Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan has appointed a new minister of defense in a strategic move to battle extremists who have wreaked havoc in the country’s Muslim north, various sources reported Wednesday.
The president named retired Lieutenant General Aliyu Gusau, who comes from northern Nigeria, as his new defense minister for the job to push back against an increasingly dangerous insurgency by Boko Haram, Al Jazeera reported.
The U.S. State Department said last year that Boko Haram has ties to al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, a separate group that has also used the porous border areas of Saharan West Africa for their operations.
Jonathan reshuffled his entire military leadership in January, and Nigerian forces have issued statements addressing the Boko Haram problem. The armed rebels have killed “over 400 civilians in the last five weeks alone, including children watching a soccer match over the weekend,” The New York Times reported on Wednesday.
But will the reshuffle prove to be an effective measure?
“What we have seen is that the Nigerian military cannot defeat Boko Haram with just force,” Lagos State University Professor Dapo Thomas, told the Agence France-Presse, AFP. “It is all about intelligence now. Because of (Gusau’s) background, I cannot think of a better candidate for the defence post.”
Part of the problem for Gusau is that Boko Haram militants can move easily into neighboring Niger, where the rebels evade capture. The U.S. military is trying to help train regional forces to combat the problem, recently holding military-on-military training exercises in Niger, the Times reported.
“The group’s fighters have made a habit of quietly slipping across the border into Niger to rest, rearm and refit, officials say — a pipeline (Niger) is eager to shut down with the Pentagon’s help,” the Times reported.
As Africa’s top oil exporter and the continent’s second-largest economy after South Africa, Nigeria is growing as an investment destination, but various rebel movements have tarnished the country’s reputation for stability. Another rebel group has fought for years in the country’s southern Delta region, through which much of Nigeria’s oil pipelines run, making the government vulnerable.
Prior to Gusau’s appointment, the defense minister post had been vacant since June 2012, when Haliru Bello was fired by Jonathan after Boko Haram increased their attacks on the population, Reuters reported.
“A new generation of Boko Haram militants is displaying a greater appetite for violence,” said a report issued last month by the U.N. office that monitors sanctions on al-Qaida and the Taliban, the Times report noted.
A new plan to train an entire battalion of rangers in the newly-created Nigerian special forces command is underway by U.S. officials, the Times added.