Securing North East border areas

According to accounts, the attack was carried by men in two military vehicles and a number of trucks. By the time the insurgents retreated several hours later, the residence of the village head, the mosque, schools and hospitals as well as the court, library and other government buildings, were among property destroyed.  Distraught survivors and […]

According to accounts, the attack was carried by men in two military vehicles and a number of trucks. By the time the insurgents retreated several hours later, the residence of the village head, the mosque, schools and hospitals as well as the court, library and other government buildings, were among property destroyed.
 Distraught survivors and resident of the Kinduga attack had hardly recovered from the carnage when four days later the insurgents again descended on the village of Izge, in Gwoza local government area, close to Adamawa State. Survivors of the Izge attack recounted that gunmen fired indiscriminately at fleeing residents. 106 people were killed in the mêlée, while 10000 fled to neighbouring Adamawa State. In both attacks, the gunmen were able to operate for more than 12 hours without any serious attempt to repel them by the military Joint Task Force deployed there, and in Yobe and Adamawa states, to contain them.
The insurgents have certainly undertaken very brazen attacks before, such as the midnight attack at the Yobe State School of Agriculture that caused the death of many students. But the ferocity and gruesomeness of their recent forays spoke to the weakness of the current arrangement to defeat them and bring them to justice. It is worrying that the criminals can time and again carry out several hours of devastating attacks without any credible operation by soldiers, which Borno State is practically crawling with, to deter them. A mark of the free rein the insurgents enjoyed was indication that at Konduga they had all the time to hoist their flag, a particularly insulting slap on the face of the military authorities in the area.
The tendency is to conclude the campaign against the insurgency has not kept pace with general expectation, and needs to be given a new impetus to really meet the challenge head-on. The first measure to take is intensification of intelligence gathering, because the ease with which gunmen undertake their ignoble acts point to a possible failure of intelligence.  This apparent lapse must be corrected, and urgently too.
Presently, much emphasis has been placed on air surveillance of border areas between Nigeria and neighbouring countries to stop suspected infiltration of insurgents into Nigeria. Clearly, this has met with little success, which explains why they are able to strike with such abandon anywhere they choose.  
There is no doubt that much has been done by the military to beat back the insurgency, now believed to be confined virtually to hilly and forested areas of the North East. Still, unless the insurgents’ increasing audacity is dealt an equally devastating blow, they might begin to reclaim lost positions. Whatever military measures are taken should be combined with overtures to countries with which Nigeria shares borders to help in ensuring that insurgents do not use their territories as launch pads to attack inside Nigeria. In this connection, these countries should be enjoined to enforce existing agreements on cross-border smuggling, particularly of small arms and light weapons.
 The insurgency should be denied sanctuary anywhere, in Nigeria and elsewhere.