The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said on<\/p>\n
Wednesday that the Nigerian military had met the December deadline to
\ndefeat the Boko Haram terrorists.<\/p>\n
The minister said this during his maiden meeting with editorial heads of
\nmedia houses in Lagos. President Mohammadu Buhari had, upon assuming
\noffice, issued a December 31 deadline to the military to defeat the Boko
\nHaram terrorists.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday, I can report that the war against Boko Haram is largely won. \u201cI
\ncan confidently say this because just recently, I led a group of 33
\njournalists from both the local and international media to the hot bed of
\nthe insurgency, that is, Maiduguri, Kondugua, Kaoure and Bama.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday, I can report to you that the entire 70 plus kilometres stretch
\nfrom Maiduguri to Bama and all the way to Banki which leads to Cameroun
\nand the Central African Republic are in the hands of our gallant troops.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said the military presence could be felt \u201devery few metres along the
\nroad; at a point along that road we were just a kilometre to Sambisa
\nforest. \u201cThey have so degraded the capacity of Boko Haram that the
\nterrorists can no longer hold on to any territory just as they can no
\nlonger carry out any spectacular attack.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mohammed, however, said that though there were still cases of suicide
\nbombings, it was pertinent to note that such was the nature if insurgency
\nglobally. \u201cUnlike a war between two armies, an insurgency never ends with
\narms victory \u201cEven in countries like Colombia where insurgency was
\nsupposed to have ended decades ago, attacks like this still happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said that the insurgents had adopted a new style of attacking soft
\ntargets like motor parks, schools, entertainment centres, religious
\ncentres, killing innocent people mostly women and children. He, therefore,
\nurged Nigerians to support the military in the fight against terrorism in
\nthe country, saying that the military had availed itself creditably.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is our turn as civilians to give them our support; to realise that the
\nwar they are fighting is not their war alone, but our war, hence we must
\nown the war.\u201d The minister disclosed that a national security campaign had
\ncommenced to raise awareness among Nigerians about the war, the sacrifices
\nof our troops, and how to stamp out the remnant of the war.<\/p>\n
\u201cJingles are being played on national radio and television as part of the
\ncampaign in order to keep the media better informed about the war, so that
\nthey can also better inform Nigerians,\u2019\u2019 he said. Mohammed also said that
\nan ad-hoc committee, comprising media representatives as well as
\nintelligence agencies, would be inaugurated to regularly be updated about
\nthe war in order to better inform the public.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said on Wednesday that the Nigerian military had met the December deadline to defeat the Boko Haram terrorists. The minister said…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37801,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exclusive"],"yoast_head":"\n