In what could be best described as a wasted efforts, the proposed dialogue between the Federal Government and the Jama’atu Ahlus Sunnati Lidda’awati Wal Jihad, otherwise known as Boko Haram has crashed.
This came barely three weeks after the outlawed sect initiated a fresh move for ceasefire and dialogue.
It would be recalled that the extremists had on Thursday, November 1, announced, through one of its commanders, Abu Mohammed Ibn Abdulaziz, that it will ceasfire in the Northern part of the country if the government will offer its members compensation and arrest a former Governor of Borno State, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff.
Dailypost exclusively gathered that fresh step has been taken to capture the sect’s kingpin, Imam Abubakar Shekau alive.
Investigations revealed that developments have since then convinced government that the sect “was obviously flying a kite to buy time, following the discovery of its operational base in Northern Mali.”
Insiders disclosed that the Federal Government has decided to change its approach to end the Boko Haram menace by deploying vast resources to capture the leader of the sect.
The source said, “government is no longer keen on sending thousands of our troops to Mali to fight in a foreign land notwithstanding our commitment to the ECOWAS plan to put some troops together.
This is because the ECOWAS process will still need to get the approval of the United Nations and go through some international protocols which will be a little bit cumbersome and slow.”
But beyond this, the security source disclosed, “the decision by government to change tactics is more of respecting our pact with the military leader in Mali, Captain Sanogo, who is seriously working with us on this project.
They (Malian authorities) are insisting that they don’t want foreign troops in their country because of the aftermath of that and as such they are now requesting for logistic support, including arms, ammunition and military wares that their own troops will use to flush out the rebels controlling North of Mali, where the Boko Haram leaders are hiding,” the source added
Sources said that the decision to discard deploying Nigerian troops to launch a direct attack on rebels’ stronghold in northern Mali is because “out of about three or four ECOWAS countries that share borders with Mali, only two have problems with the Toureg islamist rebels, while the others are okay with the group.
In essence, ECOWAS troops will not enjoy the full support of these other neighbouring countries, a development that may make our troops suffer heavy casualties because of likely sabotage.”
It was further gathered, high-tech military and intelligence monitoring equipment have been deployed to Mali in addition to the physical presence of some operatives of the Nigerian Intelligence Agency (NIA) and the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) to assist the Malian troops uncover the hideout of the sect suspected leader, Shekau.
The security source said, “there is, no doubt, that we will support them (Malian troops) as already requested because we will now leave the battle for them to fight to liberate their own country, even though we are benefiting from the end result of the onslaught. Quantity of our logistic or military support is, however, what cannot be disclosed.”
However, the office of the National Security Adviser, Colonel Sambo Dasuki (retd), which is working tirelessly to bring the Boko Haram insurgency in the country to an end is yet to make any official statement on the new development.
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