In his excellent AfricaFocus Bulletin website, William Minter offers us on June 9, 2014 Nigeria: Beyond the Hashtag Debates containing more analyses from six sources plus the important Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre’s 5 June 2014 Briefing Paper, “Nigeria: Fleeing Boko Haram’s relentless terror.”

Minter notes, “The debates on #BringBackOurGirls, a hashtag initiated by Nigerian protesters and picked up around the world, have ranged widely, without any clear consensus on answers to the complex questions of what should be done and by whom. It is easy to say that the longerterm response to Boko Haram must address broader causes, and that the Nigerian military must shift from a policy that adds to the violence rather than protecting people. But whether the outside world can find useful ways to assist such a change in Nigeria remains doubtful (a $6 million counter-terrorism satellite channel, just reported in the New York Times, seems a particularly clear example of what not to do).”

At his always interesting blog, another key analyst of Nigerian affairs, Carl Levan, offers more thinking on how to respond beyond the hashtags.  See Brainstorming with #BringBackOurGirls.

Levan notes that “Some of the most interesting and practical suggestions sprouting up from the grassroots have not been making their way into the broader discussions about finding Nigeria’s missing girls. Here are some ideas threaded together, based on my daily conversations with civil society organizations, government officials, and international solidarity activists…”