Boko Haram has upped its attacks in apparent response to the resolve by the international community to end its campaign of terror in Nigeria. Senior Correspondent, ISHAYA IBRAHIM, writes that this is possibly a last ditch effort of the group
On May 17, West African leaders agreed that Boko Haram was a common enemy, and hence pledged to work together to wage “total war” against it. The leaders took the decision in Paris, France, following the abduction of more than 230 girls in Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State.
The Paris meeting has the potential of changing the tide in the fight against Boko Haram. In apparent response, the terrorists started series of attacks to press home their point.
The first attack was at a drinking bar in Kano on May 18, the first in the last 14 months in that city. On that day, the terrorists loaded explosives in a car and rammed it into the bar, killing five people, including the bomb courier. The incident occurred in Sabon Gari area of the state.
On May 20, less than 48 hours after the Kano blast, Boko Haram killed another 118 people at a busy market in Jos, Plateau State – also the first in the last two years in Jos, which is more notorious for its religious and ethnic strife than Boko Haram attacks.
The ferocity of the attacks continued the following day, May 21; this time, it was in its usual operational environment – Borno State. There, 19 villagers were killed by the Islamists in Alagarno, a village near Chibok, the scene of the mass abduction. Witnesses said the sect fighters spent hours killing and looting without a response from the Nigerian military.
Perhaps, motivated by the incapacity of the Nigerian military to stop them, they took their belligerence a step further in Ashigashiya and Chinene villages, both in Gwoza Local Government Area of Borno State. After killing scores of villagers and sacking the villages, they hoisted their flags, apparently to prove that the villages have fallen under their control.
Still feeling motivated with their conquest, the terrorists moved to Buni Yadi, an already traumatised community where 59 school boys were killed early this year. There, they attacked a security post, killing 45 security agents comprising 24 soldiers and 21 policemen.
The frequency of these attacks is coming at a time the United States (U.S.), the United Kingdom (UK), France, China, Canada and Israel have deployed military assets to help locate the missing school girls. It is also coming when Nigerian neighbours – including Chad, Niger and Cameroun – have vowed to weed out Boko Haram elements operating in the fringes of their countries. So far, Cameroun has deployed more than 1,000 soldiers to secure its borders with Nigeria.
Meanwhile, the nearly 230 girls have not been found. The Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), Air Marshall Alex Badeh, said the authorities know where the girls were being held, although he added that they could not engage the terrorists in a fight because doing so would put the girls in harm’s way.
So, what next, since the military would not engage the terrorists in a fight and President Goodluck Jonathan would also not agree to swap the girls with Boko Haram prisoners?
But Barack Obama has made good his promise to assist the Nigerian military to rescue the girls by deploying 80 soldiers for the mission, though they are stationed in Chad. Obama had said the U.S. would do everything in the short term to return the missing girls and, in the long term, help restore order in the troubled North East corner of Nigeria.
“In the short term, our goal is obviously to help the international community, and the Nigerian government, as a team, to do everything we can to recover these young ladies,” he said.
The UK has also tightened the noose against Boko Haram; supporting Nigeria’s military with intelligence-gathering equipment. Its Foreign Office Minister, Mark Simmonds, said the UK would help Nigeria survey the Sambisa forest.
“The forest area (Sambisa) where the girls are rumoured to be held is 60,000km2 (23,166 sq. miles). It is an area of hot dry scrub forest 40 times the size of London; it is a wild territory, very difficult for land and air-based surveillance operations to take place,” he said.
The ferocity of the Boko Haram attacks in the last couple of days could be intended to over-stretch the assets the Nigerian government and its allies may have deployed to locate the missing schoolgirls. But the incessant attacks have been fuelling anger among Nigerians who feel the government is not doing enough to checkmate the terrorists.
But an expert in conflict resolution at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA), Charles Dokubo, believes that the Boko Haram menace would soon be brought under control.
“This issue of terrorism is trans-national, in the sense that you can see that these terror groups have links with Al-Qaeda in the Maghreb, the Al-Shabab, etc. They have all sorts of linkages; so no nation can deal with it on its strength alone.
“Also, because of the globalisation and the fast media experience where things move easily from one end to another, breaking borders and barriers, you cannot totally track terrorism down on your own,” the professor said.
For Ogubundu Nwadike, public affairs analyst, the insurgency would soon fade away, given the renewed commitment of the Nigerian government.
“It is quite unfortunate that Nigeria has been under strange terrorists’ siege. Sadly, terrorism is like cancer; it is seldom absolutely eliminated, but can only be intensively managed to avoid its spread. Attacks will not be ruled out absolutely. But with good management, as the government is doing by increasing the number of troops, funding, equipment and motivation, the worst by Boko Haram has been seen,” he said.
