When Chadian troops occupied parts of northern
Nigeria in the 1980s, Nigerian Major-General
Muhammadu Buhari chased them back across the
border in a show of strength months before he
seized power in a military coup.
Thirty years later, the 72-year-old former
strongman has returned as head of state,
defeating incumbent Goodluck Jonathan at the
ballot box this week, and once again seems
determined to end Chad’s presence on Nigerian
soil.
Chad’s battle-hardened troops have been a
driving force behind a regional offensive against
Boko Haram that has expelled the Islamist group
from the major towns of northeast Nigeria in a
matter of weeks.
Buhari, himself a Muslim from the north, branded
President Goodluck Jonathan’s reliance on Chad
to suppress the insurgency before the election as
a national disgrace. He has promised to restore
the territorial integrity of Africa’s most populous
nation.
In his first speech since winning office, Buhari
said he would spare no effort to defeat Boko
Haram, which has killed thousands of people in
its six-year-old campaign to carve out an
Islamist caliphate in Nigeria.
His determination for Nigeria to wrest back the
initiative may signal a check to a planned 10,000-
strong regional force mandated by the African
Union in January, meant to be headquartered in
the Chadian capital N’Djamena.
With Buhari vowing to root out corruption and
restore prestige to Nigeria’s once-proud military,
cooperation with neighbouring countries may
return to the previous pattern of joint border
patrols, rather than a multinational mission on
Nigerian soil, analysts said.
“It’s a national humiliation for Nigeria to see
Chad doing the job of the Nigerian military and
Buhari cannot accept that,” said Marc-Antoine
Perouse de Montclos, fellow at London-based
think-tank Chatham House.
“That doesn’t mean he’ll stop international
cooperation… but he’ll try to leave the job of
fighting Boko Haram with the Nigerian army.”
In the long wait for Buhari’s inauguration on May
29, the regional operation appears likely to
continue. On Tuesday, Chad and Niger forces
captured the border town of Malam Fatori, one of
Boko Haram’s last footholds – just as Buhari’s
election victory was confirmed.
Despite his nationalist rhetoric, Nigeria’s new
president-elect was welcomed by West African
capitals weary of Jonathan’s long neglect of the
Islamist uprising in an impoverished and sparsely
populated corner of his country.
Senior army officers from Chad and Niger have
denounced what they saw as a failure to
cooperate by Nigeria, which launched its own
separate offensive against Boko Haram. Without
Nigerian troops alongside them to occupy
liberated towns, Chadian troops have been
obliged to retake some communities several
times.
“It is impossible for Buhari not to do better than
the previous government,” Mohamed Bazoum,
minister of state for the presidency in Niger, told
Reuters. “He will be a good partner for us and I’m
convinced that Nigeria will play an important role
in eradicating Boko Haram.”
CHAD’S DEBY WANTS MULTINATIONAL FORCE
Chad’s President Idriss Deby, in an interview last
week, called for the African Union force to be
deployed quickly and said that the campaign
against Boko Haram would take months to
complete. He said the group could have as many
as 20,000 fighters – far more than usually
estimated.
Its revenues sapped by a slump in oil prices,
Chad has led African calls for the United Nations
to set up a trust fund to fight Boko Haram.
Deby, singled out as the ‘Chadian Satan’ by Boko
Haram leader Abubakar Shekau, expressed his
country’s continued willingness “to contribute to
the stability of the subregion” in a letter of
congratulations to Bujari on Wednesday.
Leaders from west and central Africa will discuss
the fight against Boko Haram at a summit on
April 8 in Equatorial Guinea, but Buhari is not
expected to attend, a Western diplomat said.
With an easing of Boko Haram’s stranglehold over
trade routes to Chad – a main motivation for
Deby’s intervention – the urgency for its military
intervention has eased.
The regional offensive appears to have hurt Boko
Haram’s operational capacity. Despite pledges by
Shekau to disrupt elections in the north, it carried
out only minor attacks.
Yet since the killing of its founder Mohammed
Yusuf in 2009 in police custody, Boko Haram has
proved its ability to go to ground and regenerate.
Buhari’s plan to combat corruption in Nigeria’s
armed forces, improve the pay and equipment of
soldiers, and impose a clear chain of command
from political leaders in Abuja, will take time, the
Western diplomat said.
Any return to violence by disgruntled former
militants in the oil-rich Niger Delta, the cradle of
Jonathan’s support, would distract attention from
fighting Boko Haram. With oil prices depressed,
Buhari’s government may have less scope than
its predecessor to buy peace in the Delta, analysts
say.
But Buhari’s commitment on defeating the
Islamists – coupled with his reputation for
toughness and northern credentials – could play
an important role in winning the collaboration of
the northern population, estranged from Abuja by
years of indifference and army abuses.
“Buhari has been in the military. He knows the
ins-and-outs of the military and I believe he’s
going to do better than Jonathan,” said Aminu
Issa, a civil servant in the northern town of
Kaduna, a flashpoint of religious tensions. “There
will no longer be any Boko Haram.”
An increase in support from people in the
battleground state of Borno – which voted
massively for Buhari – could prove his most
effective weapon in the war against Boko Haram.
“The people of Borno will look at Abuja as being
supportive which was not the case up until now,”
said Perouse de Montclos. “For me, the main
difference will be hope. Simply hope.” http://sunnewsonline.com/new/?p=112502 
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