Military has reduced Boko Haram’s capacity, will meet deadline, says minister

MINISTER of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said yesterday that the military had sufficiently reduced the capacity of Boko Haram insurgents to launch spectacular attacks while also recapturing most of the territories seized by the terrorists.

“Winning the war against insurgency is about sufficiently degrading the insurgents’ capacity for action. This the military has substantially done. The rest is mop-up actions,” the minister said at a press conference in Abuja on Tuesday, following his recent trip to Borno State to visit the areas liberated by the military.

“The military has largely met the deadline issued by President Muhammadu Buhari, and would have done so totally by December. The question, therefore, is no longer whether the military will be able to meet the December deadline, it is about how to give the military all the support it requires to continue to keep our country safe from the activities of the terrorists,” he said.

Mohammed however, explained that the group has been decimated and are now on the run, adding that this has led them to attack soft targets like motor parks, entertainment centres, houses of worship among others.

“Make no mistake about it, this will not stop overnight. It will gradually taper off. That is the way it happens anywhere such a war has been fought.”

The minister, who went on the tour of the liberated areas with journalists, commended the military, saying: ‘’Let me say, without mincing words, that all of us, Nigerians, owe a debt of gratitude to our men and women in uniform for their patriotism, sacrifice and service”.