Why Boko Haram is yet to be defeated – Osinbajo

Nigeria’s Vice-President, Yemi Osinbajo, has attributed the inability of Nigeria’s military to totally wipe out the Boko Haram terrorists to the huge size of the North-East geopolitical zone.

He said that despite the valiance of the military, and huge resources been committed to the fight against Boko Haram by the government, the country might still be witnessing pockets of attacks being carried out by members of the Boko Haram sect because of the vast area involved.

Osinbajo spoke at the 2017 Eid-el-Kabir Lunch held at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, where he represented President Buhari who is away at his country home of Daura for the sallah celebrations.

He compared the vast geographical size of the North-East, as equivalent to the whole of the United Kingdom and Denmark or Switzerland.

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The Vice-President said, “I was speaking to the UK Foreign Minister (Boris Johnson) a few days ago and I explained to him how it is so difficult to police the North-East.

“I said that this North-East that you speak about, over the past two years, we have managed to ensure that Boko Haram does not hold any territory, but there are still opportunistic attacks here and there.

“So, I explained to the Foreign minister that we are still going to experience these attacks because of the vast area that we are dealing with.

“I said that the North-East is equivalent of the whole of the United Kingdom plus Denmark or Switzerland. So, we are dealing with a vast country.

“I have seen the vast farmlands of Kebbi, Jigawa and Kano. The other day, we were in Taraba, a place that is already producing vegetables, cucumber, pepper and supplying the major supermarkets in Lagos, Abuja and Kaduna that used to import these vegetables.

“Just five hectares of greenhouse in Taraba State is producing the needs of all the major supermarkets in Abuja, Kaduna and Lagos states.

“An Israeli farmer who works in one of those greenhouses, on getting to Jalingo for the first time and seeing the beautiful hills, sent a message to his wife saying, ‘we are close to heaven.’ But by the time he got to Mambilla and got to the Plateau, he sent another message and said, ‘we are now in heaven!’”