The security agencies could do more to contain the brutal insurgents
Almost a year after the authorities told the nation that Boko Haram was a spent force, the Islamic insurgent group keeps coming back forcefully and grabbing the headlines; and the armed forces keep struggling to contain the chaos and violence the rebels continually inflict on the nation. Through series of attacks on soft targets, on military outposts and convoys, and with suicide bombers blowing themselves up, the insurgents have escalated the violence and maintained their nuisance value. Indeed, many are raising a fundamental question of misdiagnosis – that the capacity of the insurgents had been grossly understated.
There has been a dramatic upsurge in violence with the insurgents unleashing vicious and gruesome attacks on civilians as well as members of the armed forces, particular in Borno State. The series of audacious attacks and killings by the militant group indicate that the insurgents are still very much on the loose. There are no reliable statistics but the death toll from recent insurgent attacks is huge – estimated to be more than 2000, in 2017 alone. The message is clear: Boko Haram has demonstrated that it could still inflict enormous damage.
A fortnight ago, two suicide bombers struck a camp for displaced people in Dikwa, some 90 kilometres east of Maiduguri, killing 14 people and wounding scores of others. A day earlier in Bama, southeast of Maiduguri, three young female suicide bombers were killed when their explosives detonated prematurely. The extremists also killed seven people in an attack on a village where they burnt homes and shops in neighbouring Yobe State. Only last Saturday, some 31 fishermen were reportedly killed on the Islands of Duguri and Dabar Wanzan in the Lake Chad region.
However, perhaps their most brazen and bloodiest outing this year was the ambush of an oil exploration team in the Magumeri area of Borno State. At the last count, some 69 people, including soldiers, civilian militia and civilians were killed. “It’s a confirmation of the boldness and reassurance that Boko Haram has managed to gain over the last six weeks,” said Yan St-Pierre of the Modern Security Consulting Group. “Basically they have managed to gain enough resources, enough material, to plan ambushes targeted towards high value targets.”
Unfortunately, the University of Maiduguri is increasingly becoming a conference where all that is worrying about the Islamic insurgency comes together. In the last few months, the university has borne the brunt of the insurgent attacks which had robbed it of some its best and brightest. No one has told the nation while the recent mission on oil search in the volatile Lake Chad Basin was urgent, but many members of the academic community have paid with their lives for the ill-timed assignment.
Indeed, the loss was colossal: five members of staff – two lecturers, two technologists and a driver were killed while two other academics and a driver were seized, and later displayed in a video published by the insurgents. “I want to call on the Acting President Professor Yemi Osinbajo to come to our rescue to meet the demand,” one of them said in the video. While negotiations are said to be on-going to free the lecturers and others, it is clear that the violent militant group still constitutes grave danger for Nigeria.
We have stated here repeatedly that the striking powers of the violent Islamic group may have been whittled down considerably, but they should never be written off. The recent attacks suggest that some of the insurgents have regrouped while others have melted into the local population from where they unleash violence through hit-and- run tactics. Instructively, the recent wave of attacks has prompted a shift in military tactics as the army command centre has once again been moved to the theatre of the war. But beyond that, a combined technique of intelligence, law enforcement and special operations may help in containing the resurgence of criminality.
