Adamu Muazu, the chairman of PDP, has also insinuated that joys over significant milestones in national affairs recorded by the administration are always dampened by attacks of the insurgent group which usually follow. This was in the belief that Boko Haram attacks were politically motivated to take the shine off achievements of the Jonathan administration .

The narrative is part of the larger persecution complex that Boko Haram is a manifestation of the threat by politicians, especially of Islamic and northern Nigeria extraction, just before the 2011 general elections, to make the country ungovernable for President Jonathan if he was elected into office. The claim is that the insurgency is northern Nigeria’s response to loss of power to southern Nigeria.

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It was also claimed that the war against terrorism has dragged on because opposition leaders are deliberating sabotaging efforts to end it by not cooperating with the federal government to build a non-partisan coalition against the insurgents. Such claims have been countered by the fact that Boko Haram started before the election of President Jonathan into office. Moreover, it has been argued that even if there was a political side to Boko Haram, the current insurgency the country is experiencing has since gone past the stage of politics. “If Boko Haram was able to get their hands on Buhari who is the leading presidential aspirant today, they will kill him. Remember, they have also tried to kill him before. Even, Atiku had to join other leaders of Adamawa State to organise hunters to support the military to drive out the insurgents from Mubi. If he is a benefactor of the insurgents, would he do that?” queried a source last week.

While revealing his intention to sue Stephen Davis for linking him with the terrorist organisation, Ali Modu Sheriff said the allegations are the handiwork of mischief makers, especially in the APC which he recently left. He also questioned the identity of the Australian negotiator, wondering why the negotiator remains faceless till date and refused to submit his report to the government that reportedly appointed him. “I have instructed my lawyers to find and sue the faceless Australian,” he affirmed. Sheriff also told journalists that he met Mohammed Yussuf, the leader of the Boko Haram sect, after he had been arrested by the army, while dis- sociating himself from ECOMOG, a militia group said to have been part of organisations that evolved into Boko Haram. Moreover, such narratives neglect the fact that Modu Sheriff, former governor of Borno State, appointed Alhaji Buji Foi, a Boko Haram leader, as the commissioner for Religions Affairs in the state.

Foi resigned from the Sheriff government before joining the Boko Haram sect. The sophistication of recent attacks by Boko Haram also dispute the perception of the sect’s fighters as being a rag-tag army. It has been established, for instance, that the group now has working for it former rebels from Mali and Libya, among other places. Even the way the insurgents were able to put men of the Nigerian Army on the run is an indication of their increasing sophistication. Also, the insurgents are in possession of better weaponry than the men of the Nigerian Army, as has been shown during recent confrontations. This fact, analysts said, implied that the Army must stop the claims that it cannot kill the insurgents because it is not fighting a conventional war. The Army, according to analysts, must now know that it is fighting a full scale war with Boko Haram and must go out in full force against the insurgents.