The news from Nigeria sounded almost too good to be true — and so it appears to have been.
Two weeks ago, Nigeria’s chief of defense staff, the country’s top military official, announced that a cease-fire had been reached with the militant Islamist group Boko Haram, while another ranking government official spoke of an imminent deal to release the abducted schoolgirls whose fate has riveted the world.
Alarm bells should have gone off immediately: Boko Haram’s leader had nothing to say about the supposed cease-fire; the government’s official spokesman was equally mute; and previous such official declarations had proved hollow.
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