Kidnapping in Nigeria and #bringbackourgirls – Are we missing the point? (Part 2)

Kidnapping in Nigeria and #bringbackourgirls – Are we missing the point? (Part 2):

I said I was going to come back to this topic and talk about a few issues that struck me as a Rule of Law and Security Sector Reform practitioner. In the meantime, I've watched a lot of prominent politicians and policy makers comment on the situation, and the U.S. has now sent military and law enforcement assistance to Nigeria to help find the girls. Which is great, but it still doesn't get to the longer term issues of how to keep this from happening again.

So here’s the first question that arose in my mind when the story broke: You’re a government fighting an insurgency and one of the insurgents’ core ideas, embodied in their name (!), is, “western education is a sin.” Why then, aren't your security forces operating in the contested areas treating schools as critical governance infrastructure? Surely, from a messaging standpoint alone, the war of ideas makes schools a strategic asset. This in turn makes them a strategic target. And since you’re fighting an organization that has negatively extremist views on the value of women that run counter to those of the law of Nigeria, then shouldn't protecting girls’ schools be even more important to affirming governmental authority? Viewed through this lens, the question isn't, why didn't the Nigerian military respond to the calls for help. It should be: Why weren't they already near the school, providing heightened protection in the first place?

I’m dead serious about this. In security system analysis, experience tells you to look first at the threat, then at whether security and justice institutions are postured to address it. It would appear to me that in the case of the Nigerian security system, this fundamental analysis hasn't been done, or if it has, it was ignored. Security force preparation and posturing is about more than train and equip. It is about creating organizations and assets that can assess needs and vulnerabilities, and position themselves to address them accordingly. Clearly that didn't happen here, and hasn't happened in previous, less-publicized attacks on Nigerian schools and the women who attend them.