Why Nigerian military hasn’t wiped out Boko Haram for 16 years – CDS, Musa

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General Christopher Musa, the Chief of Defence Staff, has provided an explanation for the prolonged duration of the war against the terrorist organization Boko Haram.

In 2011, the organization advanced to include suicide bombings of police headquarters and the United Nations office in Abuja, after starting with sophisticated strikes against soft targets.

In early 2012, the government declared a state of emergency, which was later expanded to include the whole northeast region of Nigeria the following year.

In addition to the tens of thousands of innocent people who have been killed in the area, the fighting has caused the displacement of over 2.3 million people since May 2013.

The Chief of Defense Staff brought attention to problems that could have contributed to the military’s protracted conflict with the militants during his appearance on Channels Television’s Politics Today show on Friday.

“This Boko Haram thing is a lot. Then I tell you this, for them to have survived for 16 years and are still fighting, how are they getting their funding? Who’s sustaining them? Because they cannot just be doing it actively just like that.

“What I tell people is- no country should allow this kind of thing to commence. It is a difficult operation to eradicate, extremely difficult.

“Because before now, when we had the conventional kind of warfare, you are fighting a country. You know you’re fighting for territory. You want to achieve something.

“Now you are fighting with people that have nothing to lose. It is an ideology they have in their minds. They believe they are right and you are wrong. He believes if he kills you, he’s getting a blessing. If you kill him, he’s going to heaven. That’s absolutely nothing to lose.

“That makes it very, very difficult, and it’s not written on their foreheads. So, how do you identify who is who?

“And they’ve realized that we obey international laws, they don’t. So what do they do? They use human shields. Anytime they have anything, they go with people, so that you cannot attack them, you cannot shoot, and that’s what makes it so.

“When people say, why is it taking so long? It is a very, very difficult operation to do, because you make the mistake, you kill some people, and your country comes after you. If you don’t kill them [the terrorists], and they continue striving. So, in both ways, you are at the receiving end.

“Because you are wearing a uniform, you can be identified. You are, by law, constitutionally held down on certain things that you must obey. So those are the issues we are facing.

“You know, like I told you, if it was conventional warfare with the equipment, armaments we have now, we’ll go to a community and flatten the entire community where they live. We’ll end this in the very short term, but you can’t do that anymore.”

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