Operation Lafiya Dole: Army brags about achievement

Olusegun Adeniyi, the Theatre Commander, Operation Lafiya Dole (OPLD), says the Boko Haram insurgents will never get hold of any part of Nigeria again.

Mr Adeniyi, a major general, stated this while reviewing the progress of the ongoing counter insurgency operation of the Nigerian Armed Forces in the northeast on Friday in Maiduguri.

He said the military had succeeded in reducing the sect from the terrorist army they used to be, to mere criminals because of the defeat they suffered since 2015.

The commander dismissed the insurgents’ attempt to retake any territory “as dream that will never come to pass for them”.

According to him, Boko Haram had in 2013 transmuted from a terrorist group to a terrorist army sustaining intense attacks on towns, villages, communities, markets and military bases.

“In 2015; immediately President Muhammadu Buhari assumed office he gave order that all military commands be relocated to Maiduguri.

“It was only then that the military commenced attacks on the insurgents, recapturing the territories under the control of the terrorists numbering over 24 towns and villages,’’ he said.

Mr Adeniyi maintained that the insurgents had been defeated since 2017 and would remain so, adding that the current pockets of resurgent of the terrorist had international dimension.

He explained that the proliferation of arms in the Sahel, occasioned by the expulsion of armed militias from Libya created the opportunity for the terrorists to try to find their feet.

According to him, the exodus of ISIS terrorists from the Middle East and subsequent alliance with a faction of Boko Haram through the Lake Chad region is another dimension.