French President Francois Hollande said despite “impressive” military gains against Boko Haram since a security summit in Paris two years ago, the group remained a threat because of its links to the self-proclaimed “Islamic State” and no-one should drop their guard.
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Cameroon’s Paul Biya (2ndL), French Francois Hollande (4thL), Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari (5thL), Benin’s Patrice Talon (6thL) and Chad’s President Idriss Deby in Abuja, Nigeria, May 14, 2016.
Mr Buhari said progress had been made, as Boko Haram was “now. not holding” any local government districts in north-eastern Nigeria.
Though militants have since expanded their reach in neighbouring countries, most recently Cameroon, coordination between Nigeria and its Francophone neighbours has improved dramatically on his watch, as evidenced by the comments of West Africa leaders and their Western partners on Saturday, all of whom stressed that working together in the fight to end Boko Haram’s threat was in their common interests.
The United Nations reports that Boko Haram’s six-year insurgency has killed more than 25 000 people and displaced more than 2.5 million.
Hammond, on arrival at the event, was quoted as saying, “President (Muhammadu) Buhari has shown strong leadership in the global fight against Boko Haram, a brutal organisation that has raped, murdered and kidnapped innocent civilians, forcing over two million people to flee their homes”.
Deputy US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said Washington, which is flying surveillance drones over northeast Nigeria from a base in northern Cameroon, did not see Boko Haram as defeated.
Martin Ewi, an analyst at the Institute for Security Studies, told Al Jazeera that Boko Haram is hard to engage with the more remote areas of Nigeria.
Since President Buhari’s inauguration on May 29, 2015 the Nigerian army has received a lot of success against the deadly Boko Haram sect.
“It is this cohesion, this solidarity, this strategy which has enabled the success we are witnessing”, he said.
The UN Security Council has expressed alarm at ties between the Islamic extremist group Boko Haram and Isis – while a security summit is taking place in Nigeria to discuss efforts to combat the extremists.
Among them are the recovery of territories occupied by boko haram; establishment of unitsby Nigeria, Niger and Chadto prosecutewar on terror;strengthening of the regionalcoalitionand establishment of the Regional Intelligence Sharing Unit in Abuja among other achievements.
The minister says five leaders of the terrorist group, including the traditional leader of Kumshe and emir of the terrorist group, were arrested along side dozens of their supporters.
Boko Haram’s shadowy leader Abubakar Shekau pledged allegiance to his ISIS counterpart Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi past year.
The new, regional Multi-National Joint Task Force (MNJTF), which has African Union backing and is based in Chad’s capital N’Djamena under a Nigerian general, was supposed to have deployed last July.
At least there a thousand Nigerians including women and men, who have taken it upon themselves to assist the military and other security agencies in the counter-insurgency operations in the North-east.
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He said police in areas “liberated” from Boko Haram must secure, stabilize those zones and address grievances which may have helped fuel the crisis.
