Pictures emerged this week, of the Borno state Governor, Kashim Shettima, sitting through lessons in a secondary school in Maiduguri. He also visited a primary school on the outskirts of the city, where he encouraged the enrolment of hundreds of children in the local primary school. When I spoke with him on Tuesday night, he assured me that the educational program incorporates the provision of a daily meal to all children in schools, as well as the supply of uniforms and books.
The daily meal is enhancing enrolment; but there are still gaps that remain worrisome. Shettima told me that he would not only employ teachers and enhance their conditions, but he was also going to devote time to teaching in schools around Maiduguri. He passionately believes that for as long as the majority of children are not taken off the streets and incorporated into the school system, the danger of their availability for easy indoctrination and recruitment by Boko Haram, will remain high.
It was a much more positive story out of Borno state, against the background of the controversy, last week about whether or not the Boko Haram insurgency controls most of Borno state. The senator representing Borno Central, Baba Kaka Garbai, had triggered the issue when he said it was a lie that the insurgency had been degraded by the Nigerian armed forces. Senator Baba Kaka said both the army and the insurgents have full control of three local governments each, but shared control in all the 21 other local governments.
Governor Shettima, who had travelled abroad, returned to dispute the senator’s assertion. Shettima said the all the 27 local governments had been liberated by the Nigerian Army. He said the main towns like Bama, Monguno, Maffa, Gamboru Ngala, amongst others had been liberated by the Army, while President Muhammadu Buhari’s commitment to the liberation of Borno was never in doubt from the moment he was sworn in in May 2015. The truth is that the Boko Haram insurgency has been massively degraded over the past year. The frightening manner that well-armed and ruthless insurgents took over towns and the countryside, while daring the armed forces and the political authority seems to have been ended.
Nigerian and regional forces have dealt telling blows to Boko Haram and it has been reduced to roaming bands searching for food and provisions as well as carrying out attacks on soft targets in IDP camps, markets and other public spaces. But there is still a lot to do, in terms of winning the war as well as providing the huge amount of resources to reconstruct communities that the insurgency systematically ruined: burnt out homes; schools,; markets; health centers; crops and livestock; boreholes; mined roads; terrified people; dispersed communities and so on!