"Chibok and the Tragedy of Errors" By Waziri Adio

In the past weeks, the federal government has struggled to refocus the plaintive request embedded in the#BringBackOurGirls campaign. Some of its spin merchants would prefer the request to start with “Release” instead of “Bring Back.” Ordinarily, the amendment sought should excite William Strunk and E.B. White and all those stylists who preach economy in the use of words. And for the rest of us, it shouldn’t really matter what words are used as long as the abducted girls are reunited with their parents and loved ones.

BOKO HARAM, JON STEWART AND RUSH LIMBAUGH

Jon Stewart managed to find a way to do serious comedy Monday with a segment on the kidnapping of Nigerian girls by Boko Haram, an act which even al Qaeda has condemned. “You know, there’s not a lot of times you’re going to get a Jewish guy to go, ‘I agree with al Qaeda.’ But wow … the group that never saw something full of civilians it didn’t want to blow up is saying ‘Take it down a notch.” 

Stewart introduces us to Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau, the “soulless, forest-dwelling lunatic” who nonetheless seems to know about the importance of dental hygiene, and to Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan, whose name just happens to sound like someone telling him that he’s leading “a corrupt country overrun with nutbag terrorists … Goodluck, Jonathan.”