The federal government says the military has “largely” met the December deadline fixed by President Muhammadu Buhari for the annihilation of Boko Haram.
Speaking at a news conference in Abuja on Tuesday, Lai Mohammed, minister of information and culture, said that the “military had sufficiently degraded the capacity of Boko Haram to launch spectacular attacks while also retaking most of the territories seized by the terrorists”.
“Winning the war against insurgency is about sufficiently degrading the insurgents’ capacity for action. This the military has substantially done. The rest is mop-up actions,” Mohammed said.
“The military has largely met the deadline issued by the president, and would have done so totally by December. The question, therefore, is no longer whether the military will be able to meet the December deadline, it is about how to give the military all the support it requires to continue to keep our country safe from the activities of the terrorists.”
Mohammed explained that “decimated and put on the run, the rump of the insurgents had now resorted to attacking soft targets- motor parks, entertainment centres, houses of worship, etc.”
“Make no mistake about it, this will not stop overnight. It will gradually taper off. That is the way it happens anywhere such a war has been fought,” the minister said.
“It is also important to situate the deadline by the president in its necessary context. Insurgency is an asymmetrical warfare, not a ‘shooting war’ between two Armies. No truce or armistice is ever signed to end such war. The implication is that while Boko Haram can no longer execute spectacular attacks, hold territories, declare a caliphate and even collect taxes, lone wolf attacks – which are like the death pangs of a dying horse – will continue for some time and then fizzle out. This is the absolute truth.”
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