Buhari: Boko Haram technically defeated

Nigeria has “technically won the war” against the Boko Haram militants, President Muhammadu Buhari has said.

Buhari told the BBC that the militant group could no longer mount “conventional attacks” against security forces or population centres.

It had been reduced to fighting with Improvised Explosives Devices (IEDs) and remained a force only in its heartland of Borno State, he said.

Boko Haram has been described as one of the world’s deadliest terror groups.

The group’s six-year insurgency in Nigeria’s northeast has led to the deaths of some 17,000 people, destroyed more than 1,000 schools and displaced more than 1.5 million people.


President Buhari has given the army until the end of this year to defeat the group – a deadline that is likely to be extended as Boko Haram is still bombing some areas despite losing towns under its control.

Critics of the government argued that it has exaggerated the scale of its success against the militants, and that each time the army claims to have wiped out Boko Haram, the militants have quietly rebuilt.

But President Buhari told the BBC that the jihadists had been forced to cut back on suicide bombings as a result of the military action against them.

“Boko Haram has reverted to using improvised explosive devices (IEDs),” he said. “Indoctrinating young guys, they have now been reduced to that.

“But articulated conventional attacks on centres of communication and populations, they are no longer capable of doing that effectively.

“So I think technically we have won because people are going back into their neighbourhoods,” the President added.