Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Dr. Doyin Okupe has described the Boko Haram Islamist sect as a very serious enemy of the state.
The sect masterminded the killing of at least 32 people on Wednesday in Madagali and Michika Local Government Areas of Adamawa State in three separate attacks during which the gunmen disguised themselves in military uniform to shoot and burn people and houses.
A day earlier, it had orchestrated another attack on the Federal Government College Buni Yadi, Gujba Local Government Area of Yobe State, which resulted in the death of 43 people.
The resurgence in the attacks this year had sparked intense criticism of President Goodluck Jonathan and his administration’s efforts to quell the killings, but Okupe has no branded the security challenge as good as a war situation.
“We are dealing with a very, very serious enemy,” Okupe said on Friday.
“We are engaged in a war that has been internationalised. It is very difficult, very costly in terms of lives lost. But we will overcome. We are in the dying phase of this insurgency”.
Thousands have been killed since 2009 when the killings commenced, and despite Jonathan’s declaration of a state of emergency in Bornor, Yobe and Adamawa — the worst-hit states — the popular belief is that the killings have intensified.
In addition to the killings, a United Nations report earlier in the week revealed that nearly 300,000 people — most of them women and children — have been internally displaced in the region due to the attacks.
