Nigeria today appointed a general to lead a new multinational task force created to fight Boko Haram terrorists
Major-General Iliya Abbah, who previously commanded military operations in the oil-rich Niger Delta, will head the five-nation force, military spokesman Major General Chris Olukolade said. The Multi-National Joint Task Force, made up of 8,700 troops from Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon, Niger and Benin, is expected to be more effective than a current alliance in the battle to end Boko Haram’s six-year insurgency, which has claimed some 15,000 lives.
The announcement came as President Muhammadu Buhari was in Cameroon for talks on how to combat the escalating threat from Boko Haram, whose fighters have been waging an increasing number of murderous cross-border raids and suicide bombings. “We recognise that none of us can succeed alone,” he said at a state dinner in Yaounde on Wednesday, according to a presidency statement. “In order to win this war we need the collective efforts of each one of us, standing together as a formidable force for good, to defeat and end these acts of terror against our people.”
Boko Haram has stepped up its attacks since Buhari took office in May, unleashing a wave of violence that has claimed close to a thousand lives in just two months. Olukolade had said Tuesday that the new regional force was expected to go into action at “any moment from now”, but did not specify when.
Until his appointment, Abbah, a Muslim from northern Nigeria, served as the army’s military secretary, Olukolade added. In that post, he was responsible for promotions, postings and retirements. The officer was also part of Nigeria’s contingent to peacekeeping operations in Sudan’s troubled western Darfur region, one of his close friends told AFP.
The regional task force will be headquartered in Chad’s capital N’Djamena. Boko Haram extremists launched their armed insurgency in 2009 and claims to want to found a strict Islamic caliphate in and around northeast Nigeria.
