A Dicey Boko Haram‎ Defeat

Monday Discourse

Though the Nigerian Army has significantly decimated Boko Haram, yet judging from the pocket of attacks still being reported, it seems the federal government’s victory song is a little too early, Shola Oyeyipo and Segun James write

Except probably those behind the heinous crimes being perpetrated by the Boko Haram sect, every Nigerian and even the international community want a quick end to the murderous activities of the group because not only have they killed over 10, 000 innocent people in the last eight years, peoples’ ways ‎of life have been disrupted and the cost of fixing their destructions is better imagined.
So, naturally it was a good news for Nigerians when about three weeks ago the Boko Haram flag was presented to President Muhammadu Buhari in what was a display of the victory by the Nigerian Army who have frontally engaged the dreaded sect in all their known operational hideouts.‎
During the electioneering campaign period till when he was eventually inaugurated and afterwards, ‎President Buhari had promised Nigerians that the deadly group would be defeated. ‎So, when last December, the President who had shown more than a passing concern in getting rid of the extremely violent sect, declared that ‎ the Boko Haram has finally been crushed, it was obvious that it was his desire but whether or not the desire has been achieved is now the issue‎.
Earlier in November, the Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant General Tukur Buratai‎ also boasted to Nigerians that Boko Haram has been defeated.
According to him, “It is very clear that the terrorists have been defeated. There are no doubts about it. What we are doing now is a mop up operation aimed at ensuring that we clear the rest of them.
“It is one thing to defeat, and it is another issue for the terrorists to surrender. We are working on their final surrender in the remaining enclaves where they are now”.
Towards the end of last year, the men of the Nigerian Armed Forces had taken the battle to the stronghold of the terrorist group. Camp Zero, the operating headquarters of the group which is located deep within the heart of Sambisa forest and the area is liberated with the fighters driven from all their strongholds. Some of them were in fact nabbed in states outside their operational zones.
Added to that, while the military continue to attack the terror group, ‎the ‘Operation Safe Corridor’, designed to give room for repentant members of the outlawed group to surrender is also recording success as some of them are already being de-radicalised and rehabilitated while some of them are providing useful information to security agents.
‎But good as the news may be, some skeptical Nigerians are asking some salient questions. Many would just want to be sure that the terrorists would never regroup again and still perpetrate attacks on soft targets. Where this happens, the war is not over then. This is more so because Nigerians have not been told that their financiers and backers have equally been decimated.
These, coupled with the fact that most of the identified leaders of the group are still at large, make some fear that more still needs to be done before any boast of conquering them.
The concern of some others is that since terrorism is not a conventional war, it can hardly be declared won. It is an ongoing thing. Their tactics change‎ and as such, security agents must continue to move steps ahead of them to prevent attacks on innocent citizens.

Justifying the Concern
Though unable to pull the kind of daring attacks that made them popular before, experts are of the view that Boko Haram could still be deadly. Then the absence of reliable information on the sect leader, Abubakar Shekau and his cohorts is also considered as a setback to the purported victory.
Another important factor is the ‎issue of the abducted Chibok secondary school girls. With efforts already made to reunite some of them with their families, as President Buhari himself reckoned, if the rest of the girls are not back, Boko Haram is yet to be defeated.
Worst still, rather than reply in words, each time Nigeria celebrates their defeat; the insurgents have made a habit of launching series of surprise attacks. While this could be considered as the last kicks of a dying horse, there are also signs that the last may not likely have been heard of Boko Haram.
Shekau recently denied that his group has been defeated when he appeared in a 25-minute video claiming that‎ “We are safe. We have not been flushed out of anywhere. And tactics and strategies cannot reveal our location except if Allah wills by his decree”.
He was referring to President Buhari’s statement on Christmas eve that the extremist group has been defeated. He said to the president: ‎”You should not be telling lies to the people. ‎
“If you indeed crushed us, how can you see me like this? How many times have you killed us in your bogus death?” he asked.
The Nigerian Army, in a statement, called the video mere propaganda, insisting that the video is ‎part of the tactics adopted by the group to keep the people in a perpetual state of fear.

