World leaders launch global coalition against Boko Haram

■Vow to rescue abducted schoolgirls

Three days after the leader of Boko Haram, Abubkar Shekau in a video threatened to sell at the market the abducted fe­male students of Govern­ment Girls Secondary School, Chibok, Borno state, world leaders have risen to the challenge of assisting Nigeria to rescue the girls.

France, Britain, China and the United States vowed to deploy military logistics to Nigeria to locate and rescue the girls. Downing Street spokesman said Brit­ain is sending a small team of experts to Nigeria to help respond to the kidnapping of the girls. The team will concentrate on planning, coordination and advice to local authorities rather than operations on the ground to look for the girls, who were seized by the Islamist mili­tant group Boko Haram on April 14.

The announcement was made shortly after President Goodluck Jonathan accepted the offer in a telephone con­versation with Prime Minis­ter David Cameron yester­day.

The spokesman said the team would fly to Nigeria “as soon as possible.” Ac­cording to the statement, the experts will be drawn from government departments including the defence, in­ternational development and foreign affairs ministries and may include military of­ficers. It was not explained how large the team would be.

Speaking in parliament earlier, Cameron condemned the kidnapping as “pure evil”. “I’m the father of two young daughters and my re­action is the same as every father or mother in this land or the world,” he told the lower House of Commons.

“This is an act of pure evil, it has united people across the planet to stand with Nigeria to help find these children and return them to their parents.” He said Britain had made “re­peated offers of help” since the kidnap.

“This is not just a Nige­rian issue; it is a global is­sue,” he added. “There are extreme Islamists around our world who are against education, against progress, against equality and we must fight them and take them on wherever they are.”

Recall that the United States had on Tuesday pledged to deploy troops and equipments in Nigeria to help in the rescue operation of the girls. From the Asian continent, China has also pledged to join the rescue operation. Prime Minister Li Keqian who is on official visit to Nigeria yesterday held a joint press conference with President Jonathan.

The announcement was made at the end of bilateral talks between Li and Jona­than. “China promised to assist Nigeria in our fight against terror, especially in our commitment and effort to rescue the girls that were taken away from a second­ary school,” Jonathan said following bilateral talks he had with Li.

Li for his part noted only that greater cooperation be­tween the two nations could also include efforts to “op­pose and fight terrorism” but did not give any details. According to Jonathan, the Chinese prime minister “expressed firm support to efforts at safeguarding our sovereignty and secure our territorial integrity as well as promoting economic de­velopment.” Li flew to Ni­geria from Ethiopia and is also scheduled to visit An­gola and Kenya.

Also, France yesterday offered Nigeria a “special team” to search for and res­cue the girls.

“A special team with all our resources in the region is at the disposal of Nigeria to help in the search and recov­ery of these young girls,” French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told parlia­ment.

President Francois Hol­lande was due to hold phone talks with Jonathan on the subject, sources close to the French leader said as at press time. “The president gave the defence minister and myself the order… to put our (intelligence) services at the disposal of Nigeria and neighbouring countries,” Fabius said.

Earlier Wednesday, French government spokes­man Stephane Le Foll de­nounced the kidnappings as “one of the most atrocious forms of terrorism because it involves kidnapping and trafficking children.”

His comments came as Boko Haram kidnapped another 11 girls on Tues­day from Warabe village in Gwoza Local Govern­ment Area of Borno state. France already has troops on the ground in Mali not far away, where they continue to engage in intelligence gathering to further weaken armed Islamists in the north after driving them out of towns they had occupied for months.