Boko Haram attacks Chadian military positions in Fotokol

The Nigerian Islamic sect launched a massive attack on Chadian military installations early this morning deep inside Fotokol in the Far North region of Cameroon. Our informant said heavy artillery fire started at about 4 am. We have also gathered that the Boko Haram militants are now using heavy and sophisticated weaponry against positions of the Chadian army. A Cameroon military official, who spoke to us a while ago, hinted that the jihadists used tunnels and surprised the Chadian service men stationed at Fotokol. The Chadian army has deployed nearly 2,500 men to support the Cameroon army in the fight against the Nigerian Islamist sect Boko Haram.

This new revelation of the existence of tunnels linking Gambaru in Nigeria to Fotokol has made military matters more intractable.As the war against Boko Haram intensifies, the perception that it is wedged by disaffected and jobless youths who oppose and hate Western Education is becoming pedestrian. The sophistication of the command and operational structures of Boko Haram leaves no one in doubt about this reality.    The weapons deployed to commit the ongoing pogrom appear to have been acquired and brought to the war zones through a complicated network. It is hard to believe that a conflict of this magnitude can occur without a complex network of individuals and organizations supporting Boko Haram’s criminal war effort. It may be reasonably suggested that it is a political establishment serving distinct interests in Nigeria and Cameroon. In Nigeria, it has never sought ransom for the many victims it has abducted. In Cameroon although officially classified as a nebulous or illusive enemy, it has turned abduction for ransom into a lucrative business. 

Boko Haram in Nigeria is a child of Nigerian history and the impunity of Northern Nigeria’s Military establishment. Armed conflict is part of Nigeria history. It is also a business which has enriched many.  People including generations unborn learn from history. The savaged brutality meted on civilians and civilian objects in Nigeria pre-exist Boko Haram. These acts of impunity were some of the methods deployed by successive military regimes, most of them from Northern Generals to accede and sustain power. The ongoing slaughter by Boko Haram follows the same pattern which in 1966 led to the Nigeria/Biafra War. The underlying cause of the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Southerners, mainly of the Ibo ethnic groups in the North was never comprehensively investigated, if at all.  There is no gainsaying that had the crimes been investigated, the result would have pointed to some powerful individuals within the Nigerian Military structure of Northern origin. For these, political power and control of the economy could only be attained through scapegoating communities whom they perceived as serious competitors.