Sounds and Echoes of Victory from the North- East

By Lawrence Audu 

“Buratai is killing us, yet he calls himself a Muslim, he will be judged by Allah”

Factional leader of the  Jama’atu Ahl al-Sunnah lil-Dawa wal-Jihad, otherwise known as Boko Haram, Imam Abubakar Shekau, was reported to have made the above statement during the week when the Chief of Army Staff, Lt. General Tukur Yusuf Buratai, moved to the North- east, Nigeria, to lead the war against insurgency and terrorism.
The chief of army staff on arrival in Borno State, decided to do some military drills as a prelude to the final onslaught against the terrorists when Shekau let out the scream and cry of intended surrender.

This is in total contrast to the image of Shekau who had in the past surpassed himself with various propaganda video clips where he would pose in military fatigues in between two of his body guards, wielding a loaded machine gun, pour invectives on those in authority, issued countless warning and round up with threats before firing his weapon repeatedly in the air.

The last verified video outing of Shekau has shown him to be more circumspect, less arrogant and almost pleading on behalf of the members of his group.
This did not come as a surprise as the tables have turned. The Chief of Army Staff who in the past had preferred to prosecute the war on terrorism quietly, is the one sending messages to the camps of the terrorists and making it clear to them that their days are up and has decided to match his words with action.

Buratai had in the beginning of the month taken steps that showed he was about to launch an all out offensive on the base of the militants by reorganizing the command structure of military formations and redeploying the theatre commander of the Operation Lafiya Dole.

The Army Chief has since then been in Borno State and has joined several reconnaissance operations around the Timbuktu triangle, after which he issued specific directives with the Intel gathered from the reconnaissance operations
The moves are in anticipation of the final touches required to bring both the ISWAP and the Boko Haram terrorists to their knees.

Nigerian troops had long been dealing with the terrorists and would have rounded them up to the last man but have been hampered by the logistics of cross border diplomacy which restricts their movements.

The insurgents, well aware of this use the precinct of the borders of other countries especially Chad to escape shelling as troops of other countries and the Multinational Joint Task Force are not allowed beyond 25 kilometers into the borders of another country.
Realizing this, the insurgents usually take cover by taking refuge on the fringes of the Lake Chad region that border the other countries.

The opportunity has however come for the kind of operation Nigerian troops had always asked for when the insurgents last month, tried to ambush the convoy of the former theater commandeer of the Operation Lafiya Dole but were overpowered and subdued.
Reeling from the bloody nose they suffered in that encounter, the terrorists tried to put up a face saving manouvre by attacking the strike force of Chad and killed 98 of them.

The action which angered the Chadian president saw Chad for the first time since pulling out the multinational joint task force taking military action against the terrorists by killing about 1,000 of them, forcing their remnants to flee back into Nigerian territories.
They are suspected to have ran back to their former enclave in the Sambisa Forest.

It was the kind of push that Nigeria had been looking forward to consolidate the feats it had achieved in the past in that regard to put the final nail on the coffin of the terrorists.

Since Buratai assumed position as Nigeria’s Chief of Army Staff, there have been some major onslaught against the terrorists.
Prior to that, the group has been carrying out numerous attacks on Nigeria since 2009, including the 2011 bombing of the U.N. headquarters in Abuja, the bombing of the police headquarters in Abuja,  the 2014 abduction of schoolgirls in Chibok, Borno State and many others.

In January 2015, Boko Haram unleashed a massive assault on the villages of Baga and Doron Baga in Borno State and claimed control over the area, killing many and in March of that year, Boko Haram became an affiliate of the Islamic State (IS).

Boko Haram grew increasingly violent conducted numerous attacks against foreigners in northern Nigeria and its neighbors between 2013 and 2014.
Reports say that by August 2015 more than 16,000 people had been killed and 2.5 million people displaced because of Boko Haram violence.

By early 2015, the group had seized 14 local governments in Borno State, three in Yobe and five in Adamawa thereby controlling an area about the size of Belgium.
It formed part of the reason the African Union (AU) endorsed a military coalition to contain and degrade Boko Haram’s activities in Nigeria which made it to change the mandate of the Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF) to encompass counter-terrorist operations.
The story began to change when Buratai assumed position as Chief of Army Staff.

 The Nigerian Army changed its strategy and took the war to the enclave of the terrorists culminating in the 2016 hosting of President Muhammadu Buhari to a Guards Brigade Regimental Dinner where it presented to the President, the captured Boko Haram flag.
About 1,240 suspected Boko Haram terrorists were arrested during that  mop-up operation and in the same year, the Nigerian army, following a large-scale offensive, captured Boko Haram’s last enclave in the vast Sambisa forest that was the group’s stronghold.

The capture of the camp marked the “final crushing of Boko Haram terrorists in their last enclave.
President Muhammadu Buhari had acknowledged the gallantry of the Nigerian Army saying the Boko Haram  been technically defeated.
In 2019, Nogerian troops arrested 16 Boko Haram terrorists including two of its top commanders during a sting operation at Pulka in Gwoza Local Government Area of Borno State.

The two Boko Haram commanders arrested were Lawan Garliga and Bayaga Manye. Others are Boko Haram logistics supplier which are Umaru, Goni Agwala, Momodu Shetene, Hassan Audu, Usman Manye aka Yega, Ali Lawan and Modu Mallum.

They also include Modu Abubakar Jugudum, Bulama Ali, Umar Usman, Mustapha Alhaji Mele (Boko Haram rifle man and vulcaniser), Abor Lassan, Mallum Ari and Mala Bala.
Nigerian troops also killed scores of the Boko Haram Terrorists and Islamic State’s West Africa Province (ISWAP) insurgents who attempted to infiltrate their location.

That was not all as the Nigerian Army changed the narrative by making it impossible for the Boko Haram to carry out any fresh attack by constantly repelling them.
In June 2019, Nigerian troops again thwarted an ISWAP attack on a military formation in the Northeast where the  Boko Haram came in seven gun trucks and motorcycles and stormed the base at Goniri, Yobe State and in December of that same year, drove away insurgents at Gonar Bukar settlement on Gashua Road on the outskirts of Damaturu, in Yobe State.

This year, Nigerian troops  repelled an attack by the terrorists in Monguno,  and another in Damboa, Borno State, where  a top commander of the Boko Haram terrorist group, Abu Usamah, was killed after troops of Operation Lafiya Dole decimated some key Boko Haram insurgents.
Over 100 insurgents were killed in that operation while scores of them escaped with gunshot wounds. this is in addition to several equipment casualties suffered by the Boko Haram members.

Their regrouping around the Sambisa Forest shows that the insurgents have been terribly weakened and are now clutching at straws to see what they could make of the present resolve to permanently put them out of action.
It is not likely that after making all the preparations and moving to the theatres of war, that the Nigerian Army would leave base until the war is over.

This has been made clear by the Army Chief himself who has sent a message across that the coming days would spell the final days for  Boko Haram and ISWAP inspired terrorism in Nigeria
Little wonder Shekau is now making frantic efforts to seek a soft landing as he prepares to surrender.

Audu, a security affairs journalist wrote from Maiduguri.