President Jonathan Hopes To Defeat Boko Haram Within A Month

Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan said in an interview broadcast on Friday that he hoped that Boko Haram militants would be pushed out of captured towns and villageswithin a month.

“I’m very hopeful that it will not take us more than a month to recover the old territories that hitherto have been in their hands,” he told the BBC.

Nigeria’s military has had a remarkable transformation, claiming to have recaptured dozens of communities from the Islamists in the restive northeast since early February.
Ill-equipped soldiers had previously appeared unable — even unwilling — to respond to attacks by the heavily armed rebels, whose insurgency began in 2009 and has killed more than 13,000.

The military, backed by soldiers from Chad, Cameroon and Niger as well as foreign private military contractors, claim to have “cleared” the northeast states of Yobe and Adawama of insurgents.

Borno state, which has been worst affected by the insurgency, is expected to be liberated “soon”, they have said.