DEFENCE minister Retired Brigadier Mansur Dan-Ali has claimed he was misquoted in reports that indicated that he claimed that Boko Haram was still in control of two local government areas in Borno State.
Earlier this week, Brigadier Dan-Ali was quoted in an interview he gave to the Voice of America (VOA) as saying that Boko Haram still exists in two local government areas. To dampen the widespread criticism that the apparent confession made, his spokesman Col Tukur Gusau, clarified that what the minister meant to say was that some of the sect's fighters still remained there and not that they controlled them.
Col Gusau said: “The attention of the ministry of defence was drawn to an online report credited to Dan-Ali that two local governments in the northeast are still under Boko Haram occupation and that Chibok girls are being used as suicide bombers. For the avoidance of doubt it is important to state here that the minister as a guest in the studios of VOA spoke in Hausa language and while giving an appraisal of the success recorded by the gallant armed forces under the leadership of President Muhammadu Buhari, the minister said hitherto over 60 local governments were under the occupation of Boko Haram in the northeast but now only about two were having some remnants of Boko Haram activities but not under the complete occupation of the terrorists.
"On the issue of Chibok girls, the minister explained that he was not referring to the girls abducted on April 14, 2014 from Government Secondary School, Chibok but rather to the other girls abducted by the terrorists from Chibok Local Government Area and its environs. Contrary to claims once made by the government of Nigeria that no inch of territory is under the control of Boko Haram, the defence minister has said that two or three local government areas of Borno State are still controlled by the terrorists."
According to Col Gusau, the Nigerian military has made enormous gains in the fight against the insurgents in recent times, having reduced the terrorists’ control of territory down to this relatively small area. In his chat with VOA, the minister had remarked that the military has reclaimed much of the land once occupied by the terrorist group in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states, forcing Boko Haram to wage mostly guerrilla warfare at present.
He added that the military should be able to clear the terrorists out of the Sambisa Forest within two or three months. Brigadier Ben-Ali's remarks are coming barely two months after the senator representing Borno Central, Senator Baba Kaka Garba, sparked controversy when he claimed that his state is divided in equal measure between the terror sect and the Nigerian military.
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