Boko Haram: Go to war zone to verify, Lai tells critics

Piqued by the wave of criticism that has come his way over his assertion that the Boko Haram insurgents have been largely defeated and the December 31 deadline issued to the military by President Muhammadu Buhari has been met, the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, Wednesday, challenged his critics to take a trip to the theatre of war to verify things for themselves.

The minister also insisted that the military has largely met the deadline despite the recent attacks by the terrorists.

The minister, who asked the critics to take a trip to Borno and report their findings to Nigerians, said:
”The armchair critics who dispute these facts, from the comfort of their living rooms, are free to take a trip to the theatre of war to see things for themselves. Perhaps then, they will be more circumspecting in issuing reckless statements that give nothing but succour to Boko Haram. I have gone to the theatre of war to see things for myself. I did not just stop in Maiduguri, I went all the way to Konduga, Kaure and Bama which, as I said, was once the headquarters of the Boko Haram Caliphate,” Alhaji Mohammed said.

Restating his earlier stand, Mohammed said: ”In a few days’ time, the deadline issued by President Muhammadu Buhari to the military to defeat Boko Haram will expire. Without equivocating, I will repeat what I said that has sparked a firestorm: Our gallant military has largely met the deadline! I make this assertion with all sense of responsibility and they are backed by facts.”

Mohammed stated this during a meeting with News and Political Editors in Lagos.

According to him, the military has massively degraded the capacity of the terrorists to carry out the kind of spectacular attacks they used to execute in the past, like the attacks on the police headquarters and the UN Complex, both in Abuja, adding that in the six months of the Buhari Administration, the Boko Haram that was in control of a territory larger than an entire geo-political zone in Nigeria ”has been reduced to a fleeing, bomb throwing, cowardly and disorganized army”.

”Among the areas where Boko Haram has been kicked out is Bama, which was the self-declared headquarters of their Caliphate. From there, they collected taxes, dispensed jungle justice, deposed and installed Emirs and hoisted their own flag. Today, the town is firmly in the hands of our troops.

”Not unexpectedly, the dying and desperate insurgents have carried out some attacks on soft targets in the North-east during this festive season. This is cowardly, dastardly and condemnable. We commiserate with the state governments and the families of those who died or were injured in the attacks which, as I said earlier, are like the death pangs of a dying horse.

”These attacks are part of the propaganda that has been launched by Boko Haram and their fellow terrorists, ISIS, to seek to remain relevant in the face of massive routing by our gallant troops, and to also discredit our committed and patriotic troops. But the attacks do not shake our resolve a bit, in our determined quest to rid our nation of terrorists and ensure the security of our citizens.

”The fact that Boko Haram has continued to carry out attacks on soft targets is not an indication that they still have capacity. As I have said many times, the attacks will not end with the expiration of the deadline, since insurgencies are not conventional warfares in which the guns could be silenced with an armistice. But I also said that the attacks will taper off with time, with better awareness among the citizenry and enhanced intelligence gathering by the security agencies,” the Minister said.

The minister also repeated his appeal to the media to stop glamorising Boko Haram with their reporting of the terrorists attacks, hailing newspapers he said have already taken it upon themselves to push Boko Haram off their front pages.

”I want to appeal to other newspapers to follow suit and cut off the oxygen supply to the comatose Boko Haram (by denying the terrorists the publicity they so much seek). This is purely an appeal, as we have no intention whatsoever to censor any media organization.”

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