Posted on: 05:23 Tue, 29 Dec 2015



Lai Mohammed, minister of
information, believes the Nigerian
military has largely succeeded in
defeating Boko Haram because the
insurgents are now “only operating
from one or two local governments”.

But he urged the media to stop
“giving oxygen to the terrorists”,
saying the war cannot be successful
without the cooperation of
journalists.

“Just as I said in my meeting with
the newspapers editors in Lagos on
the 21st of December, the military
has largely met the deadline to
defeat Boko Haram, and the military
has matched the capacity of
terrorists to carry out the attacks
they used to,” he said on Channel
Television’s Sunrise Daily.

“Of course, I also mentioned that the
terrorists will continue to attack such
targets as markets, motor parks,
entertainment centres and houses of
worship; and this is exactly what is
going on.

“We know that in an insurgency, the
war does not end in one day. The
attack on soft targets will continue,
but we also want to appeal to the
media to stop giving oxygen to the
Boko Haram insurgency.

When we glamorise the attacks, it
gives the terrorists more life and in
a time of insurgency like this, the
media also has a role to play, which
is not to glamorize the attacks.

“What is happening is not
unexpected; what is happening is
what will happen in any insurgency.
But the fact of the attack is that Boko
Haram has been sufficiently
defeated. Boko Haram can no longer
take any territory away from us.

And if you look at the context, about
a year ago, Boko Haram had
complete control of 20 out of 37 local
governments in Borno state.

There were about six local
governments in Yobe and about four
in Adamawa. If today, Boko Haram
is operating from one or two local
governments in the entire country, I
think the military has largely
succeeded in wiping out Boko
Haram.”

Lai argued that isolated bomb attacks
on soft targets should not be
confused with insurgency, saying
such soft attacks will be very hard to
eliminate.

“It is possible for insurgents to lay
ambush on the road; it does not
mean they are in control of that local
government.

“We are not saying we are going to
eliminate ambush or attacks
overnight; it is never done in any
insurgency. But what we are saying
is that given the fact that just less
than a year ago the entire north-east
was almost in their complete control,
and today they don’t have that kind
of command, I think it is only one or
two local governments in which they
have way at all; and even with what
the army have done in the last
couple of months, we are very
hopeful that before the end of the
year a lot of progress would have
been met. The media also needs to
play its role now and that is also
reporting equally the progress
reports.”