Boko Haram: Can we be better than ‘better than in 2015’

by Alexander O. Onukwue

“Nigeria’s major cities and towns will never be held hostage by Boko Haram ever again”, Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed said.

“This is because the country’s armed forces, the Army and Air Force in particular, have so vastly improved in their operations that the state of the arts of the war is now better that it was under the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan.

“They are ensuring that never again will Boko Haram take control of our territories, attack our major cities, including Abuja, at will and fly their flag anywhere in the country.” Lai Mohammed concluded.

Boko Haram’s list of terrorist acts have included bombings of the United Nations buildings and two bombings in two sides of the Nyanya bus park, both in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. However, none of those have come since the Buhari administration in May 2015.

Like the Minister says, it is reasonable to believe that the country is “safer than at any other time since the Boko Haram insurgency started in 2009” while acknowledging that Nigeria is “not totally out of the woods yet, but we are much better today than we were in 2015, when this administration assumed office,” he said.

But as true as that is, the situation for communities still under attack in the North East has not shown much improvement.

With the persistent bombings, there will still be internally displaced persons whose levels of vulnerability will continue to increase, even as the sect enters new territory in terms of its targets. A team of researchers from the University of Maidguri were recently abducted while they were on a field trip, while about 69 people were reported dead in an ambush of an oil exploration team in July.

Add to these the 113 girls yet to be returned from captivity. They may have been kidnapped in April 2014, under the previous administration but they have spent more time in their captivity under the Government of President Buhari, who as candidate made their abduction a rallying point of support.

It is certainly not enough to say the country is doing “better than in 2015”, not if some persons remain under high exposure to the terrorists and the death toll continually mounting by the month.

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