#BringBackOurGirls – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie says Nigeria Doesn’t Need Foreign Help

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie believes that without the help of foreign countries, Nigeria is fully capable of bringing back the Chibok school girls abducted by Boko Haram.

“Now we have American drones helping us in this forest and even the French have sent in people – shouldn’t they be fixing their own economy? We can solve our own damn problems.” she said at the Hay Festival.

She also added that “I’m sure that there are hunters in that area who know that forest very well. Why haven’t they been used? Why aren’t we depending on them?

What we need is a better equipped military, a better trained military: we don’t need Americans to send people in. This is my Nigerian nationalist rant”

The “Americanah” author also pointed out that the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls was started by a Nigerian and not an American.
“It was very much a grassroots social media Nigerian campaign. The fact that westerners are sharing in something started locally is fine with me.

I recognise that the campaign made a difference. People paid attention and then the [Nigerian] government had to sit up a little bit.”