# Conspiracy theory or reasonable suspicion in Nigerian kidnappings? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 20, 2014, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conspiracy-theory-or-reasonable-suspicion-in-nigerian-kidnappings/688797 "2014-05-20T03:43:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![wevets](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9a140/32.png) [@wevets](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wevets)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2014, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conspiracy-theory-or-reasonable-suspicion-in-nigerian-kidnappings/688797/1 "2014-05-20T03:43:16Z")
I was pretty startled today when someone pointed me in the direction of [this blog post](http://freethoughtblogs.com/yemmynisting/2014/05/14/boko-haram-bringbackourgirls-conspiracy-theories-media-and-the-mess-called-nigeria/) by a Nigerian resident of the U.K. I was fairly interested in the perception of the story from the viewpoint of a Nigerian, but I got a little 😕 and :dubious: when I saw this: > [@Yemisi Ilesanmi](#): > > However, as events unfolded, I started wondering if truly 200+girls were kidnapped. Huh?? If the girls weren’t kidnapped and this is a hoax, then why would the perpetrators of the kidnapping claim to have committed the crime? > **[Boko Haram 'to sell' Nigeria girls abducted from Chibok](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-27283383)** > > The Nigerian Islamist militant group Boko Haram says it will "sell" the hundreds of schoolgirls it abducted three weeks ago. If the girls being kidnapped is a hoax, who is in the videos Boko Haram released? > **[New video released of Nigerian girls](https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-africa-27373668)** > > New video claiming to show a number of the kidnapped Nigerian schoolgirls has been released by the Islamist militant group, Boko Haram. The post decries conspiracy theories, yet shows classic examples of what I think of as conspiracy theorist thinking: > [@Yemisi Ilesanmi](#): > > A state of emergency was declared in Borno state before the girls were kidnapped. How come the insurgents did not encounter any police road blocks, especially when it is virtually impossible for civilians to go about their legal, normal duties without encountering police palaver? Maybe Boko Haram has better control over the hinterland than the police do? Maybe the report of a dead soldier is from when Boko Haram attacked and overcame the resistance of police? Maybe Boko Haram bribed the police? Maybe the police have been infiltrated by Boko Haram and the roadblocks were thus easily avoided? None of this seems like a justifiable way to leap to the conclusion that the kidnapping did not happen or was not perpetrated by Boko Haram. > [@Yemisi Ilesanmi](#): > > How did the terrorists operate for hours in the night with heavy weapons in a place where there is a curfew? What is the use of declaring a state of emergency when trucks could be moved into a school to abduct 200+ girls without encountering security barricades? Seems to me terrorists would be able to operate and move trucks around _because_ they have heavy weapons. Since they’re the attackers, it seems likely they could put more people and heavier weapons into place than whoever may have been guarding the school, the guards have to just wait there for hundreds of days, not sure which day the terrorists might show up. (Apparently the Nigerian security forces had some advance warning of the attack, and were either unable, unwilling, or lacked the competence to respond appropriately. > [@Yemisi Ilesanmi](#): > > It took a lot of questions and pressure before the principal of the school could come up with the names of some of the missing girls. They were supposedly in school to prepare for their GCEs. I presume they are also registered to take the GCEs, so how difficult could it be to get their names and pictures? How is the public supposed to help alert police to sightings of missing persons when they have never seen their pictures? Did they not think that people are bound to ask for names and pictures of the missing girls? While I don’t know the answer to the questions, unless someone comes forward to say the girls in the video released by Boko Haram aren’t the ones who were kidnapped, the questions seem moot. > [@Yemisi Ilesanmi](#): > > Which again brings us to the question, where were the security force when this was going on? Well, at least one of them was there and was killed by Boko Haram. The rest of the post is pretty long, but I don’t really get from it what she thinks happened - whether the kidnapping was staged, a hoax, an actual event that occurred with the complicity of government officials, an actual event taken advantage of by unscrupulous people, or all of the above. But mostly it seems like classic CT “just asking questions” technique, making assumptions about what should have happened rather than working from reports of what actually might have happened. Honestly, Ms. Ilesanmi seems like a pretty conspiracy-theory prone person, even as she decries others as being conspiracy theorists. However, I’m not sure - she might know the situation in Nigeria better than I do, so I wanted to see what others think - how much suspicion of the story is justified given that the Nigerian government is corrupt and news services in Nigeria are not as reliable as those in North America or western Europe? ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2014, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conspiracy-theory-or-reasonable-suspicion-in-nigerian-kidnappings/688797/2 "2014-05-20T04:22:12Z")
Name any major world event in the last hundred years and you’ll find at least someone who insists it must be a government conspiracy because events didn’t work out the way they would if it were a movie.