Expert Blames Rise of Boko Haram Attacks on Poor Operations, Disarmament

Expert Blames Rise of Boko Haram Attacks on Poor Operations, Disarmament

An expert and the Executive Director of the Victims Support Funds (VSF), Prof. Sunday Ochoche, on Sunday blamed the recent rise in Boko Haram attacks in the North-east region on poor management of military operations and the disarmament programme to reintegrate repentant terrorists into the society.

He explained that a lot still need to be done to arrest the ugly situation and the resurgence of the Boko Haram terrorists.

"There are problems with the management of the military operations. We have a convoluted and disjointed management of the operations. It is not an army war; the Air Force is not supposed to be running its own war; the army is not supposed to be running its own war, they are supposed to be under one central command.

"We have not seen anything about disarmament; we need a comprehensive disarmament programme. The structure identifies, properly screens Boko Haram terrorists and determines their roles and involvement.

"We cannot afford a situation where people just show up and say they have surrendered or walk away from the war front and return to normal life, that is risky," the VSF executive director said.

Ochoche, whose organisation is at the forefront of rehabilitating victims of Boko Haram attacks, stressed that "there are few things that have not been handled well. We keep hearing about people surrendering, we keep hearing men running to surrender, from where and to where?

"These are the elements we have to put in place-sufficient mechanism to address the crisis. It is not possible for the military or armed forces to win a war alone, civilian support is very crucial."

According to him, the military and the federal government were hasty in proclaiming that Boko Haram insurgency had been 'technically defeated.'

Ochoche told reporters that "we need to understand what exactly did the Nigerian military and government mean by Boko Haram being 'technically defeated’, we need to take time to ask the government about that.

"The technical defeat was to the extent that Boko Haram was degraded from that military forces that were capturing local government areas and setting up their own administration. That stage had been reversed, but it will take a while to say that Boko Haram no longer exist."

He said: "Most of the areas taken by Boko Haram terrorists were local government areas' headquarters. In-between that, the vast area of land and villages have not been effectively combed and taken over by the military."