Abuja – Nigerian government forces were fighting Islamist insurgents 35km outside Borno state capital Maiduguri on Friday to try to stop any attack on the north-eastern city, local residents said.
Maiduguri residents said they heard gunfire and explosions coming from the direction of Konduga, southeast of the city, on Friday, and later saw army troop carriers heading there.
“Some people came from Konduga … they told us the army are in control,” Musa Sumail, a human rights activist in Maiduguri, told Reuters by phone. Other residents said they were told the army had intercepted an attempted probe into Konduga by a group of Boko Haram fighters. No details of casualties were available.
Sumail said military helicopters were flying over the Borno state capital, which has filled up with tens of thousands of refugees fleeing Boko Haram forces advancing from the north, east and south of Maiduguri in the last few weeks.
Mounting criticism
Thousands more have fled Maiduguri westwards towards Damaturu for safety.
Some local civic organisations have warned that Maiduguri, where Boko Haram has concentrated its attacks since it launched its anti-government insurgency in 2009, is surrounded by the militants and vulnerable to attack.
Nigeria’s defence headquarters, which avoids giving detailed accounts of military operations, criticised such reports as “alarmist” in a statement on its Twitter account @DefenceInfoNG.
“All Facets of Security Arrangements for the Defence of Maiduguri has been upgraded to handle any planned attack,” the military said, without giving any specifics.
President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration and the armed forces face mounting criticism that they are failing in the war to counter Boko Haram. The group’s leader Abubakar Shekau proclaimed a “Muslim territory” in the northeast after seizing Gwoza near the border with Cameroon, to the east, last month.
“We are convinced that the Federal Government of Nigeria has not shown sufficient political will to fight Boko Haram and rescue us from the clutches of the insurgents which may ultimately lead to the total annihilation of the inhabitants of Borno,” the Borno Elders Forum, which groups dignitaries and elders from the northeast state, said in a statement.
It urged the government to “fortify” Maiduguri.
Boko Haram’s Shekau is apparently trying to follow the example of Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, which has declared its own caliphate. This strategy, which has seen Boko Haram hoist its flag over local government buildings in several towns and villages, departs from its usual hit-and-run tactics.
Pre-election tensions
US-based consultancy Stratfor said that while Boko Haram – which is most active in the northeast, far from the central federal capital Abuja and south-western commercial hub of Lagos – did not pose an “existential threat” to the Nigerian government, the loss of a city like Maiduguri would embarrass Jonathan and damage his expected re-election bid in February’s national vote.
“If the government proved unable to prevent such an event, it could harm Jonathan’s bid for re-election by painting him as an irresponsibly weak commander-in-chief ahead of the presidential primaries in November and national elections in February,” Stratfor said in a note on the Nigerian situation.
Many believe pre-election political tensions stemming from the historic rivalry between Nigeria’s mostly Muslim north and largely Christian south – Jonathan is a southerner – is also stoking the persistent Boko Haram insurgency in the northeast.
Popular anger spiked after Boko Haram abducted more than 200 northeast schoolgirls from Chibok in mid-April, triggering a social media campaign that gave global prominence to the group.
In addition to the threat to Maiduguri in Borno state, other Boko Haram columns have pushed southwards since early last week into the north of neighbouring Adamawa state, killing civilians, burning Christian churches and government offices, and forcing thousands of civilians to flee before them.
The Nigerian military says it has been striking back, using warplanes to support its ground troops in the fighting around the commercial town of Mubi.
“Situation in Mubi, Michika, Bazza, Gulak, Gwoza, Bama, Gamboru Ngala & other parts of the North East is being stabilized,” the defence headquaters said in its Tweets, but it provided no more information on the operations.
Groups critical of Jonathan say they do not see the military making progress. “Our armed forces are not sufficiently armed or motivated to fight the terrorists. The result is that the rampaging insurgents are conquering more and more of Nigerian territory,” said the #BringBackOurGirls movement, which is campaigning for the rescue of the abducted Chibok students.
