General Christopher Musa, Chief of Defence Staff, has said the Boko Haram war is taking long because it is not a conventional one.

Musa stated this during an interview on Channels TV’s Politics Today on Friday.

He added that it is very difficult to fight people who have nothing to lose.

Musa said, “This Boko Haram thing is a lot and for them to have succeeded for 16 years and still fighting, how are they getting their funding? Who is sustaining them? Because they can’t not just be doing things like that.

“What I tell people is that no country should allow this kind of thing to commence. It is a difficult thing to eradicate. You know why? Before now when we had conventional warfare, you knew you were for territory you wanted to achieve. Now you have to fight with people who have nothing to lose. It is an ideology they have in their mind.

“They believe they are right and you are wrong. He believes that if he kills you, he is getting blessings. If you kill him, he believes he is going to heaven. Absolutely, he has nothing to lose.

“That makes it very difficult and it’s not written on their forehead. So, how do you identify who is who? We obey international laws and they don’t. So, what do they do? They use human shields. And time they go into people because they know you can’t shoot.

“When people say why it’s taking so long, it is a very difficult operation to do. You make mistakes and kill innocent people, the country comes after you. If you don’t kill them, the people will come after you. It’s difficult on both sides.”

He said that the army is working hand-in-hand with the national assembly to supervise arms purchase, thereby tackling corruption.

He said,  “No more corruption in the arms purchase. We are working closely with the National Assembly. There is an oversight function that is being carried out. We have both people that come and check what we are doing. We are very open and I can bet you that we love this country and we want to give the best to the country.

“If you look at the amount we are getting and buying. The sixteen years of fighting Boko Haram has enabled us to build the capacity of our repair team, our engineers and mechanics. Now we can pick a completely burnt down MRAPV, fix it and put it back into work.”

On equipping personnel, the general said that the army would soon start producing its weapons.

“With the signing of the DICON bill by Mr president last, it has afforded us the opportunity to partner with original equipment manufacturers all over the world to come and produce. Because even with our money we can’t produce some of this equipment. Now we are producing our ammunition. We want to start producing our own weapons.”

[DailyTrust]