Lt General Tukur Buratai

Nigeria’s chief of army staff, Lt. General Tukur Buratai has dismissed as mere noise making the claims in a new audio by Abubakar Shekau, the elusive Boko Haram leader.

Buratai described the audio as `another desperate move by the group to find relevance.’

He said the group no longer has the capacity to hold any ground or plan co-ordinated attack on strategic locations or key public facilities.

“I think the new Boko Haram leader, in the latest audio is just trying to sound relevant; but as far as I am concerned, he is irrelevant in the scheme of things, he is irrelevant to me.

“ Have you seen any of them coming out apart from the suicide bombings? You can see the number of terrorists that are escaping from their camps; he is just making noise to remain relevant,’’ he said.

On Sunday’s bomb blast in Maiduguri, the Army Chief urged residents of the area to remain calm as measures were being taken to forestall re-occurrence.

He said the bomb attack had provided clues of the remaining areas the insurgents were operating from in the state.

“Sunday’s bomb blast will be among those that will be the last, you can be counting them, it has opened up another window where we can now focus where these attacks are coming from.

“It will not be possible for them to penetrate other areas; for now we have knocked them off areas along from Yobe and some parts of Borno.

“Immediately this incident happened yesterday, I gave directive and we will comb that area thoroughly to identify where they are operating from,’’ he said.