As the country battles with the insurgency ravaging the North-Eastern part of the country, there have been optimism and as well as skepticism towards the present administration to halt the tide as promised. However, the Presidency has defended the efforts of the military to rout out the Boko Haram as ordered by President Muhammadu Buhari which has seen the group degraded and in splinter groups.
According to the Senior special assistant to the president on media and publicity, Malam Garba Shehu, he said that against the accusation that the Buhari-led government had not ended to insurgency quickly as promised during the electioneering campaigns, the once dreaded Sambisa Forest and the insurgents are currently being degraded. He stated further that the Chibok girls will be rescued as the once dreaded Sambisa Forest is under 24-hour surveillance by the military.
While speaking with select journalists in Abuja yesterday, he further said “There is so much going on and I can assure you that the spirit is very high. The Army Chief was there with the soldiers for about nine days. That is leadership because you see him leading the soldiers from the front. If the chief himself is there, who are you to drop your gun? A lot is happening and Boko Haram is being degraded; they have lost central command and are now in splinters.
“What you have now is bits and pieces carrying out distractive actions because they don’t want to go down alone. So, they are looking for very soft targets such as churches, mosques, markets. The Air force is clearing this place for the ground troops to move in. They are looking for bomb-making structures and moving convoys of these insurgents. But they are being careful about certain locations so as not to harm the Chibok girls if they are in those locations,” he said.
On the non-rescue of the Chibok schoolgirls since assumption of office of President Buhari, Shehu said government and security forces were working round the clock to ensure that the girls are rescued from their abductors, adding that the president did not make any specific promise of timeframe for the action.
“To be fair to President Buhari, did he ever say he will bring back the girls on the second day of his administration? What he has always said is that we don’t even know where the girls are and that we need to go in there and get the intelligence and situation of things and then act. Without meaning to endanger what is left of those girls, you know that the Sambisa Forest is being degraded right now.
“In the last few days, you even saw the Chief of Army Staff leading the troops and I am aware that, in the last few weeks, very interesting pictures have been shown to the president on the basis of which we will say to Nigerians, ‘don’t lose hope on the Chibok girls.’ I am not saying they have been found or that they have been seen but it is not yet time for Nigerians to say we have lost them,” Shehu added.
The presidential spokesman noted that Sambisa Forest is now under 24-hour observation in order to detect movement of persons from one point to the other, adding that if there is any suspicious movement, there are drones and unmanned aircraft that fly around the forest day and night.
While reacting to the three-month deadline given by President Buhari for the military to end Boko Haram terrorism in the country, Shehu said: “From my conversation with these commanders, what they are saying to themselves is that they are not going to wait for three months, but do their best to beat the target given by the President.
“So, there is so much going on and I can assure you that the spirit is very high. The Army Chief was there with the soldiers for about nine days. That is leadership, because you see him leading the soldiers from the front. If the chief himself is there, who are you to drop your gun? A lot is happening and Boko Haram has been degraded, they have lost central command and are now in splinters.
“What you have now is bits and pieces carrying out distractive actions because they don’t want to go down alone. So, they are looking for very soft targets such as churches, mosques, markets. The Air Force is clearing this place for the ground troops to move in. They are looking for bomb making structures and moving convoy of these insurgents.
“But they are being careful about certain locations with the hope not to harm these Chibok girls that are in those locations.”
Based such assurances and the resolve of the nation’s military, Shehu also said that the days of the sect members are indeed numbered, as they would be totally annihilated soon.
The Presidency’s assurance is coming days after about 30 traders were reportedly killed and several others critically injured on Friday afternoon, when a suicide bomber attacked a weekly market at Linmakara village in Gwoza Local Government Area of Borno.
According to a local vigilante in the village who spoke to journalists on phone, ‘’a middle aged man pretended to push a cart and exploded it at centre of the market at noon while trading was going on.”
“We are having network problems in this part of the state; so it has become impossible for us to connect with the rest of world,” he added.
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