Jonathan Orders Full-Scale Assault on Boko Haram
Adetokunbo Fakeye
Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan said on Thursday he had ordered “a full-scale operation” against Boko Haram militants.
Jonathan in his Democracy Day speech, said he had authorized security forces to use any means necessary under the law to ensure that Boko Haram, which operates in the country’s northeast, is defeated.
“I am determined to protect our democracy, our national unity and our political stability, by waging a total war against terrorism,” Jonathan said in a TV speech.
It was not immediately clear what such an offensive could entail given that the northeast of the country has been under a state of emergency and a full scale military operation for a year. Nigerian forces are also hugely overstretched.
The president also vowed in the speech to “do everything possible to bring our daughters home,” referring to the mass abduction of nearly 300 schoolgirls, and said Boko Haram, the sect responsible, threaten the country’s democratic gains.
“It is a sad fact that as I address you today, all the gains of the past 15 years of democratic governance in our country are threatened by the presence of international terrorism on our shores.
“I assure you … that these thugs will be driven away. It will not happen overnight, but we will spare no effort to achieve this goal,” he said.
The speech didn’t give any details of what is being done to rescue the girls who the military claimed this week it has located.
On April 14 Boko Haram militants invaded a secondary school in the village of Chibok and took away 276 girls according to official figures from an audit this week.
Borno state, which is at epicenter of the insurgency, said on Wednesday a total of 57 of the kidnapped girls had escaped. But 219 others were still missing and assumed held by the militants, who claimed they are fighting for an Islamic state in Nigeria and have killed thousands over the years.
President Jonathan said, “With the support of Nigerians, our neighbors and the international community, we will reinforce our defence, free our girls and rid Nigeria of terrorists.
“I share the deep pain and anxiety of their parents,” he added.
Jonathan who painted Boko Haram as part of a broader global terror movement being directed from abroad said, “Extremist foreign elements, collaborating with some of our misguided citizens.
“What we are witnessing in Nigeria today is a manifestation of the same warped and ferocious world view that brought down the Twin Towers in New York (and) killed innocent persons in Boston,” Jonathan said, referring, respectively, to the September 11, 2001 attacks and the April 2013 marathon bombing.
Nigeria Chief of Defence Staff, Air Marshal Alex Badeh said on Tuesday the military knew where the abducted girls were but ruled out a rescue by force for fear of endangering them.
The military was criticized for its slow response to the crisis, but Jonathan has accepted international help.
(Additional report from AP)