Buhari's Administration Has Reduced Bokoharam Dominance To "Almost Nothing"

The minister of state for labor and employment, Festus Keyamo, said the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari’s government has reduced Boko-Haram’s dominance to “almost nothing.”

Keyamo, who is also the spokesman of the Bola Tinubu Campaign Council, said this on Monday in an interview with Trust TV.

He said the Buhari administration achieved some success in curbing the activities of Boko Haram by collaborating with neighboring countries.

Recently, the president came under criticism for approving the purchases of vehicles for the Niger Republic worth over a billion naira.

Zainab Ahmed, minister of finance, said “Nigeria has had to support its neighbors, especially the immediate neighbors to enhance their capacity to secure their countries as it relates to us.”

Keyamo said when Buhari assumed power in 2015 the APC had promised to ensure a buoyant economy, and fight insecurity and corruption to reposition the country.

Despite the overwhelming deadly attacks on communities by terrorists in some parts of the country, particularly in the north, Mr. Keyamo said the government had reduced terrorism significantly when compared to what it was under the PDP-led government.

He alleged that the news highlighting the failures of the current administration was sponsored by the opposition to discredit the ruling party.

“The cliche that the government has failed has become a song that the opposition has virtually rammed down the throats of everybody without looking at the details of what we have done, the statistics, and putting them in context. What the opposition has done in the last few years is to memorize some highfalutin words and those are the highfalutin words that the press repeats – the government has failed, security has collapsed.

“What did we inherit? We inherited the Boko Haram problem. At that time, they had taken over more than 14 local governments in the northeast and hoisted their flags.

We inherited the farmers-herders crisis that had been going on even before Obasanjo’s time. These are existential problems.

“What have we done about those two problems? A club like El-kanemi Football Club of Borno that were playing their football matches in Bauchi because of insecurity— nobody could gather in one place in Maiduguri to watch a football match – now El-kanemi is back to Maiduguri, that is a success.

“Boko Haram has not been totally wiped out, but it has reduced significantly because we constructively engaged our neighbors. We reduced them to almost nothing.

I am not saying these things have totally wiped out, but on the scale of what we met and on the scale of what we have, it has reduced significantly,” Mr. Keyamo claimed.

The minister faulted the past PDP government for the lingering strike action of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).

The union has been on strike since February.

He said the past government signed the 2009 agreement with the union without fulfilling it thereby boxing Buhari’s government into a corner to renegotiate.

“Imagine how irresponsible a government can be when they went into agreements with ASUU and signed conditions that they couldn’t fulfill and that is why ASUU is on strike.

“So let us tell Nigerians that ASUU is not on strike because APC signed an agreement with them. It was the PDP that signed the agreement,” he said.