How Nigeria has responded to Boko Haram Activities

Response by Nigerian authorities

The Nigerian military is, in the words of a former British military attaché speaking in 2014, "a shadow of what it's reputed to have once been. It's fallen apart." They are short of basic equipment, including radios and armoured vehicles. Morale is said to be low.

Senior officers are alleged to be skimming military procurement budget funds that are intended to pay for the standard issue equipment of soldiers. The country's defense budget accounts for more than a third of the security budget of $5.8 billion, but only 10 percent is allocated to capital spending.




In a 2014 United States Department of Defense assessment, funds are being "skimmed off the top", troops are "showing signs of real fear", and are "afraid to even engage". 

In the summer of 2013, the Nigerian military shut down mobile phone coverage in the three north-eastern states to disrupt the group's communication and ability to detonate IEDs. Accounts from military insiders and data of Boko Haram incidences before, during and after the mobile phone blackout suggest that the shut down was 'successful' from a military- tactical point of view.

However it angered citizens in the region (owing to negative social and economic consequences of the mobile shutdown) and engendered negative opinions toward the state and new emergency policies. While citizens and organizations developed various coping and circumventing strategies, Boko Haram evolved from an open network model of insurgency to a closed centralized system, shifting the center of its operations to the Sambisa Forest.

This fundamentally changed the dynamics of the conflict. 


In July 2014, Nigeria was estimated to have had the highest number of terrorist killings in the world over the past year, 3477, killed in 146 attacks. 

Boko Haram are better armed and are better motivated than our own troops. Given the present state of affairs, it is absolutely impossible for us to defeat Boko Haram.

In March 2015, it was reported that Nigeria had employed hundreds of mercenaries from South Africa and the former Soviet Union to assist in making gains against Boko Haram before the March 28 election^.