President Muhammadu Buhari says Boko Haram insurgents took advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic to unleash fresh terror attacks and take over some communities.
Mr Buhari, who has been on a four-day official visit to attend the African Finance Summit in France, disclosed this in an article published in Le Point, a French magazine on Tuesday.
The focal points of the summit, which held on Tuesday, were the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, worsening insecurity in the Sahel and Lake Chad region, climate change, among other issues.
“Around the Lake Chad Basin, Boko Haram terrorists took advantage of the pandemic to relaunch an offensive against my country, Nigeria,” Mr Buhari said following the spate of insecurity in the most populous black nation.
Boko Haram insurgency began as far back as 2009 in the North-East, and the terrorists further spread their atrocities to other parts of the country.
Weeks ago, Peoples Gazette reported that Boko Haram insurgents imposed VAT and income tax on residents of communities in the Shiroro local government area.
Governor Abubakar Bello had also announced the displacement of many residents by the insurgents around Munya and Shiroro, adding that the terrorists placed their flag in Kauri.
Although Mr Buhari’s regime repeatedly said it had “technically defeated” Boko Haram, a series of attacks linked to the insurgents had continued prior to the COVID-19 outbreak in the country.
But Mr Buhari blamed their activities on the pandemic. The president noted that the fight against the pandemic was inseparable from terrorism while seeking the French support in the fight against insecurity.
“The issues that will need to be addressed are inseparable from the fight against another common enemy: terrorism. And in the same way that we are united with France to wage the war against the coronavirus, we are at her side to wage the war against terrorism with a firm determination to defeat these two scourges,” he said.
“Around the world, conflict and the coronavirus have never been far apart. In the Sahel region – this vast expanse of arid land between the Sahara and sub-Saharan Africa – jihadists have taken advantage of governments’ fight against COVID-19. Unfortunately, acts of terrorism have become increasingly common in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger,” Mr Buhari added, maintaining that Boko Haram relaunched attacks on Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon and the Republic of Niger.
“As the instability spread, the networks that supported it grew stronger – from arms supply chains from Libya to the importation of Al Qaeda and Iranian ideologies. Islamic State of the Middle East,” Mr Buhari noted.
