The Boko Haram Bidding War

There really is only one answer, deeply unsatisfactory and grossly unsavory as that may be: negotiation with Boko Haram and, almost certainly, the payment of a significant ransom.
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Shekau has taken Western hostages before and reportedly reaped major revenue. Last year, his men abducted a French family of seven, four of them children between the ages of 5 and 12, who had gone to visit a national park in Cameroon near the Nigerian border. Although officially no ransom was paid by the French government or the victims’ relatives, several reports claim third parties turned over more than $3 million to win the release of the natural-gas company manager Tanguy Moulin-Fournier and his family.
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Global attention and anger about the kidnapping, after a slow start, is now reaching a thunderous crescendo. But as the furor subsides and the thunder dies, most or all of those girls probably will remain captives. The real work of winning their freedom is going to require a great deal of time, patience, understanding, and money.

And here’s the really unsettling thought. Who will bankroll Shekau’s ambition to project himself on the global stage? Very probably the same people who win the freedom of those poor young girls.