It is difficult to ignore the narrative of Senator Baba Garbai (Borno Central) on the current state of the Boko Haram insurgency in Borno State. For one, he represents an important segment of the state’s senatorial districts which places him in a vantage position to monitor the facts on the ground and feelings of his constituents on the progress of the war.
For another, he recently visited that constituency to commiserate with and share relief materials to those displaced by the murderous attacks of the insurgents which left 85 people dead with thousands displaced. When in the course of that visit, he cried out that insurgents are still present in more than 20 local government areas of the state, it was difficult to dismiss him with a wave of the hand.
This is more so as he is not known to harbour any ulterior or political motive to have spoken the way he did. He must have spoken out of frustration due to the wide disparity between what he had previously been fed with and the stark realities on the ground.
But he shocked the nation when he claimed that only the three local government areas of Maiduguri metropolis, Kwaya Kusar and Bayo are safe from Boko Haram menace due to strong presence of the military and police; while three others- Mobbar, Kala Balge and Abaddam are 100 per cent held by the insurgents.
Apparently rattled by this, the Director of Defence Information Brig-Gen Rabe Abubakar and Borno State Governor, Kashim Shettima made spirited efforts to clarify the state of the war. Before then, President Buhari had in an interview with the BBC restated that Boko Haram insurgency has been “technically defeated”. He had also towards the end of last year, declared that Nigeria “has technically won the war” against Boko Haram.
When prodded further by the BBC on the claim given recent attacks on Dalori and others, he said: “My own description is that they can no longer mobilize enough forces to attack police and army barracks and destroy aircraft like they used to do. But they can regroup and go after soft targets”.
For Shettima, “in the past Boko Haram used to come in commando style to attack, seize and occupy communities and hold residents hostage and administer territories; that is occupation. We no longer have that in Borno”.
Abubakar on his part said “attacks on soft targets do not translate to occupation of territories or some parts of Borno state or the North-East”.
We shall examine the interpretations given by President Buhari, Shettima and Abubakar on progress in the war vis-à-vis what Garbai actually said. The senator’s view was that Boko Haram is still present in 20 local governments of Borno State. He mentioned the three local government areas that are in the full hands of the murderous sect. But Shettima and Abubakar want us to draw a line between Boko Haram seizing and occupying territories and Boko Haram attacking communities (soft targets). By their logic, the group no longer occupies communities, hold residents hostage and administer such territories. But they attack communities.
The key terms here are occupation, administration of territories and holding residents hostage. And we are being made to believe the absence of all these constitute both the necessary and sufficient conditions to declare the war against insurgency in the North-East won. That is where the problem lies.
Even if we admit this account of the story, how correct will it be to claim as the authorities have severally done that Boko Haram has been totally decimated? To what extent can we sustain the claim that the war has been technically won on account of these claims? Or, are those who attack communities without occupying and administering them as used to be the case; operating from the moon? Would it have been possible for a decimated rag-tag insurgent group to wreck the huge havoc that left Dalori and other communities, a former ghost of themselves if they do not occupy some space in that state?
If these posers do not sufficiently shed light on the inherent contradictions in the verdict that the war on Boko Haram has been won, or the claim that the sect does not occupy any territory in Borno, the statement by the Nigerian Army last week in which they catalogued the successes they made in the fight speaks for itself. They gave a detailed account of the various Boko Haram camps they cleared and hundreds of civilian hostages they freed. At the terrorists’ camp in Bulagana, troops rescued 40 civilians held hostage there while at another in Bubumri village they killed 25 terrorists, captured eight and freed 103 hostages among others. There would have been no hostages to free or camps to clear, if the sect does not occupy any territory. That is the contradiction that has been laid bare.
When you pair the above with the attacks the insurgents mounted in the last couple of weeks, the contention that they no longer occupy territories and therefore cannot mount serious attacks, breaks down irretrievably. So also is the conclusion that the war has been won since the assumptions on which it was premised, cannot stand empirical test.
As evident from the account of the army, Boko Haram still has camps and harbours hostages in the state. If they do not control parts of the state, they would not have been in a position to detain the hostages freed by the army. That is just commonsensical. Even then, administering territories; attacking military and police barracks and holding residents’ hostage is not all there is to the war.
The next issue copiously canvassed to support the alleged defeat is that they have been so decimated that they now take resort to attacking soft targets. By this, the impression is created that the so-called soft targets are of no serious consequence in the overall calculations of the war. Its corollary is that once it has come to attacking soft targets, then we can safely presume that the war has been largely or technically won.
This cannot also stand especially given that the so-called soft targets were the main objects of attack by the insurgents at the budding stages of their campaign. Churches and other places of worship bore the brunt. The objective was to create maximum impact and instill fear in the people and they succeeded. Attacks on soft targets cannot be consigned to the realm of insignificance in the overall assessment of the progress of the war. Ipso facto, that war cannot be said to have been won when soft targets are again under unrestrained assault.
Those who canvass this view seem to have lost sight of the reality that we are concerned with an asymmetrical warfare. Given the fact of the above, the argument that the war has been won because the insurgents are no longer in a position to attack police and military barracks or bring down aircrafts cannot fly. Of much concern in the overall assessment of the progress of the war is the relative ease with which the insurgents destroy, raze down, kill or abduct these soft targets.
Beyond this, the problem that has brought the government to this pass is the issue of deadline and the attempt to make political capital of the fight. Had they not been a hurry to set a tenuous deadline for such a non conventional war as terrorism, perhaps they would not have found themselves in the current position of speaking from both sides of the mouth.
For now, the advice of US Assistant Secretary, Bureau of African Affairs, Ms. Linda Thomas-Greenfield should suffice. She had while addressing US House of Representatives at the Capitol Visitor Center last week said “There are no overnight solutions. The challenge of defeating Boko Haram is going to require long term dedication to this effort”. I hope somebody is listening!
