Everyday, lots of heavy fightings take place in many places across Bornu, Yobe and Adamawa states, and the violence is now spilling over into Gombe State. However, in most cases it is only when a major town like Baga, Bama, Damaturu or Maiduguri is taken, retaken, destroyed or threatened, that it hits the news. This fact, plus the fact that the Boko Haram insurgency has been taking place in a far away region in a corner of Nigeria, makes it quite difficult for the reality to dawn on so many Nigerians outside the Northeast that there is a real war going on within Nigeria's borders. But the Nigerian military knows very well that it is waging a war, and that a brutal war is being waged by Boko Haram against the Nigerian state.
The attitude of the Nigerian government, in portraying the situation as not being as serious as it really is, does not help matters, yet it is understandable. In other words, so far the FG has stopped short of officially declaring this situation as a war situation, partly because the authorities did not want to send the population into panic. But the most important reason is that it is not in the best interest of the reputation of any government to officially admit that there is a war going on within its territory. Yet any educated person armed with a rudimentary definition of war will be certain that the Boko Haram crisis had metamorphosed into a real war long before now.
Basically, for the purpose of illustration, it could be said that there are two main theaters of the war in the northeast region: the northern sector and the southern sector. The northern sector consists of most of Borno State (including Maiduguri), northern parts of Yobe, the Lake Chad area as well as the entire borderline areas straddling Yobe State to Nigeria's border with Chad. The southern sector consists of Adamawa, southern Borno and with the spread of the violence to Gombe now, also Gombe State. It is in this northern sector that the Nigerian military is apparently having the hardest time - with the major exceptions of Maiduguri where the back of Boko Haram has been effectively broken and its fighters since flushed out, and Konduga where Boko Haram had suffered no fewer than four significant defeats; while in the southern sector BH has been considerably weakened by relentless military onslaughts and is for the most parts on the retreat. The military is upping its game most in the southern sector partly because if those areas are compromised, the approaches to important areas such as Bauchi, Yola and also, Nigeria's capital, Abuja, could be threatened. Moreover, if BH succeeds in making any inroad into the Middle Belt, the whole crisis would most likely degenerate into a full scale civil war as the area is populated predominantly by battle-ready, war-like Christian peoples who also have a history of bloody confrontations with Muslims. The FG and the military are determined to prevent this and the result is the increasing successes of the military in the southern axis. In this particular sector, the military is not just protecting the territorial integrity of Nigeria, but has also been doing its best to prevent Boko Haram from making forays into areas where the indigenous populations would most likely jump at any opportunity to take on Boko Haram and then claim the credit in the event of them being able to successfully defend their homeland.
However, in recent times, especially following the fall of Baga (which is in the northern axis), the military authorities have started making comprehensive arrangements to retake fallen towns in the northern axis. As for Baga, it is only a matter of a few weeks that the military will take it back, as the BH forces presently occupying the place are not a match for the forces the military is putting together for a major counter offensive which will commence anytime from now.
In addition, BH has long lost whatever sympathy it enjoyed during its earlier battles with the Nigerian army in Baga, during which time Nigerian troops were perceived as being heavy handed and were severely criticised by Amnesty International and the media. At that time, the Nigerian army argued by pointing out that the pattern of massacres that took place in Baga were consistent with Boko Haram's modus operandi. The latest Boko Haram raid on Baga was the worst in the entire six years war as the lives of no fewer than 2,000 civilians were reportedly lost in that single operation. Boko Haram literally carried out a massacre in Baga. According to the African Eagle, a survivor of this incident, Yarima Grema, recounted how he kept stepping on dead bodies for three miles as he trekked from Baga to Malam Karanti village, which had also been sacked by the blood thirsty insurgents. If, as is likely to be true, Yarima was stepping on corpses over such a long distance, it means the casualty could be even higher. Even though the army authorities reacted with a statement by its spokesman Major General Chris Olukolade claiming a lower casualty figure for the Baga raid, but it is possible the military was economical with the truth because revealing the true extent of the destruction of lives and property perpetrated by Boko Haram in a territory with a major military presence would cast doubt on the integrity of the military itself. Moreover, the statement by the military could also be doubted against the background of the fact that they've made claims about events on the war front which turned out to be untrue or inaccurate on more than one occasion in the past. The horrific accounts of people who have been fortunate to have escaped from the attacks of Boko Haram, plus reports from independent local and international media sources, don't seem to tally at all with a lot of the statements issued by the military authorities.
It is quite worrysome that many Nigerians are yet to come to terms with the stark reality that a brutal war is raging on within their borders. However, the people of Baga have learnt their lessons and with the recent raids by Boko Haram whose fighters concentrated on the heinous acts of razing down houses and killing civilians indiscriminately among which is the recent reported massacre of over 2,000 people, in Baga today the Nigerian military, regardless of its few shortcomings, is recognised as the true friend of the people. This is why the Nigerian military could hardly be blamed for a lot of the drastic actions it often takes as parts of its efforts to bring an end to the Boko Haram menace, as the ferocity of these bloodthirsty fanatics could only be matched by an efficient fighting force that does not use kid gloves.
History has shown that wars are not won by weapons and numbers of fighting men alone. You also need to be fighting from a high moral ground and enjoy the support of the local populations. While the Nigerian military is known to be defending the peoples and the territorial integrity of an organised and internationally recognised state, Boko Haram has absolutely no moral basis for its campaign. Having proved itself to be a purely destructive force that does not offer any sensible alternative ideology, Boko Haram is already on the losing side and the now better armed Nigerian military only needs to maintain the momentum for the rebels to be finally defeated.
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This brief analysis was written and sent in by a Concerned Nigerian.

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