In a development that has sent tectonic ripples through the gin-soaked stratosphere of geopolitical theatre, the Nigerian military has managed to yank several hundred souls from the clammy clutches of Boko Haram. Yes, you heard that right. Hundreds.
Freed. Alive. The Ministry of Mumbo-Jumbo in Abuja confirmed that a coordinated operation involving the usual suspects of bullets, bravado, and probably a bit of tear gas for good measure, resulted in the liberation of captives who had been languishing in the kind of squalor that makes a badger's set look like a five-star hotel.
The UK, bless its civil-service socks, has issued a commendation. A commendation. As if the Nigerian forces had merely submitted a particularly tidy spreadsheet on time.
'We applaud the strategic victory,' said a Foreign Office spokesperson, who probably then returned to a cup of lukewarm tea and a biscuit. Strategic. Victory.
These are the words we deploy when we want to dress up a ghastly human catastrophe in the tweed of acceptable statecraft. The freed individuals, meanwhile, are described as 'being provided with medical care and psychosocial support.' One imagines the psychosocial support consists of nodding sympathetically while offering a pamphlet on 'Coping with Unspeakable Horror.
' But let us not be churlish. Any release from a group whose idea of a good afternoon involves kidnapping children and converting them into instruments of terror is a bloody miracle. The operation, details of which remain as murky as a pint of London porter, reportedly involved ground troops, air support, and a heavy quotient of prayer.
Nigeria's defence headquarters said the freed hostages included women, children, and elderly men. So, basically, the entire demographic that Boko Haram excels at traumatising. The UK's commendation, issued through the usual diplomatic channels, is a reminder that the global community is watching.
Whether it is watching with binoculars from a safe distance or with a telescope from a different galaxy entirely is a matter of perspective. What is certain is that the freed individuals now face a long road to recovery, a road paved not with good intentions but with the pot-holed reality of a conflict that has raged for over a decade. Boko Haram, like a persistent fungal infection, has been largely degraded but not vanquished.
The group continues to exploit the Lake Chad region's porous borders and general lack of governance. But for now, let us raise a glass of aviation gin (the only gin that truly understands altitude) to the Nigerian soldiers who did a job that most of us wouldn't touch with a ten-foot bargepole, and to the UK for acknowledging it in the finest tradition of perfunctory applause. The war on terror is a slog, a grim ballet of attrition and occasional flashes of grace.
Today, grace won. Tomorrow, who knows? But we'll be here, typewriter at the ready, gin in hand, to report on the glorious absurdity of it all.
