By KEVIN DERBY
Frederica Wilson
U.S. Rep. Frederica Wilson, D-Fla., is continuing her efforts to shine the spotlight on terrorist group Boko Haram and its actions.
Back in 2016, Wilson sponsored a measure mandating the State and Defense departments hammer our a five-year plan to aid the Nigerian government and other international partners battling Boko Haram which is responsible for 20,000 deaths and for creating a refugee crisis in Nigeria. In recent years, Wilson has been one of the more vocal critics of Boko Haram and a high profile supporter of bringing attention to that terrorist group’s kidnapping of girls and young women.
Wilson continued that focus this week, offering a reminder that “over 100 girls are still captured by a terrorist organization who kidnaped them straight from their classroom over five years ago.”
Last month, Wilson weighed in on why she was so focused on the issue.
Boko Haram in Nigeria“Boko Haram has kidnapped, killed, abused, and sold, thousands of innocent people throughout the years. The group that started out as a non-violent effort has transformed in the last 10 years into a radical terrorist organization, threatening innocent lives,” Wilson noted. “Over 100 girls are still missing. With their ‘Western education is sin’ mantra, they are targeting women who seek education. We deeply believe that girls should be able to live and go to school freely, without the threat of a terrorist organization looming overhead.”
Wilson held an event on Capitol Hill last month to mark the five year anniversary of the “abduction of nearly 300 Nigerian schoolgirls by the terrorist group Boko Haram.” She also continues to push “Wear Something Red Wednesday to send a “message to both the United States and Nigerian governments about the importance of doing whatever is necessary to defeat Boko Haram and help rebuild more than one million shattered lives.”
A longtime state legislator who was first elected to Congress in 2010, Wilson has been a leading voice on Capitol Hill on expanding the war on terror into Africa which brought her national attention when she clashed with the Trump administration after the death of four soldiers–including one from her district–in Niger back in 2017.