Nigeria’s former Military Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon (retired), has said that Islamist jihadist organization, Boko Haram, officially known as Jamā’at Ahl as-Sunnah lid-Da’wah wa’l-Jihād, is the country’s major security threat after the 1966 -1970 Nigerian-Biafra civil war.
Gowon said this on Friday in Abuja at an event where two books written by Nigeria’s Ambassador to Russia, Professor Abdullahi Y. Shehu, were launched. He said: “Boko Haram has been a threat, perhaps the major threat to the peace and development of Nigeria after the civil war.
“Boko Haram has indeed created a serious problem. After the Civil War, l remember saying, I hope that we will not experience what we went through during that period again. Unfortunately, Boko Haram appeared.”
Gowon, who led Nigeria during the Nigerian-Biafra bloody civil war of late 1960s, explained that the country can only solve it’s today’s security puzzles if it understands and tackles the intricate challenges posed by Boko Haram. As he puts it, “understanding the debilitating impact and the deleterious effect of the insurgency on Nigeria is critical to developing innovative solutions to the problem.
“This also applies to the other security challenges that continue to undermine the stability and progress of Nigeria, including recent incidences of banditry, kidnapping, farmers/herders problem and other violent conflicts as well as other forms being experienced in Nigeria today.”
