'Boko Haram now targets schools, hospitals', says Minister

The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has called for "marshal planning’’ in the reconstruction of villages destroyed by insurgents in the North East zone.

Mohammed, who said this at a news conference in Abuja on Tuesday, called for the rehabilitation of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in camps in Bama town, particularly children, to forestall future security threat.

"The issue of massive intervention and marshal plan I think we need it.

"Otherwise, if these people are not taken care of we are going to have the same problem in future.

"Like the Governor of Borno state explained - he said it was easy for Boko Haram to get recruits because of hardship, unemployment, and lack of education.

"So, we need as much as possible and as urgently as possible, a lot of intervention to rebuild the North East.’’

He also urged Nigerians to contribute their quota by helping the military with timely information on suspicious movements and suspicious persons.

"There is nowhere in the world that you end this kind of it over night, it will take off gradually but what the government has set out to do which they are going to achieve is to decimate the capacity of Boko Haram.

"Don’t forget that the Bama where we were was headquarters of Caliphate. They were calling the shot from there, their own government.

"From there, they are ruling everywhere. Don’t forget that before now, 20 out of 27 Local Governments in Borno state alone were under the control of the Boko Haram.

"Now anybody, who has studied insurgency all over the world will understand that once they are dislodged like that, they are decimated and decapitated, they go and attack soft targets – schools, hospitals, motor parks.

"And I think this is where we as Nigerians, need to come in; we must be conscious of these things and we must also be able to help the military by giving timely information.

"And when we see suspicious movement, suspicious people, we should be able to alert military.

"We should also avoid unnecessary congregation because this is only thing they are capable of doing now.

"I can assure you that by the end of this month, our military will have so much decimated the capacity that they will not be able to pose the kind of threat they used to pose before."