Boko Haram Steps Up Attacks After Buhari’s Vows to Defeat the Group

The former general and strongman ruler of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari, won his country’s March election in part by promising to defeat the Boko Haram militant group and restore security to the country’s turbulent northeast. A month into his time in office, a string of Boko Haram attacks indicates the group isn’t backing down in the face of Buhari’s sabre rattling.

On Wednesday night, reports out of Borno State claimed dozens of civilians were gunned down by Boko Haram militants in a string of attacks in the extremist stronghold. By Thursday, the death toll from the attacks reached 150 and may continue to rise.

Earlier on Wednesday, two suicide bombers blew themselves up near a hospital in Borno State’s capital of Maiduguri, just as Vice President Yemi Osinbajo arrived in the city to visit Nigerians displaced in temporary camps there.

Both bombers were killed, and two passersby were injured. The hospital was the site of another bomb attack last Saturday, when three were reportedly killed and 16 injured.

Before his ouster in March’s presidential elections, then-President Goodluck Jonathan launched an aggressive military campaign, backed by Chad, to take back stretches of territory controlled by the group. By election day, the government claimed that regions controlled by Boko Haram had been largely retaken by government forces, and that most Boko Haram militants had either fled into the bush or been killed.

But recurring bomb attacks in Maiduguri and other cities in northeast Nigeria are a reminder that Boko Haram has not been dismantled, and that the group still poses a real threat to the communities in that region. For the some 1.5 million Nigerians displaced by the group, returning home remains impossible as their towns are still considered too unstable.

Boko Haram also launched a number of attacks in Chad last month, including twin suicide bombings that killed 23 and injured more than 100 in N’Djamena, in the first attack of its kind in the Chadian capital.

Buhari is slated to come to Washington, D.C., on his first official visit to the United States on July 20, when he will meet with President Barack Obama to discuss what the White House has described as “strengthening” and “expanding” the relationship between the two countries.

In June, the United States committed $5 million to the African Union for the multinational task force fighting Boko Haram, comprised of troops from Nigeria, Niger, Chad, and Cameroon.

But Washington has long faced restrictions on the amount of military support it can provide to Nigeria because of the Nigerian army’s history of human rights violations. Although the United States has provided military training in recent years, it is legally prohibited from providing arms.

Buhari, who won by 2.5 million votes in March, last came to power in Nigeria through a 1983 military coup. Now a “reformed democrat,” he gained the confidence of voters by pledging to prioritize the defeat of Boko Haram. His predecessor was considered largely ineffective at combatting the extremists.

A month in might be too soon to jump to any conclusions, but so long as Maiduguri continues to fall victim to these attacks, Buhari has a lot left to prove.

Photo credit: MUJAHID SAFODIEN/AFP/Getty Images