Posted on: 07:51 Thu, 24 Dec 2015



The Minister of Information and
Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said
on Wednesday that the Nigerian
military had met the December
deadline to defeat the Boko Haram
terrorists.

The minister said this during his
maiden meeting with editorial heads
of media houses in Lagos.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN)
reports that President Muhammadu
Buhari had, upon assuming office,
issued a December 31 deadline to the
military to defeat the Boko Haram
terrorists.

“Today, I can report that the war
against Boko Haram is largely won.

“I can confidently say this because
just recently, I led a group of 33
journalists from both the local and
international media to the hot bed of
the insurgency, that is, Maiduguri,
Kondugua, Kaoure and Bama.

“Today, I can report to you that the
entire 70 plus kilometres stretch
from Maiduguri to Bama and all the
way to Banki which leads to
Cameroun and the Central African
Republic are in the hands of our
gallant troops.”

He said the military presence could
be felt ”every few metres along the
road; at a point along that road we
were just a kilometre to Sambisa
forest.

“They have so degraded the capacity
of Boko Haram that the terrorists can
no longer hold on to any territory
just as they can no longer carry out
any spectacular attack.”

Mohammed, however, said that
though there were still cases of
suicide bombings, it was pertinent to
note that such was the nature if
insurgency globally.

“Unlike a war between two armies,
an insurgency never ends with arms
victory

“Even in countries like Colombia
where insurgency was supposed to
have ended decades ago, attacks like
this still happen.”

He said that the insurgents had
adopted a new style of attacking soft
targets like motor parks, schools,
entertainment centres, religious
centres, killing innocent people
mostly women and children.