Borno state Governor, Babagana Zullum, recently told the BBC that the insurgents were even recruiting people who had previously been forced from their homes by the conflict itself. Even when it comes to the fighting there is the problem of weaponry, according to Mr Adamu, who says that the military is ill-equipped.
Research by his firm, Beacon Consulting, found that there were about 6. It is not the case that all of the remainder are being used by the Islamist militants, but the figures highlight that there are a huge amount of weapons available that are not in the military's control.
Mr Adamu also says that "what we are seeing based on evidence is that these [armed] groups have a higher calibre of weapons, unfortunately, than the military".
Corruption may be one thing that is holding the military back when it comes to improving its equipment. It is suspected that a lot of money meant to bolster the campaign against Boko Haram has ended up in officials' pockets. Mr Yalwa says that in some cases the fight against Boko Haram is not being fought with "sincerity" and "it seems some people have turned it into merchandise and are into self-enrichment".
In recent years, the military was hamstrung by a US arms embargo over human rights abuses. President Buhari and his predecessor, Goodluck Jonathan, both complained that this was hampering counter-insurgency efforts. But this was lifted by President Donald Trump in and as a result Nigeria is expecting the delivery of Super Tucano aircraft.
This should build on the military's air superiority, which Mr Adamu believes is not being used to its full advantage. Although there are claims that even this superiority is not paying off. Mr Bukarti told the BBC the insurgents appear to have "understood and adapted to the pattern of military airstrikes" and are taking advantage of the difficult terrain in Nigeria's north-east to evade military attacks.
Boko Haram at a glance:. Who are Boko Haram? There are also other aspects of the strategy that have been criticised. Over the past year the army has been withdrawing troops from smaller bases and concentrating them in large formations known as Super Camps. This strategy was adopted in early when soldiers were under regular attack and their weapons were being stolen.
However, it has left vast swathes of rural communities unprotected, analysts say. So clearly the Super Camps left the rural communities more vulnerable," argues Mr Adamu. This has also devastated the livelihoods of people in north-east Nigeria who rely on fishing and crop farming, and had an impact on food production.
The military is also hampered by gaps in intelligence gathering as well as being unable to plug information leaks. This means that sometimes it appears that "the insurgents are ahead of the military", Mr Yalwa says. The army disputes this alleged problem. Its spokesperson Mohammed Yarima recently said that "troops are in high fighting spirit and determined to as ever to clear the [north-east] region and the country of vestiges of Boko Haram terrorists".
Adding to the problems of dealing with Boko Haram is that the insurgency, once confined to the north-east, appears to be spreading. There are concerns that armed criminal gangs in other parts of the north and centre of the country are forging links with the militants.
Last year, Boko Haram released a video claiming a presence in Niger state which is far from its usual area of operations. The authorities there issued a statement in March saying Boko Haram fighters had infiltrated the state occupying forests and attacking communities.
Last December, then army chief Lt Gen Yusuf Tukur Buratai suggested that the fight against Boko Haram could continue for another 20 years if the civilian and military approaches were not better co-ordinated.
The hard-pressed residents of north-eastern Nigeria will hope that warning does not come to pass. The central mosque, in Maiduguri, is located near city neighborhoods that were briefly under control of Boko Haram militants in Corruption is endemic in government institutions, particularly among security agencies, and the inability of security forces to rescue more than schoolgirls abducted in the northeastern town of Chibok on April 14, has stoked questions of competence.
One police officer who is a member of the joint task force serving in northeastern Borno state said troops are given just 30 bullets before heading out to patrol or search for Boko Haram.
If you want more bullets, you have to bribe a superior officer. A growing number of experts and outsiders, in and out of Nigeria, worry that the tactics— extrajudicial killing, abductions, arbitrary arrests— used by government security forces to battle Boko Haram may in fact be worsening matters, terrorizing a population that was already dubious of the military and pushing them to sympathize with the militants.
A report released Tuesday by Amnesty International documented evidence of extrajudicial executions, and other serious human rights violations by the military in northeast Nigeria. And an insurgency that can use poverty, corruption, historic grievances, sectarian enmity as fertile ground to grow and spread means all of West Africa and the region known as the Sahel is in danger.
The heart of the insurgency is where it largely began: the city of Maiduguri, a city now paralyzed by fear. The abduction of more than schoolgirls from Chibok on April 14 sparked wide outrage. Boko Haram has also targeted hundreds of teachers, like these shown here protesting in Maiduguri. On a day last August, as Mohammed made his outbound journey, militants stopped his bus near the village of Dikwa, midway to the border.
Armed men, peering through the windows, ordered three passengers to get off the bus. Two were shot and killed while the third insisted he was a Muslim. Bus drivers, shown here in Maiduguri's Mairi Motor Park, have stopped driving many routes out of the city, fearing ambushes from Boko Haram militants.
