Boko Haram Degraded By 98% – Presidency Gives First Official Figure

Boko Haram terrorism has been scaled back by 98% the presidency admitted on Monday in the first official figure portraying the efforts of the administration against the terrorist group.

Presidential spokesman, Mallam Garba Shehu who gave the figure also dismissed comparisons between President Muhammadu Buhari’s private vacation to the United Kingdom and President Umaru Musa Yar`Adua’s failure to officially handover before his medical trip abroad.

Shehu spoke on Kaakaki programme on AIT on Monday morning in further attribution to the administration’s claims that Boko Haram had been decimated, defeated or degraded.

However, despite the assertions, the terrorist group has repeatedly attacked military installations and kidnapped civilians including Leah Sharibu who has been held for more than one year following her refusal to denounce her Christian religion when her fellow abductees were released.

Two aid workers, Kafiru Khorsa and Hauwa Liman are also among thousands of victims of the Boko Haram terrorists. Despite negotiating the return of some Chibok School girls abducted by Boko Haram in 2014, the administration has also been unable to effect the return of the majority of the school girls.

Challenged on the spate of insecurity in the country in the interview, Shehu while admitting other forms of security threats besieging the country, nevertheless said that the Boko Haram insurgency as inherited by the Buhari administration had been scaled back by 98%.

“If you ask me the biggest security issue we met on the ground, Boko Haram terrorism; I will score this administration 98% coming this far because Boko Haram is now confined to the fringes of Lake Chad. They jump in and out mainly occupying communities that have not been occupied by their owners. “Yes, new challenges have come and new challenges will keep coming and it is the dynamic situation.

“Today it is kidnapping and remember in the days of Anini, armed robbery was the biggest issue in this country,” he said.

On the controversy over the propriety of the president traveling without handing over, he said:

“The circumstances of the late Yar`Adua are entirely different from President Buhari’s circumstances. If you will also recall that he was among the many citizens of this country who went to the National Assembly and demanded that the huge coverup must be stopped. So, the president cannot do the same thing he had accused others of doing.

“The fact that the president did not write to the National Assembly meant that he had responsibility for the affairs of the country from wherever he was,” he said adding that from anywhere he was in the world that the president could oversee the governance of the country.

Shehu, however, said that it was of not in the country’s interest to compare figures of casualties between administrations saying it would only help to inflame emotions.

“I want to say that from our own point of view in the presidency we have avoided comparing numbers because it will lead to the same criticism of being insensitive because even if it is the life of one Nigerian that is lost it is important, it cannot be justified or defended.

“At one time Femi (Adesina) had these numbers and staggering numbers that had been put on display coming from the past are nothing comparable to what we have now, but we don’t take delight in that,” he said.

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