With Better Drones, Boko Haram’s Bounce Back Threatens Africa’s Largest Democracy
The Oasis Reporters
September 17, 2017
A potentially rich Nigeria, yet deeply enmeshed in unfathomable poverty, struggling with deep seated fault lines and a lack of coercion, the troubling news from The New York Times that
“after a decade of devastating war with Boko Haram extremists, they are now better armed than ever and have more sophisticated drones than the demoralized Nigerian military”, is certainly no cause for cheer. Not even the deceptive propaganda the nation was fed with about Boko Haram being largely degraded can put cheer on the face of the people.
Quoting further from the September 13, 2019 in the New York Times, it says “Nigeria’s war against the Islamist extremist group Boko Haram was supposed to be over by now. President Muhammadu Buhari, a former military ruler, was re-elected earlier this year after boasting about his progress battling Boko Haram. He has repeatedly declared that the group has been “technically defeated.” On Tuesday, the president conceded that “its members are still a nuisance.”
A full decade into the war, however, Boko Haram militants are still roaming the countryside with impunity. Their fighters now have more sophisticated drones than the military and are well-armed after successful raids on military brigades, according to local politicians and security analysts.
Militants control four of the 10 zones in northern Borno State, near Lake Chad, according to security analysts and a federal official. They are pulling off almost-daily attacks, including opening fire last week on the convoy of the governor of Borno State. To people in villages like Konduga, Boko Haram’s defeat seems distant. The attack on June 17 that wounded Abdul and his friends (his last name is being withheld to protect him from reprisals) also killed 30 people — eight of them children.
By many accounts, the Nigerian military is demoralized and on the defensive. Some soldiers have complained they haven’t had a home leave in three years. Their weapons and vehicles have fallen into disrepair. In August, the new commander of Operation Lafiya Dole, which means “Peace by Force,” publicly reminded his field officers to give food and water to troops. He is the eighth commander in 10 years.
The military announced in August that it is pulling back its troops from far-flung outposts in the countryside and gathering them into fortified settlements it calls “super camps.” The super camps are inside of garrison towns where the Nigerian military in recent years settled tens of thousands of civilians — either after Boko Haram chased them away, or soldiers burned their villages and rounded them up, saying it would secure the countryside. The garrison towns are ringed by trenches to slow militant invasions, but the pullback has allowed Boko Haram fighters free rein in the barren countryside.”
Giving Boko Haram fighters free rein in the barren countryside can only mean that the food growing population of the North East of Nigeria has been further driven into abject penury, starvation and slow death, as no food aid would ever be large enough for a region where it is common to marry many wives and have a large number of children per family, with the children further driven into the society without education, skills or hope for tomorrow.
The only appeal to them, would then be to cross over to the side of the insurgents and further torment their uncaring society.
To explain further, the depressing outlook of the region The New York Times says, “The war with Boko Haram has devastated the population in rural northeast Nigeria, one of the poorest regions on earth. More than two million people have fled their homes, tens of thousands have been killed and many more injured, abducted and conscripted to join the fight. The International Committee of the Red Cross said this week that nearly 22,000 Nigerians have been reported missing during the crisis.”
Only a few years ago, the situation looked more hopeful. In 2015, after President Buhari was first elected, the Nigerian military made huge headway beating back Boko Haram. They ousted fighters from Maiduguri, the state capital, and from small cities that Boko Haram had taken over, tracking them to their forest hide-outs”.
The big question is, can the army regain the initiative again as they did in 2015 ?
The answer is in the air. But it seems, yes they can, but at a huge cost to other sectors, which will of course draw resentment that may spin off other challenges.
And here are some of the excrutiating challenges, as enumerated by the newspaper, “But in recent years, as the war has dragged on, Nigeria’s attention has been diverted by security problems elsewhere: gang wars and extremists in Zamfara, a northwestern region; gruesome battles over land rights in the center of the country; extrajudicial murders by police; kidnappings for ransom across the nation. President Buhari announced plans to airlift Nigerian citizens out of South Africa, where Nigerians were attacked in a spate of xenophobic violence.
Military commanders, faced with complaints that their strategy is old and ineffectual, say that the super camps are a new, more effective way of dealing with an insurgency that is now able to pull off more complicated attacks against the military.
But some officials call the super camps an outright retreat. One federal official, who asked not to be identified out of fear that criticizing the military would jeopardize his safety, said that soldiers were merely barricading themselves inside super camps. The official said that Boko Haram fighters are raiding the gear the soldiers are leaving behind as they abandon their posts for the super camps.
Corruption may also be prolonging the war, according to some government officials, security analysts and aid workers. In northeast Nigeria, Boko Haram has long been accused of profiting from illegal fishing along Lake Chad, where all fishing is outlawed, and from taxing passing vehicles. Now, the military is being accused of doing the same.
The government allocates the equivalent of nearly $80 million dollars each quarter to the war effort, and yet Nigerian soldiers lack ample ammunition and medical care — leaving many residents to ask where all the money is going. Earlier this year in Rann, where there is no lighting after sundown, disgruntled soldiers without night vision gear abandoned their posts, according to several aid workers”.
It is obvious that multi dimensional angles have to be brought to bear on the war effort. All hands have to be on deck, right from the security top shots who fought boko haram while Jonathan was still in power. Their input is needed, including that of Col. Sambo Dasuki, former National Security Adviser. This is time to heal wounds and build bridges.
Most importantly, the disengaged South African Mercenaries ought to be re-engaged if possible,as a morale booster to the troops.
The issue of advanced weaponry is also of paramount importance.
Constant and continuous education in the super camps must be enforced, to thwart any condition that may lead to an outbreak of epidemic. After all, that region as well as the North West are notable for unsanitary conditions like open defecation and large breed of flies.
Additional Source: The New York Times
