Why Nigeria Was Able to Beat Ebola, but Not Boko Haram.
Six months after 276 girls were kidnapped, President Goodluck Jonathan hasn't been able to bring them back. So why was the country so effective in combating Ebola?
Olamikan Gbemiga/AP
For Nigeria’s embattled government, October 20 is a
date worth circling on the calendar: That day will mark 42 days since
Nigeria’s last confirmed Ebola case, which, at twice the 21-day
incubation period, will allow the country to declare itself free of a disease that has ravaged its West African neighbors.
Tuesday, Nigeria reached a milestone it would much rather ignore: Six months ago, militants from the terrorist group Boko Haram kidnapped 276 schoolgirls
from the country’s Chibok region, and, despite a worldwide campaign to
free them, 219 remain in captivity. While the kidnapping has attracted
significant publicity—epitomized by the viral #BringBackOurGirls
campaign on Twitter—violence attributed to Boko Haram has killed
thousands in Nigeria’s northern provinces.
The contrast between the two anniversaries raises an uncomfortable question: Faced with these two enormous crises, how has Nigeria handled one so well and the other so poorly?
One
major reason is Nigeria’s political geography, which, throughout the
country’s post-colonial history, has caused great turmoil. A country of
some 170 million people split into numerous ethnic and linguistic
groups, Nigeria has struggled to bridge the gap between its relatively
affluent Christian south and its poorer Muslim north.
Boko Haram, whose name roughly means “Western education is a
sin,” has exploited this divide. The group largely operates in
Nigeria’s three northeastern provinces, all of which are controlled by
the opposition All People’s Congress (APC) party and where distrust of
President Goodluck Jonathan’s government runs high.
“A lot of people in northern Nigeria are, in fact,
disgusted with Boko Haram,” Rudy Atallah, a senior fellow at The
Atlantic Council and an expert on Nigeria, said. “But because the
population of the North has felt neglected by the South for so long,
many of them view Boko Haram as an able body fighting against the
government.”
By contrast, when Patrick Sawyer, the Liberian-American man
who tested positive for Ebola, arrived in Lagos, he found himself in a
city equipped with West Africa’s most advanced health-care
infrastructure as well as the headquarters of many multinational
organizations. And, unlike the fight against Boko Haram, combating Ebola transcends ethnic, political, and religious divisions.
“Ebola impacts everyone,” Atallah noted. “It doesn’t have ties to particular sects or groups.”
The next inflection point in Nigerian
politics may come in February, when the country chooses a new
president. Having served one full term, Jonathan will be eligible.*
A victory by his People’s Democratic Party, which has governed Nigeria
for 14 years and whose voter base resides in the south, may exacerbate
the already fierce regional divide in the country, as well as make the
search for the remaining 219 hostages even more difficult.
* This post originally stated that Goodluck Jonathan was ineligible for reelection. We regret the error.
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