Fight Against Boko Haram: Buhari Considers The Use Of New Technologies

Nigerian President, Muhammadu Buhari is considering the use of drones and surveillance cameras to fight the Islamist sect Boko-haram.

The Islamist Boko-haram sect, which aims to maintain a sort of caliphate in Nigeria, has extended its influence to neighboring countries including Chad, Niger and northern Cameroon. A threat that has always weighed heavily on Nigeria for ten years, despite multiple onshore or even air offensive launched by the Nigerian army in the hope of overcoming these assailants.

Faced with this situation, the governors of the 36 states in Nigeria have applied for licenses to use drones and surveillance cameras to monitor the activities of criminals involved in kidnappings. A project that President Muhammadu Buhari approves. It committed itself and decided to give necessary instructions to the competent federal authorities to satisfy the aspirations of the governments of the states requesting the use of drones and surveillance cameras. Similarly, he (Muhammadu Buhari), intends to install surveillance cameras on highways and at strategic locations to better monitor all suspicious activity.

“Drones and surveillance cameras do not catch bandits”

The new approach envisaged by the Nigerian state is already raising many questions. According to some Nigerian experts, this project deserves much more in-depth reflection beyond a simple licensing. An opinion shared by a retired Nigerian Air Force colonel who believes that talking about new technologies in the defense field is much more complicated: “drones and surveillance cameras make things easier, but it’s not them who will come to catch the bandits, ” he says, while insisting that these new technologies be connected with a means of action of the army .

Ten years of terror and uncertainty …

Humanitarian workers, schoolchildren, women, and security guards, among others, were killed or abducted by Boko Haram during this decade of violence. Last Tuesday, while Nigerian President Garba Shehu’s spokesman reiterated that the group’s plans had been largely thwarted by government forces, 70 people were killed on the weekend in a Boko Haram attack against three villages of Borno. An attack that amplifies the climate of growing concern of the people of the country.