New's > We’ve Technically Defeated Boko Haram – PMB

Yesterday declared that Nigeria has “technically won the war” against Boko Haram.
According to him, Boko Haram insurgents have been sent away from Yobe and Adamawa states and now remain a force in their heartland of Borno State.
LEADERSHIP Friday recalls that the minister of information, Lai Mohammed, on Wednesday said the war against Boko Haram has been largely won, adding that the Nigerian Army has degraded the capacity of Boko Haram to get hold of any territory or launch spectacular attacks.
Corroborating the minister’s statement, Buhari told the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) that the militant group could no longer mount “conventional attacks” against security forces or population centres.
“It has been reduced to fighting with improvised explosive devices (IED) and remains a force only in its heartland of Borno State”, he said.
Boko Haram has been described as one of the world’s deadliest terror groups.
Critics of the government argue that it has exaggerated the scale of its success against the militants, and that each time the army claims to have wiped out Boko Haram, the militants have quietly rebuilt.
The group’s six-year insurgency in North-eastern Nigeria has led to the death of some 17,000 people, destroyed more than 1,000 schools and displaced more than 1.5million people.
The president said that the key to the defeat of Boko Haram is reorganising, retraining and reequipping the army.
The insurgency has kept about one million children out of school in Nigeria, particularly in the three neighbouring states, the UN children’s agency said earlier this week.
Buhari has given the army until the end of this year to defeat the group – a deadline that is likely to be extended as Boko Haram is still bombing some areas despite losing towns under its control.
But he told the BBC that the jihadists had been driven out of Adamawa and Yobe states, and their operations curtailed.