Cameroon, and Niger, the organization seeks to establish a “pure” Islamic state ruled by sharia law, putting a stop to what it deems “Westernization.” Its followers are said to be influenced by the Koranic phrase which says: “Anyone who is not governed by what Allah has revealed is among the transgressors.”

Abubakar Shekau, the leader of Boko Haram, announced in August his mission to establish his Islamic caliphate, a political-religious Muslim state of which he would be the leader.

The group is known for attacking, kidnapping, and killing Christians and Muslims, bombing churches, attacking schools, and destroying police stations. Violence linked to the Boko Haram insurgency resulted in an estimated 10,000 deaths between 2002 and 2013.

Wasn’t Boko Haram the group behind the mass kidnappings of children in Nigeria?

Yes. During the night of April 16, 2014, dozens of armed men from Boko Haram captured over 300 Christian girls aged 12 to 15 who were sleeping in dormitories at Chibok Government Girls Secondary School in northeast Nigeria.

Some of the kidnapped girls have been forced into “marriage” with their Boko Haram abductors, sold for a nominal bride price of $12, according to parents who talked with villagers.All of the girls risk being forced into marriages or sold in the global market for human slaves.

The kidnappings were the focus of the ‘Bring Back Our Girls’ social media campaign that garnered much attention last year.

Why can’t the Nigerian government stop them?

It’s unclear whether the government is unable or unwilling to suppress the insurgency. In 2013, the Nigerian military responded to an attack on Baga by Boko Haram fighters, but were criticized for executing more “destruction than protection.” At the time, at least 37 people were killed and 2,275 homes were destroyed. When Boko Haram overtook Baga on January 3, government soldiers abandoned post left unarmed citizens to defend themselves.

“We are very dispirited,” Borno North senator Maina Maaji Lawan told BBC. “There is definitely something wrong that makes our military abandon their posts each time there is an attack from Boko Haram.”

What’s the West doing to help?

The United States has put a $7 million bounty on Abubakar Shekau, the elusive leader of Boko Haram, and has designated the group a foreign terrorist network. Some Western nations, including the U.S., have also provided technical and financial support to the Nigerian teams battling the insurgency.

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Sen. Elizabeth Warren brings government muscle to corporate ‘accountability’
It was in Godfather III where Al Pacino as Michael Corleone said it first and said it best: “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!” Before we were able to put away our party hats after celebrating the Supreme Court’s Janus decision in June, Missouri rejected a right-to-work measure at the state’s primary ballot box last week. And now Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) wants to do a federally legislated end run around Janus with a...
What do stock markets do?
Note: This is post #89 in a weekly video series on basic economics. pany can raise money and create new investment by selling shares through an initial public offering (IPO). When you buy pany’s shares on the stock market, though, no new investment is created. So what exactly do stock markets do? In this video by Marginal Revolution University,Alex Tabarrok explains how stock markets serve as a financial intermediary and serves as a key institution encouraging new businesses. (If you...
The bright side of the trade war with China?
“This year marks the 40th anniversary of one of the most consequential anti-poverty programs in human history,” says Rev. Ben Johnson in this week’s Acton Commentary. “Now, there is evidence that its spillover effects may lift millions more out of dire need.” The new openness to enterprise, private property, and investment led to China’s meteoric economic rise. Now, Donald Trump’s tariffs are encouraging manufacturers to take their factories elsewhere. Ian Chen, CEO of a Chinese technological exporter, said that Trump’s...
Chafuen on ‘The vocation of the think tank’
Alejandro Chafuen – the Acton Institute’s Managing Director, International – received the prestigious 2018 “Premio Juan de Mariana”award from the Intituto Juan de Mariana earlier this year. Today at Acton’s Religion & Liberty Transatlantic website, we have posted the full text of his acceptance speech. Chafuen holds special affection for Juan de Mariana, the Jesuit priest and thinker associated with the School of Salamanca. In his remarks, Chafuen summarized the theologian’s economic and political thought, saying: He states that God...
The Parable of the Long Spoons explains free markets
“How can we explain this emporiophobia—a fear of markets—given the overwhelming evidence that such institutions provide the greatest wealth, health and happiness for humankind?” When economics professor Paul Rubin asked that questionhe answered by saying that we need to shift the metaphor of markets from petition” to “cooperation.” Cooperation isn’t just more important in the economic sphere—it’s also mon. We cooperate with everyone involved in making all the products we buy and sell, millions of people we’ll never know. […]...
10 things political scientists know that we don’t
“If economics is the dismal science,” says Hans Noel, an associate professor at Georgetown University, “then political science is the dismissed science.” Most Americans—from pundits to voters—don’t think that political science has much to say about political life. But there are some things, notes Noel, that “political scientists know that it seems many practitioners, pundits, journalists, and otherwise informed citizens do not.” Here are excerpts from Noel’s list of ten things political scientists know that you don’t: #1. It’s The...
7 Figures: Trends in global restrictions on religion
A new study by The Pew Charitable Trusts and the John Templeton Foundation reports on the extent to which governments and societies around the world impinge on religious beliefs and practices. Here are seven figures you should know from the study about trends in religious hostilities: 1. Of the 198 countries included in the study—covering 99.5 percent of the world’s population—28 percent had high or very high levels of government restrictions in 2016 (the most recent year for which data...
Radio Free Acton: Econ Quiz on pensions and public debt; Upstream on Frida Kahlo and Stalinism
On this episode of Radio Free Acton, host Caroline Roberts speaks with Dave Hebert, Professor of Economics at Aquinas College for another Econ Quiz segment on the topic of pensions and state debt. Then, on the Upstream segment, Bruce Edward Walker talks to Phil Terzian, a writer for The Weekly Standard, on the blind spots in the legacy of Frida Kahlo as well as our modern understanding of Stalinism. Check out these additional resources on this week’s podcast topics: Read...
Pope John Paul II’s statue violated state secularism: French court
France remains so deeply wedded to secularism (laïcité) that its courts ruled a statue of Pope John Paul II can only remain in place if its cross is removed. Beyond a mere clash of church-and-state, “this case is symptomatic of the identity crisis suffered by France and Western Europe in general,” writes Priscille Kulczyk,a research fellow for theEuropean Centre for Law and Justice (ECLJ), at the Acton Institute’s Religion & Liberty Transatlantic website. “They reject their Christian roots, culture, and...
James V. Schall on Islam and the West
Pope Benedict XVI made an fortable claim in his 2006 Regensburg address: contemporary Muslim terrorism may owe something to Islam’s conception of God. A year later, Father James V. Schall SJ wrote a book about the address which, as Acton Director of Research Samuel Gregg says, placed it in the wider context of a set of religious and philosophical challenges that many Westerners still can’t bring themselves to address: Over the past sixteen years, Schall has written numerous articles on...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved