President Muhammadu Buhari has told the BBC that Nigeria has “technically” won the war against Boko Haram though suicide bombers remain a threat.
In the remarks, President Buhari reassured Nigerians that the jihadists now were unable to mount effective “conventional attacks” in the country’s volatile north.
“Boko Haram has reverted to using improvised explosive devices (IEDs),” he said in an interview posted by the BBC on Thursday.
“So I think technically we have won the war because people are going back into their neighbourhoods.”
Buhari had set a December deadline for the military to defeat the militants, vowing to invest in education to deter dissatisfied youth from becoming radical.
In contrast with his predecessor, Goodluck Jonathan, Buhari has been able to win back territory from Boko Haram and the country has seen a decrease in the number of deadly raids that decimated towns and villages.
But the jihadists in response have increasingly resorted to suicide bombers — many of them young children — to wage war for an independent Islamic state in the country.
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