With India being asked to help fight Boko Haram, let the Daily Show (hilariously) explain what it is
Along the sidelines of the third India-Africa Forum Summit, the Cameroon Foreign Minister Lejeune Mbella asked India for help in fighting Boko Haram. If you happen to be in the Ministry of External Affairs and have suddenly been tasked with working on this project or are generally interested and have only heard of Boko Haram in context of a Twitter campaign, we've got the right video for you. Earlier this year, Trevor Noah, now the current host of The Daily Show sat with the erstwhile host Jon Stewart and put in perspective the terrorist activities of this group in Africa, which are largely glossed over by international media.
Boko Haram, is a terrorist organisation with its roots in Nigeria,which promotes a version of Islam that consider western education haram, or forbidden. The name Boko Haram literally translates to "books are forbidden". In April, 2014 the organisation's swung into international limelight with the mass kidnapping of about 200 school girls, sparking a massive social media campaign on Twitter with the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls being used more than five million times. But sadly, that was that. The girls haven't yet been brought back and there have been reports of them having been married after forced conversions to Islam, and of others being sold into slavery.
The organisation is said to have ties with Al Qaeda and in March they declared their allegiance to ISIS. And quite like ISIS, Boko Haram is carving a "caliphate" in Africa. The organisation is ruthless in its ambitions, strapping bombs on to even children to capture more territory.
The Cameroon minister Mbella pointed at the spread of the organisation from Nigeria to other countries. Ministry of External Affairs joint secretary (southern Africa) Sanjeev Kohli said, “The experts will have to discuss what kind of counter-terrorism or counter-insurgency training we can give. It will have to be discussed whether our experts will go there or their troops will come here,” adding that response to the request has been positive.