THE GROWING RESURGENCE OF BOKO HARAM

Security agencies could do more to contain the increasing violence

If any proof was ever needed that the war against Boko Haram is far from being over, it is in the fact that daily, Nigerians are now witnessing consistent and intensifying enemy action in the main theatre of conflict, the Northeast. Last weekend, dozens of people, including a soldier and wedding guests and mourners at funerals were killed, and scores of others were wounded when four suicide bombers launched attacks at different spots in Gwoza and Pulka towns in Gwoza local government area of Borno State. With reports of influx of terrorists linked to Al-Qaeda from neighbouring countries, Boko Haram insurgents appear to be regaining capacity for regular combat as accounts of both the military and civil authorities reveal.

Indeed, the spate of fatal attacks in the thick of battle, the series of brazen and suicide attacks and gruesome killings by the militant group in recent weeks have shown that the insurgents are still very much in business. “In my presence, at about exactly 3pm, the first bomb in Gwoza was detonated by a female suicide bomber during a marriage ceremony. It affected more than 30 persons with various levels of injuries and instant death,” said the Director General of the State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA), Barkindo Saidu. “Some minutes later, another blast occurred around General Hospital. Again, at the funeral services (Janaiza), another lady rushed into the congregation and detonated another bomb with a lot of casualties.”

President Bola Tinubu has reassured Nigerians that the federal government was taking concrete steps to stamp out suicide bombing. He said the “cowardly attacks” were an isolated episode vowing that his government “will not allow the nation to slither into an era of fear, tears, sorrow, and blood.” But what recent incidents indicate is that Boko Haram still has active guerrilla cells and staging posts in the Northeast from where they launch these attacks. The authorities must therefore admit that the insurgents have returned fully to the asymmetrical warfare that was once their hallmark. The military pressure has made them to shift tactics to what is now a hit-and-run approach. But the increasing spate of suicide attacks is stoking unease in many communities and indeed hampering the return of some of the two million internally displaced persons living in the poorest of conditions in camps.

For sure, military authorities have whittled down the striking powers of the violent insurgent group that has, over the years, been responsible for the death of thousands of innocent Nigerians. The military has recaptured much of the territory Boko Haram once controlled and the insurgents no longer operate as freely as they used to. Yet, the brutal militant group cannot be said to have been defeated. Indeed, the group still poses a grave danger and has been inflicting mortal wounds on members of the armed forces as well as civilians.

In as much as we appreciate the efforts of the government in containing the Boko Haram menace, Nigerians are also getting frustrated with empty rhetoric about degrading their capacity to inflict harm on the people. In these circumstances, we think the federal government needs to reappraise its strategies and rise to the occasion as we can no longer continue to lose innocent lives and valuable property to these senseless terrorist activities. In the past, this newspaper had highlighted the need for the federal government to beef up its intelligence gathering architecture and restructure it to meet the demands of the asymmetric warfare that the country has on its hands. We are still standing with it.