Borno, in the very northeastern corner, used to be the gateway for trade in agricultural products, livestock and textiles between the whole of northern Nigeria and the neighboring countries of Cameroon, Chad, Niger, Sudan, Central African Republic and even the two Congos. Around the region, farms lie fallow, covered with grass, as farmers give up on planting, knowing that the militants will likely pillage their crops, or simply burn them. The cattle market in the Yobe state town of Potiskum used to be one of the largest in West Africa; Boko Haram attacked it twice; more than people died in an attack there in Despite the imminent rainy season, hundreds of combines, tractors and other mechanized planting equipment sat wasted and rusting at the headquarters of the Borno State Agricultural Mechanization Authority in Maiduguri.
Officials have warned of severe food shortages in several states if the planting season fails. The bazaar was mostly occupied by young people selling cellphone handsets and parts and repairing them. A car packed with explosives was left near the traffic circle, only a few yards from where his father was busy preparing skewered lamb kebabs for the afternoon and evening rush.
After years of escalating violence, Boko Haram burst into the global consciousness in April, when its militants abducted more than schoolgirls from the town of Chibok, 80 miles south of Maiduguri, and herded them onto buses and drove into the forests.
One year-old girl, who later escaped and asked that her name not be used, recounted the kidnapping: how she and others took off their head scarves and threw them out the window of the truck they were riding on. Maiduguri, meanwhile, has become a haven for refugees escaping the dangers of surrounding towns and villages, and the destruction that has left whole towns and villages ravaged or abandoned. Thousands of women and children have fled to refugee camps, like this one in Bole, Adamawa state, one of three northeastern states under state of emergency.
In the s, when Nigeria was still under military rule, more extreme interpretations of Islam began to influence Muslim communities in the north. The exact date of creation for Boko Haram is unclear. With the end of military rule in , Nigeria returned to democracy. In northeastern regions such as Borno state, politicians saw Yusuf and his adherents as a useful base for rallying political support.
Ali Modu Sherif, who became Borno governor in with the help from this alliance, appointed a top Boko Haram official as his state commissioner for religious affairs. This effectively gave the group access to state funds to build mosques and other projects. Four years later, when Sherif ran for reelection, he ended his alliance with the group, beginning an escalating series of struggles that culminated in the summer , when Yusuf was arrested and killed while in Nigerian police custody.
Thousands of his followers were killed in the police crackdown that followed. The first car bombings began the following year that targeted a police headquarters in Abuja and a United Nations headquarters.
The trend hastened by the near collapse in of nearby Mali, which was nearly overrun by rebels and al-Qaida-linked fighters. Until intervention by the French military in January , the power vacuum in northern Mali allowed Boko Haram militants to set up training camps.
There, according to Pham, of the Atlantic Council, hundreds of Boko Haram fighters may have cycled through the camps, learning desert warfare tactics and Islamic ideology. Boko Haram has shown increasing sophistication in its ability to mount coordinated attacks. This attack in the northeast town of Bama in May killed at least 42 people.
The car and suicide bombing that began occurring in , previously unknown in Nigeria, have hallmarks of al-Qaida tactics.
That means the organization, while low-budget, is tactically more sophisticated. And brutal, using decapitations, summary executions, car bombings of civilian targets and other means as part of its campaign.
One video posted online July 22 appears to show Boko Haram militants interrogating, then gleefully decapitating a captured Nigerian air force officer. Gombe, where this mosque is located, is home to thousands of refugees who have fled the violence inflicted by Boko Haram on neighboring Borno and Yobe states. With violence reaching new levels of brutality, President Jonathan in May declared a state of emergency in Borno and two other neighboring states.
As local military and police units were increasingly outgunned and ill-equipped, the Nigerian government established the Joint Military Task Force called JTF, aimed at taking the fight directly to Boko Haram. The task force deployed thousands of police officers and military soldiers to places around Borno to set up checkpoints, conduct sweeps and make arrests.
A new army unit — called the 7 th Division— was set up last year, deployed specifically to Borno. This is no longer a localized conflict or insurgency. In dozens of interviews conducted in April and May in Borno and elsewhere, police officers, soldiers and government officials complained that corruption was hobbling efforts and sapping morale. Many junior officers complain that superiors pocket the money meant for their allowances and for equipment.
With our bare hands? A car bomb in Maiduguri, the city that is the birthplace of Boko Haram extremism, killed at least 56 people on July 2, Officials said victims were mostly elderly women who sold peanuts and lemon juice at the market. In May, army soldiers fired on the car of a general, whom they blamed for allowing the deaths of fellow soldiers at the hands of Boko Haram militants.
Other soldiers have reported that Nigerian military officers have defected to fighting alongside Boko Haram forces. One told VOA how his military unit, based in Borno, was ambushed by fighters in May, some of whom he recognized. Some of the [Boko Haram] people we were fighting against were members of the Nigerian military who trained us. Bama, the chairman of the Borno State Chamber of Commerce, said not long ago he was driving near the village of Kawuri southwest of Maiduguri when he witnessed an ambush by Boko Haram fighters.
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