#IS
Aye Dee
5 hours agoPublic
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On the 27 Hostages Boko Haram Released in Cameroon... 

On October 7th, Nigeria's GEJ met with the leaders of Niger, Chad and Cameroon at a one day Summit of the Lake Chad Basin Commission held in Niamey, Niger.

Benin Republic's President was present as an observer, and Cameroon's Biya had sent his Foreign Minister as a representative.

Top of the agenda was taking on and destroying Boko Haram, which continues to hold sway over a large section of North Eastern Nigeria and the Far North Region of Cameroon.

While GEJ was at that meeting, REDACTED who is the REDACTED in Cameroon's government was in that nation's Far North region negotiating the release of 27 hostages.

These hostages included Akaoua Babiana, the wife of Cameroon's deputy PM, 10 Chinese workers, the Lamido of Kolofata and 15 others held by Boko Haram.

The hostages had been abducted on May 16, 2014, at Waza and on July 27, 2014, at Kolofata, both in Cameroon's Far North Region.

The final agreement for their release was reached late night, Friday, October 10th, and hostages were flown to Yaounde early Saturday morning.

In exchange for their freedom, Cameroon's government:

1) Paid Boko Haram a few million US$  (still trying to ascertain exact amount) most if not all of which came from China
2) Pledged to give the organization more room to operate and maneuver in Cameroon's Far North Region without interference from the nation's authorities.

These terms should give anyone interested in defeating Boko Haram grave cause for concern for a number of reasons.

On the first agreement:

Boko Haram's Al-Bidayah (the Beginning) campaign is still very much in effect, so is Operation Zalzala (Earthquake), the plan to takeover Maiduguri.

The sect has been smuggling small arms into Maiduguri for a while, and it's estimated that even though thousands of AK-47s and similar assault rifles have been successfully smuggled into the city, there are plans to bring thousands more in.

Since the bulk of Boko Haram's current stock of small arms comes from the inventory of the Nigerian Army, and in recent times the insurgents have seized no new territory, safe to say supplies are running low. 

With their connection to #IS, every US$ million they spend can bring in significant quantities of small arms. 

With Maiduguri still a major objective, most shall probably end up there.

Of course, with this influx of cash, they can also procure and bring in artillery and heavy artillery to bolster defenses in other areas they control. 

On the second agreement:

With their main training camps on the Cameroon side of the Mandara Mountain range, Boko Haram has already been able to operate freely within Cameroon's Far North Region.

These camps contain not only their most hardened fighters, the abducted Chibok girls, but also leaders like Abubakar Shekau.

Consequently, not a stretch to assume this new agreement probably deals with removing any previous hinderance affecting movement of supply lines and 'permission' to operate beyond the Mountain range.

With places like Limani, Cameroon being a mere 134 km from Maiduguri (60km to Bama), Boko Haram can very easily create supply depots in that town (or others nearby), and replenish their mechanized and motorized infantry , without having to worry about an assault coming from the rear.

They can also rotate men in and out of areas they control (e.g Bama and Gwoza) which are under assault by the Nigerian Air Force and Army.

Postscript:

Overall, my assessment is that freeing the 27 hostages is at its best a pyrrhic victory against BH, and will have far reaching negative consequences for the Nigerian military and people down the line. 

It has also shown that Cameroon merely pays lip service to Nigeria when it comes to tackling Boko Haram, and that China which claims to be a friend of Nigeria would choose to secure the lives of 10 chinese workers in exchange for putting the lives of tens of thousands of Nigerians at risk.

In other words, with friends like these, Nigeria continues to be on it's own in this fight.
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This has made me believe we have very useless neighbours who pretend to help us.

They are much more than useless. Imbeciles, mumus and fraudulent mischief makers they all are. Who ever thought that the whole Northern area of Cameroon had been given to bokoharam to operate? What on earth do they hope to get. They wanted Nigeria to start bombing the place so they can race to the International Court at the Hague to complain that Nigeria is violating their territory? Wasn't that they planned for Bakassi and the exportation of Matasine to Kano to start religious unrest? What is wrong with Cameroon and Chad? Why are they so hopeless neighbours?

