Nigeria’s information minister on Tuesday insisted that Boko Haram was “largely defeated” despite two days of bombings blamed on the jihadist group that left dozens dead in the volatile northeast.
Alhaji Lai Mohammed maintained the Nigerian government had greatly reduced the group’s capacity to attack. The Nigerian military has a December deadline to destroy Boko Haram insurgency. The deadline expires in a few days.
“Boko Haram has been largely defeated. They (Boko Haram) know they are on their way out,” Mohammed told journalists in Lagos.
“They lack the capacity to launch horrendous attacks they used to do in the past. We have succeeded in dislodging them,” he said.
“Our problem now is how to resettle the internally displaced people.”
In the final days before his self-imposed deadline to stamp out the group on December 31 expires, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari said that Boko Haram was “technically” defeated.
But in a show of defiance, Boko Haram attacked Maiduguri and Madagali and raided some villages near the border with Cameroon, calling into question Buhari’s claim that the militants weren’t capable of “conventional” attacks.
On Sunday evening, there was a spate of suicide bombings in the key city of Maiduguri, killing 21 people and injuring scores of others. On Monday, suicide bombers killed scores of people at a Maiduguri mosque.
In the neighbouring state of Adamawa, at least 17 people were killed and many injured Monday morning after two young women detonated explosives in a crowded motor park, also serving as a market.
Over 17,000 people have been killed in Boko Haram’s six-year quest to create an independent Islamic state in Nigeria.