Not so in Nigeria. Although the Boko Haram terrorists were correctly identified as mortal threat to the country, the Presidency, then under Dr. Goodluck Jonathan,  treated the Boko Haram threat with appalling levity. Well meaning advice and warnings to deal firmly with the terrorists fell on deaf ears. So, Boko Haram festered. “1 treated them with kid gloves”, President Jonathan was to admit just before the 2015 presidential election.
And so, while the government fiddled, its Bismarck, the terrorists ran wild. They swarmed the north-east, shooting, bombing, razing whole villages at will. They slit throats on video, slaughtered, maimed and raped. As if these were not fiendish enough, horrified and scandalized citizens watched as the rag-tag terrorists made a huge joke of the military.  Its supposedly well-armed, well-trained internationally recognized fighting men were ignominiously sent scurrying to safer havens in neighboring countries with the terrorists hot on their heels!.
Just in case anyone doubted their reach and capability, the scoundrels bombed the Police Force Headquarters and even the United Nations’ building, all in far away Abuja, the country’s capital. And to rub it in, they brazenly kidnapped over 250 girls from a girls secondary school in Chibok right under the nose of security agents. It just couldn’t get worse!
This was the dismal situation when Major Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (rtd) took over in May, 2015 as President. Like the British Admiralty, President Buhari also correctly identified Boko Haram as a national threat. He too was strong willed, decisive and prompt in his redressive actions.
First, like Britain, he forged a strong military alliance with neighbouring countries like Niger, Chad, Cameroun, even Benin Republic. Thus emerged the multi-national joint military task force against Boko Haram. To Nigeria was conceded the task force command. And for that top job, President Buhari chose Tukur Yusuf Buratai, a not-so-much known Major General at the Defence Headquarters. That done, he released $100 million to the task force as part of Nigeria’s contribution.
Secondly, in August, 2015, he re-organized the military’s top hierarchy. New Service Chiefs were brought on board. Gen. Abayomi Olanisakin became Chief of Defence Staff  (CDS); Vice Admiral Ibok-Ete Ekwe Ibas for the Navy and Air Marshal Saddique Abubakar for the Air Force. The Army? Here, President Buhari had a second thought. He recalled Major General Buratai from international duties and handed him the captainship band of the army.
The appointment of Marshal Abubakar and Gen. Buratai, though criticized by a legion of small minds, was to prove a masterstroke. Both men are indigenes of north-east. They were born and grew up there. They know the terrain like the back of their hands. The people would find it easier to relate with them. Besides, they have personal grudges against the insurgents. While Buratai had his village repeatedly attacked and his house razed, Abubakar was said to have lost some relations to the scoundrels of Sambisa.
With the Service Chiefs on their driving seats, President Buhari took the third step. He directed the relocation of the military’s operations command headquarters to Maiduguri, right in the theatre of war. With this, Buratai and Abubakar had  thier jobs pretty cut out.
Next, the President addressed the huge morale deficit among the military’s fighting men. You can’t successfully prosecute a war with thoroughly dispirited and poorly armed fighters. So, top priority was given to soldiers’ welfare and arsenal. How Buratai, within so short a time, turned around this seemingly insoluble moral deficit should be a topic for another day.
Suffice to say that in just two months, the troops’ morale soared right above the mountains and forests of the north-east. Well motivated, well armed and with their COAS right with them day-in, night-out, sometimes right there in the trench, the troops were roaring to go. And what with Abubakar’s air-warriors waiting on their wings, all primed up and waiting!
More meetings with the Service Chiefs followed. Satisfied with preparations and positive progress made, President Buhari in October, 2015, like The Admiralty’s First Sea Lord,  ordered Buratai and Abubakar: “Go! Sink the Sambisa Bismarcks! I don’t care what it takes, and how you do it. Just flush those demons out of Sambisa latest December!”
Buratai told the troops he would lead them with the operational battle cry: “Lafia Dole!” (Peace by force!) and they went. Full blast too!  It wasn’t long before the Sambisa Bismarcks found out they were up against Buratai’s new-look army. The relentless pounding of their camps and columns by Sadiqq Abubakar’s Alpha jets and Puma helicopters did not help their morale either. By December, 2015, all the local government areas occupied by the terrorists had been liberated. Roads linking the country with its neighbours were cleared and re­opened to traffic. In the process, thousands of  Boko Haram hostage victims were set free. It was the turn of the terrorists to flee in disarray.
Thousands of them were killed or captured. Many more surrendered; large caches of arms were either destroyed or captured. Such were the outstanding successes of the Sarnbisa campaign that an elated President Buhari told an equally grateful country that the Boko Haram insurgents’ war capability had been severely degraded. They are no longer militarily strong enough to challenge the control of any portion of Nigeria’s territory.
Certainly, the sinking of The Bismarck by the British Navy did not automatically end the naval war between Britain and Germany. Nor did it end the world war. But it gave Britain and allies the upper hand in the control of sea traffic including the strategic convoy corridors.  This allowed for the free flow of weapons and raw materials, all of which were very critical to the eventual outcome of the war.
In the same way, the degrading of the Boko Haram by December,  2015 did not mean the end of the war. But it left them considerably weaker. The military kept up the pressure and only last December, exactly twelve months after, the army announced the capture of Camp Zero, the main operational headquarters of the terrorists. There’s been euphoria of victory since the announcement.  Congratulatory messages have since been pouring in. Govemments, organizations and individuals, home and abroad, have been congratulating the President, the military especially the army, the air force and their commanders, Lt. Gen Buratai and Air Marshal Abubakar.
As it stands, Gen Buratai and Marshal Abubakar have successfully sunk the Bismarcks of Sambisa Forest. Notwithstanding the on-going mop up operations, “Lafia” (peace) “Dole” (by force) has largely returned to the north-east. The mop up will end with the total lock down of the forest to forestall possible regrouping of the defeated fleeing terrorists.
The battle for the north-east and Sambisa has been won. But not the war which has only entered anew, more dangerous stage. The insurgents have been defeated militarily, but not eliminated. As remnants of them flee, they carry with them all the bittemess and hate grudges of the vanquished. They cannot be trusted to resist the temptation to strike back individually or in splinter groups of twos or threes. In which case, centres of high population density can reasonably be expected to be the next theaters of the war.
The Sambisa Bismarcks have actually sailed into the cities bidding their time.  For the Police, Department of State Service, the civil defence organization, the Immigration Service, Customs Service and the public at large therefore, the time to start ferreting them out and sink them is now!
Concluded.
Uhor,  Vice President-General, Rivers State Council for Islamic Affairs, wrote from Port Harcourt.

Nasir Awhelebe Uhor