You will be surprised by Nigerian reactions on Buhari and Boko Haram

The opinions of Nigerians were divided on May 29, 2015, when during his inaugural speech President Muhammadu Buhari ordered that the Nigerian Military Central Command be relocated to Maiduguri, the Borno state capital, to deepen the fight against the Boko Haram terrorist group which had killed thousands and rendered thousands homeless in Nigeria’s northeast.

Many Nigerians, like Balarabe Musa, the former governor of the old Kaduna state, who had argued against the president’s first executive decision, were of the view that funding the military and purging it of corruption were more pressing at the time than relocation of command, while others like Olusegun Oshinowo, the director general of the Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association (NECA), were of the view that President Buhari, being a veteran soldier himself, knew the best option under such circumstances.

The president stated in his speech: “It will require careful management to bring it round and to tackle the immediate challenges confronting us, namely, Boko Haram, the Niger Delta situation, the power shortages and unemployment, especially among young people. The most immediate is Boko Haram insurgency.

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“Progress has been made in recent weeks by our security forces but victory cannot be achieved by basing the Command and Control Centre in Abuja. The Command Centre will be relocated to Maiduguri and remain there until Boko Haram is completely subdued. We cannot claim to have defeated Boko Haram without rescuing the Chibok girls and all other innocent persons held hostage by insurgents.”

Given the attacking prowess of the terror group before President Buhari assumed office on May 29 last year, security experts who spoke with NAIJ.com unanimously praised the president for his achievements so far against the northern insurgents, expressing optimism that before his tenure expires in 2019 the insurgents will have been defeated.

Chris Otulana, the former director of the Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI), told NAIJ.com in an interview that President Buhari’s success against the group is obvious even to opposition politicians who put the national interest ahead of party politics.

“Nigerians know how fierce the group was when the current president took over. But within a year in the life of this administration, Boko Haram has been weakened and incapacitated to a large extent. They are no longer able to carry out the kind of attacks they are known for. President Buhari has really been diligent in his fight against this group.

“The president has done extremely well in his one year in office as far as Boko Haram threat is concern. With the way the fight is going right now, before he leaves office in 2019 the insurgents would have been finally decimated,” he said.

According to him, even when divergent views were expressed by Nigerians when the president ordered that the Central Command be relocated to Maiduguri in his first executive order, it became obvious to many that the president was also embarrassed by the incessant bombings and was eager to tackle them headlong.

He noted that Nigerians in general and the APC in particular must not also fail to acknowledge the efforts of Goodluck Jonathan, the immediate past president, in the fight against the Boko Haram insurgents, recalling that his administration purchased the weapons the military are using in battle.

“This government has not purchase any weapon, not that I know of. The president only signed the 2016 budget into law recently. What this means is that the weapons currently used to engage Boko Haram was purchased by Goodluck Jonathan’s government.

“To a large extent, he contributed to where we are in this fight. Even when the Americans refused to sell arms to Nigeria the former president had to find a way to buy from the black market,” he said.

Also speaking with NAIJ.com, Chinedu Okoli, a Lagos-based security expert, said the significance to President Buhari of winning the war against the insurgency was seen in both his first executive order and his maiden trip outside the country within a week of his inauguration.

“No doubt his first trip outside Nigeria mirrors the depth of his concern for the problem which Boko Haram has constituted in the past few years and which also intensified after his assumption.

“President Buhari’s trip to Niger and Chad, two of the countries worst hit by the Boko Haram insurgency, showed that he understands the regional dimension that the insurgency has assumed, and that for any effort by Nigeria to yield positive results, it must seek the cooperation of its neighbours,” Okoli said.

He explained that it is common knowledge that Boko Haram’s tentacles have spread as far as Mali, the home base of the Movement for the Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), a splinter group of the Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, and that it is also not a secret that the group has affiliated itself to the Islamic State, seeing itself as the West African chapter of the Middle East terror group.

He also recalled that President Buhari in February this year received a solidarity message from Obiang Mbasogo, the president of Equatorial Guinea, on the need to organise a joint meeting between the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) with a view to coordinating their responses to the threat of terrorism in the Lake Chad Basin area.

“You recall the president’s first assignment immediately he assumed office was to seek cooperation from neighbouring countries and the international community against Boko Haram which has now resulted in the current result. Nigeria would not have been able to deal decisively and effectively with Boko Haram without seeking the assistance of other concerned countries.”

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However, Okali noted that the idea of seeking the help of other countries in the region against Boko Haram is not an innovation of the Buhari-led administration, and recalled that Goodluck Jonathan had visited these countries at least twice for the same purpose.

“This initiative led to a conference of leaders of Nigeria and other French-speaking countries in the region hosted by France in Paris in the heat of the country’s ordeal in the jaws of Boko Haram in 2014.

“The countries promised him as they did to Buhari of their willingness to help. But not all of them kept that promise to the letter. But we must commend President Buhari for the pride of place which he has promised to give to the war against Boko Haram and which his initiatives have amply demonstrated,” he said.  

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