Boko Haram takeover is unlikely in Nigeria, says United States Ambassador to Nigeria, Mary Leonard.
Although Boko Haram wants to Islamize Nigeria, an ambition they have pursued in the last ten years, the U.S. government believes that the group can’t succeed in hoisting its flag in Aso Rock the way the Taliban did in Afghanistan on August 15.
She said the situation in Nigeria and Afghanistan don’t match up to allow for such sweeping change.
Afghanistan is 99 per cent Muslim and has at least 70 per cent of its population yearning for Shariah, a political cum judicial system where the Qur’an serves as the country’s constitution.
In Nigeria, the religious demography is evenly spread between Muslims and Christians. And in the South West which has a Muslim population, their orientation is more western, hence likely to reject Shariah.
The US ambassador also said: “I hear people making the analogy with Afghanistan a lot, it does not match up. When you listen to what President Biden said on how troops went to Afghanistan in the first place, it was because they were in a horrible tragedy, over 3,000 Americans were killed.”