Northern Nigeria on January 3, 3015 (last weekend) became a scene of carnage and destruction. In what is being termed as “Boko Haram’s deadliest attack yet”, militants opened fire on the town of Baga and its nearby villages — as many as 16 — almost razing them to the ground with reports suggesting that as many as 2,000 people could be dead. Yes, 2,000 people. That is a staggering number even in these days of violence and terror. Most of the victims were women, children and the elderly who could not escape the onslaught in time. Boko Haram militants entered the towns a week ago and started firing indiscriminately, pursuing fleeing residents and causing as much havoc as they possibly could. Besides the devastating death toll, as many as 30,000 people have been displaced. The militants have seized control of these towns and the authorities are now working to get them back from the militant stranglehold. How could this have been allowed to happen? How could such a blatant attack on such a large number of people have happened after so many other attacks by Boko Haram just in the last year alone? Was no one paying any attention when these vile monsters kidnapped more than 200 schoolgirls only to rape and sell them into slavery? Was that awful incident not proof enough that Nigeria is dealing with a militant threat quickly gaining in the footsteps of another jihadist group, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), known for its sheer brutality? Boko Haram seems to be taking inspiration from ISIS and this latest, deadly ambush of these villages shows that the militant group is now looking to conquer land and large swathes of territory to establish its own base. That should be a great cause for worry for the government in Nigeria, which seems to have been sleeping so far. Since 2009 Boko Haram has been terrorising Northern Nigeria, attacking schools — Boko Haram means western education is forbidden — killing and kidnapping students and slaughtering peaceful villagers but this latest attack has gone beyond anything the group has done before. The government of President Goodluck Jonathan seems limp footed and weak in the face of these continuous strikes, doing nothing to battle the threat. At the time of writing this news is coming in of a bomb attack in a market place in the city of Maiduguri in Northern Nigeria, killing as many as 16 people. The militants are not letting up easy and are escalating attacks against the state. The examples of ISIS and the Taliban should be enough to let the Nigerian government know that Boko Haram is not playing games. *