THE LEADER of the Islamist insurgent group Boko Haram vowed to disrupt Nigeria’s rescheduled general elections next month, while the army claimed it had killed 300 militants in a two-day offensive.
“This election will not hold even if we are dead,” Abubakar Shekau said in a video posted on Twitter, which could not be independently verified.
Shekau claimed responsibility for Saturday’s attack on the north-eastern state capital of Gombe, where detained militants were freed. The insurgents distributed leaflets in the town advising residents not to vote in the presidential and legislative elections, which were delayed from Saturday.
Boko Haram has escalated its six-year-old campaign to impose Islamic law on Nigeria, Africa’s biggest economy and largest oil-producing nation. The fighting has drawn in neighbouring countries including Chad, Niger and Cameroon, as the militants broadened their border targets.
A co-ordinated air and land assault in the north-east had led to the deaths of more than 300 Boko Haram militants and the capture of “a few” others, along with weapons and equipment, Major-General Chris Olukolade, a military spokesman based in the capital, Abuja, said yesterday. Two soldiers had lost their lives and 10 had been injured, he said.
President Goodluck Jonathan said last week that he expected the defeat of Boko Haram within weeks with newly acquired weapons and the co-operation of neighbouring countries to battle the insurgents.
Nigeria’s election commission on February 7 moved national and state elections back by six weeks, citing concerns that there would not be adequate security for voting as the army stepped up its offensive in the north-east. – Bloomberg
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