Some Recent Attacks
On December 26, 2016, two suicide bombers attempted to strike in Maiduguri but only one of them died. The other was captured before she could strike. That was barely 48 hours after the presidential victory declaration.
Though no group has claimed responsibility for the attack yet,‎ one person was seriously injured when about 10 year old female suicide bomber detonated a bomb on New Year’s eve in Maiduguri. But being familiar with Boko Haram activities, it was easy for the people to conclude that they masterminded the attack.
On the New Year day, the terrorists killed eight persons in Kalleri, Maiduguri, Borno State. A resident, Alhaji Mala was quoted to have said: “We lost three people in Kalleri last night to the bombers; they knocked on the doors, when we opened, they quickly grabbed people and detonated IEDs.”
Eight people were confirmed dead in several explosions in Maiduguri late last Sunday. There were also reports that a Boko Haram suicide bomber attacked a Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF) check point around Muna garage that same day.
Last week Tuesday, January 10, 2017, two soldiers of the Nigerian Army were killed in Mate area, Borno State; though the soldiers reportedly killed many of the insurgents before they were eventually killed.
‎Aside the attacks listed above, last Thursday, THISDAY reported that while we sing victory song, ‎the Boko Haram terror group fought back upper Sunday, invading Cinki Gundu, an outskirt of Maiduguri where an officer and six soldiers were killed while eight others were injured.
But reacting to the report, the Theatre Commander of Operation Lafiya Dole, the military taskforce clearing the North-east of the insurgents, Major General Lucky Irabor, said it was “Outright falsehood”.
However, Irabor had earlier in Maiduguri told journalists that the mop-up operations of the military were still on where there are pockets of resistance by the insurgents. He also admitted that an operation at Bulakesa village claimed the lives of an officer and four soldiers, while three other soldiers were wounded.
According to him, 50 insurgents were killed in action while three AK47 rifles and several weapons and grenades were recovered from them. He also hinted that nine terrorists and 18 minors were arrested during the operation.
Worthy of note is that THISDAY sources were emphatic that Cinki Gundu was under the control of Boko Haram, naming one Ba Umar, a second lieutenant, as the officer killed during the attack. A source added that one of the slain soldiers, a majority of whom were said to have newly joined the army about five months ago in 2016, was identified as Corporal Idowu Shoneyin of the 153 Task Force Battalion.
According to the sources, the Nigerian troops went on a fighting patrol at Cinki Gundu when they came in confrontation with the Boko Haram fighters who immediately opened fire on them, killing five on the spot in the first attack.
As at the time of compiling this report, news broke that many people got killed last Friday morning in Madagali town, Adamawa State‎ (about 300km away from Yola, the state capital), when three suicide bombers attacked at a crowded motor park on the outskirts of the town in the North-east‎ state.

Reactions
A Lagos-based retired Navy officer, Mr. Fadile Olomi‎ said more still needs to be done to actually claim to have defeated the sect. To him, this is because the war is still on.
“Who is deceiving us? Is it the government or the military? ‎If they have defeated Boko Haram; they have taken over Sambisa forest, where are the Boko Haram leaders? It means they are still living with us.
“We cannot say the Boko Haram insurgent has been conquered because they are still living with us. To truly fish out the leaders, the Directorate of State Security (DSS) must embark on thorough house-to-house search in the North-east. Even during former president Goodluck Jonathan’s tenure, he said he had Boko Haram around him.
“So the people in the area should take over the war because it is still on. They must be very security conscious. Nobody must relax. They should make a habit of reporting any strange thing, person, movement or whatever to security agents promptly. They should have the phone contacts of all the security outfits, most especially the DSS”, he said.
A financial market expert and public opinion analyst, Mr.‎ Adeyinka Adeniji also contended that terrorism is hardly won as in conventional warfare.
‎”Terrorism is a spirit because over the years everywhere terrorism raised its ugly head‎ and has been tackled, even with more sophisticated security settings, you still see them coming back with attacks in trickles. Then that goes to tell you that it is the spirit that lives on.
“For instance, during the June 12 annulment-MKO ‎saga; the movement became a spirit that becomes stronger each time government of the day tries to clamp down on them.
“To tame them, government should use the power of justice. They must seek for their leaders and financiers and go after them with the power of justice. If we know the strength of our opponent, common sense demands that we should go and tackle their strength.
“My advice to the people in the affected areas is simple that they should be more vigilant. Everybody should suspect everybody because it is guerilla war they are fighting. You would not even know who the bomber is”, he noted.
Reacting also, Mr. Morenikeji Saliu, a Lagos based legal practitioner debunked the fact that Boko Haram has been crushed by the military. He said that after the military claimed that Sambisa forest has been liberated by them, there have been reported cases of isolated bombings.
“As at today, Madagali has been reported to be under Boko Haram attack leaving several civilian casualties, so who is fooling who?” He queried.
Saliu lamented that “I’m afraid the Nigerian government is counting its chicks and chicken too early. Worse still, they seem not to be communicating to Nigerians.
“There is no doubt that the government has whittled down the potency of the insurgent, but the proper thing to do is to constantly assure Nigerians that the government is doing its best to annihilate the group so that when isolated cases of bombings is reported, Nigerians will see it as an act of desperation by a failing organisation to remain relevant. Until this is done, Boko Haram will continue to win the psychological war.
“Come to think of it, barely a week after government made a big issue of the killing of the sect’s leader, statements from the military hierarchy seems to suggest that the sect leader is still Nigeria’s most wanted man.
“Even the United States of America never claimed that the killing of Osama Bin Laden has completely annihilated Al-Quida. This is a food for thought for the government.”
For Mr. Kunle Bello, the question of the federal government and the armed forces wiping out the Boko Haram sect is double edged. “Yes, the sect has been dislodged from the Sambisa forest because the war planes were able to land there successfully, and as a result, it is very evident that the sect has been largely defeated. But no because the Chibok girls have not all been found and they are largely seen as the symbol of the war.”