A Cameroonian soldier walks in front of former Nigerian hostages held by Boko Haram, who were freed by the Cameroonian military in Maroua, Cameroon, in this still image taken on December 5 from video footage.  Right: Buhari: We do not expect a 100% stoppage of the
insurgency.

AFP/Kano

Military operations against Boko Haram could be extended, Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari indicated yesterday, as a government deadline approaches for the end to conflict.
Buhari in August gave his military commanders until the end of the year to stop the insurgency but with just weeks left there has been no let-up in violence in Nigeria and neighbouring countries.
In a message sent to army top brass meeting in the northern state of Jigawa, and read out by chief of defence staff General Abayomi Olonisakin, the head of state said the self-imposed December 31 deadline was only “a guide”.
It read: “Let me emphasise that the timeframe should serve as a guide and if exigency of multiple operations across the country advises a modification, the federal government will not hesitate to do so in order to address new flashpoints that are rearing their ugly heads in some parts of the country.”
The statement will likely be seized upon by Buhari’s opponents as backpedalling, with suicide and bomb attacks still prevalent in the northeast.
Last month, even senior military, security and intelligence figures, from the research and advisory body the Centre for Crisis Communication, said the deadline was “unrealistic”.
Security analysts say that the military counter-insurgency has been effective in pushing the Islamists out of captured territory and reducing the group’s capability to attack.
But there have still been sporadic deadly raids in the region, as well as attacks in northern Cameroon, southeastern Niger and on the Chadian side of Lake Chad, where all four countries meet.
On Saturday, at least 27 people were killed and more than 80 wounded when three suicide bombers struck on an island on Lake Chad.
Buhari, a retired army general and former military ruler, told AFP in an interview in September he expected an end to “the main conventional attacks” by the deadline.
“What may not absolutely stop is the occasional bombings by the use of improvised explosive devices. We do not expect a 100% stoppage of the insurgency,” he added.
“I think it’s pretty impossible for them to meet the deadline,” said security analyst Fulan Nasrullah, who tracks the conflict. “Boko Haram is still in control of Borno North senatorial district.
“There are still attacks occurring in Chibok, Buratai, Gwoza (in Borno state) and Buni Yadi (in Yobe), as well as in the Gulak region of northern Adamawa.”
Nigeria’s army is still trumpeting its successes, however, and at the weekend announced the arrest of about a dozen suspects it said were part of Boko Haram “sleeper cells” in the capital, Abuja.
It also said it had again begun operations against Boko Haram bases “deep inside” the Sambisa Forest in Borno, despite indications fighters have now moved to islands on Lake Chad.
Imposing a deadline in the first place took many observers by surprise.
Buhari had consistently vowed to approach the conflict differently from his predecessors.
The previous administration under Goodluck Jonathan made repeated pledges of a swift end to the conflict, all of which came and went, hitting military and government credibility.
Buhari promised to restructure the military, which was hit by complaints that money and weapons were not reaching frontline troops despite massive government defence spending.
Yet apart from redeploying the high command to the Borno state capital, Maiduguri, and a claimed upsurge in the morale of troops, there have been few signs of an immediate overhaul.
Since announcing the deadline, Buhari has been more cautious.
For Ryan Cummings, chief Africa analyst at the Red24 risk consultancy, an artificial deadline was “worthless” given the regional nature of the conflict.
Boko Haram’s expansion into neighbouring Chad, Cameroon and Niger, underlined the need for multilateral rather than unilateral action and greater co-ordination, he said.
“There are many dynamics at play which makes it very difficult to assess when the insurgency will be truly be ended,” he said. “But an imminent end to the Boko Haram crisis seems a very unlikely development at this stage.”
Nasrullah said Nigeria’s military was still focusing on defeating Boko Haram as a conventional fighting force and little, if anything, had been done to tackle the insurgency’s root causes.
“The Nigerian military is not in any way prepared to fight the kind of war that’s being fought. Boko Haram see it as a religious ideology. Physical combat is just one facet of the whole war.”
A co-ordinated, regional approach to ending the insurgency still looks far off, even after an increasing wave of suicide and bomb attacks outside Nigeria.
At least 17,000 have been killed since the conflict began in 2009 and some 1,500 in Nigeria since Buhari took office in May, according to an AFP tally.
A new 8,700-strong Multi-national Joint Task Force (MNJTF) comprising troops from Nigeria, Niger, Chad, Cameroon and Benin was supposed to have been deployed in late July.
But the African Union-backed force has yet to start operations, with no reason given for the lengthening delay and questions over whether the countries have the resources to commit.
Boko Haram, pushed out of northeast Nigeria, also poses a potential international threat, after its leader Abubakar Shekau pledged allegiance to the Islamic State jihadist group in March.
Nnamdi Obasi, senior Nigeria researcher at the International Crisis Group, said the lull in attacks since late October lends weight to Nigerian military claims the militants were in disarray.
He agreed attacks would likely continue into 2016, widening a climate of fear both in the places affected and further afield and handing ammunition to Buhari’s political opponents.
“It appears that he is repeating the mistakes made by the Goodluck Jonathan regime ... by making promises that he can’t keep and being conspicuously silent, some may even say indifferent, to the acts of mass violence Boko Haram continues to perpetrate within Nigeria’s borders,” he added.