Boko Haram: Cameroon is Nigeria’s ‘problem’

Nigeria’s inability to contain Boko Haram has been blamed on Cameroon.

In an interview with Reuters, Gen. Sarkin-Yaki Bello, coordinator-general of Nigeria’s Counter Terrorism Centre, praised Niger and Chad for their co-operation in the anti-terror war.

Bello said more needed to be done regional efforts against the insurgency, although he noted that things have improved in recent times.

He said: “Niger has been proactive and aggressive, Chad has shown zero tolerance for Boko Haram,” he told Reuters in an interview.

“Cameroon, we’ve engaged them to be more pro-active. They haven’t really. Not yet.”

He maintained that the military knew where the over 200 schoolgirls abducted from Chibok, Borno State, are but there are fears that their captors might kill them if a rescue attempt is made – the same position of chief of defence staff, Air Chief Marshall Alex Badeh (pictured).

“We want to bring them out alive,” he said, ruling out any prisoner swap deal.

“If you let them out, the terrorists get stronger. We also need to protect those they haven’t yet killed or kidnapped,” Bello said.

There were reports, yet to be denied, that a swap deal was arranged but was called off at the last minute by President Goodluck Jonathan.

Jonathan declared a state of emergency in northeast Nigeria a year ago but Boko Haram retreated to the Cameroon border.

It has launched near daily hit-and-run attacks for the past year from the Mandara mountains between Cameroon and Nigeria.

Bello said there had been decades of poor communication between the two countries that hampered cooperation.

They have had a border dispute since gaining independence in the 1960s from the British and French colonialists that carved them up.

Cameroon’s information minister, Issa Tchiroma Bakary, denied his country was dragging its feet, pointing to its sending of troops in its Far North region to counter the Boko Haram threat.

“Cameroon has never been the weakest link in the chain,” Tchiroma told Reuters.

“As the deployment of troops and equipment in the past few days prove, we have put up an iron curtain with enough firepower, which Boko Haram cannot break.”