Buratai: Boko Haram strangulated, in a depressed state

Chief of Army Staff, Lt. General Tukur Yusuf Buratai, says the military has sufficiently strangulated Boko Haram.

For over a decade, the military has continued to battle Boko Haram insurgents in the northeast.

In 2016, Buratai presented a Boko Haram flag and a Qur'an allegedly belonging to the sect's leader, Abubakar Shekau, to President Muhammadu Buhari.

At the event, the Army chief announced that the military has captured Camp Zero, the last stronghold of the Boko Haram sect in Sambisa Forest, and also defeated the insurgents.

Army presents captured Boko Haram flag to President Muhammadu Buhari ece-auto-gen

In an interview with ThisDay, Buratai said the terrorist sect is now in a depressed state.

The Army chief argued that the insurgents do not hold any local government in the troubled northeast region.

"We must differentiate between insurgency and terrorism. I have tried to tell them at the National Assembly," Buratai began.

"Someone said three local governments are under Boko Haram. How? These guys are not controlling any territory. They attempted to establish their territory, caliphate in Gwoza but they have not been able to because they were flushed out. That is insurgency. They are not holding any territory. Typically, that is the end if insurgency.

"But what of terrorism? Terrorism will outlive you and me and probably everybody in this house because terrorism, since it started, just like armed robbery, like kidnapping, burglary, cultism, it would continue. These are all smaller parts of terrorism. It is when it goes higher that you have arsons, like it happened in Borno yesterday, murder and so on deliberately, no cause.

“What is happening now is just criminality. Since last year, we have not given them any respite. They are now blocked. They no longer have access to foods; their movements are constrained; they no longer get the fuel they needed easily because we have strangulated them. They are now in depressed state; so, they go out with vengeance to attack commuters to abduct individuals and targeting certain religious persons just for their propaganda. This is also is one of the Boko Haram terrorist’s strategy – propaganda,” he announced.

Boko Haram recently burnt travellers at Auno, a community just few kilometers from Maiduguri, the Borno state capital.