Orunto:
They are much more than useless. Imbeciles, mumus and fraudulent mischief makers they all are. Who ever thought that the whole Northern area of Cameroon had been given to bokoharam to operate? What on earth do they hope to get. They wanted Nigeria to start bombing the place so they can race to the International Court at the Hague to complain that Nigeria is violating their territory? Wasn't that they planned for Bakassi and the exportation of Matasine to Kano to start religious unrest? What is wrong with Cameroon and Chad? Why are they so hopeless neighbours?

I believe GEJ should just ignore these useless countries and take the war to the terrorists. Our neigbours have all along been secretly helping BH. Since we are entirely sorrounded by Francophon countries, I am made to believe France is secretly behind this set up.

I am not surprise at all, i never trusted the cameroonians. moreso, its not news that most African countries are not happy about Nigerians success. but they should not worry, thank God Nigeria is getting hot for Boko Haram when they give up on Nigeria, they will move to one of the neighbouring countries. then we will see who has the last laff. on the other hand since they are willing to buy back their hostages, next time BH runs out of money all they need to do is kidnap more cameroonians and negotiate ransom. God help us win this war.

tkconcept:
I am not surprise at all, i never trusted the cameroonians. moreso, its not news that most African countries are not happy about Nigerians success. but they should not worry, thank God Nigeria is getting hot for Boko Haram when they give up on Nigeria, they will move to one of the neighbouring countries. then we will see who has the last laff. on the other hand since they are willing to buy back their hostages, next time BH runs out of money all they need to do is kidnap more cameroonians and negotiate ransom. God help us win this war.

The worst part of this is the alarming number of BH training camps inside Camerounian soil.

Fellow Nigerians, what the west is doing now is exactly what they have been planning all along, to divide Africa and Africans by reporting bogus news and giving them to African news papers to publish them. Where did they get the information from that money was paid or arms was given in exchange for hostage release? they are writing all these garbage now to destroy relations with Nigeria and Cameroon and create another war so that they will come in and benefit again. Do you think that Cameroonian authorities will be silly enough to give boko haram weapons when they clearly know these same weapons will be used against their own people in far north? The western newspapers are the first to always report evil in Afirca and will take days or weeks to report good things. For instance, how long did it take bbc, cnn and other news editors to report that Nigeria has been cleared and contained their ebola threat? When was the last time any of you visited the bbc and saw something positive about Africa? But everyday one will read about poverty, disease, war, farming, etc all happening in Africa. Of all the progress Nigerian army has been making in this war, they won't report it but will turn around and report lies of how boko haram is holding territories and is preparing to attack Maiduguri. If you don't know boko haram so well, then how come you know they are preparing to attack Maiduguri? Who is fooling who here. The west has all along been wanting to destroy Africa and if we fall for this trick, then our beautiful continent will be wiped off infront of all of us.

Omobabawale:
Fellow Nigerians, what the west is doing now is exactly what they have been planning all along, to divide Africa and Africans by reporting bogus news and giving them to African news papers to publish them. Where did they get the information from that money was paid or arms was given in exchange for hostage release? they are writing all these garbage now to destroy relations with Nigeria and Cameroon and create another war so that they will come in and benefit again. Do you think that Cameroonian authorities will be silly enough to give boko haram weapons when they clearly know these same weapons will be used against their own people in far north? The western newspapers are the first to always report evil in Afirca and will take days or weeks to report good things. For instance, how long did it take bbc, cnn and other news editors to report that Nigeria has been cleared and contained their ebola threat? When was the last time any of you visited the bbc and saw something positive about Africa? But everyday one will read about poverty, disease, war, farming, etc all happening in Africa. Of all the progress Nigerian army has been making in this war, they won't report it but will turn around and report lies of how boko haram is holding territories and is preparing to attack Maiduguri. If you don't know boko haram so well, then how come you know they are preparing to attack Maiduguri? Who is fooling who here. The west has all along been wanting to destroy Africa and if we fall for this trick, then our beautiful continent will be wiped off infront of all of us.

In as much as I agree with you on the issue of western media, I can't help but disagree with you on the much talked about BH attack on Maiduguri. Even captured fighters have confessed that their leaders are planning a major assault on th city. So that's not a western media propaganda.