A suicide bomber dressed as a student has killed nearly 50 actual students and teachers in Potiskum, located in northern Nigeria. The suicide bomber got into the all boys high school that teaches a so-called Western curriculum and detonated a bomb housed in his backpack. We recall the hue and cry a few months ago when Boko Haram terrorists kidnapped hundreds of girls but things had been relatively quiet in Nigeria since then with even word of cease fires and release of the kidnapped girls. The regional (African) hub of worldwide attention had shifted to Liberia and Sierra Leone with the Ebola crisis. But in the last few weeks, Boko Haram was getting back in the news cycle with a suicide bombing in Niger, another bombing in Potiskum last week, renaming the town of Mubi to Madinatul Islam and inflammatory comments about the kidnapped girls having been converted to Islam and married off. So why the sudden resurgence of Boko Haram? The African conspiracists point to an upcoming election in 2015 but is there fire, where there seems to be some smoke?
A suicide bomber killed 50 kids and teachers in a Nigerian high school
“The bombing was one of the bloodiest attacks in months. Government forces rushed to the school, in the town of Potiskum in Yobe State, but angry residents throwing stones prevented them from reaching the site of the blast. A bomb killed almost 30 people in the same town last week. Many Nigerians are incensed at the military’s seeming inability to curb Boko Haram, which earlier this year kidnapped more than 200 girls from the town of Chibok in nearby Borno State.” (New York Times)
