The national security adviser (NSA), Col. Sambo Dasuki (rtd), has said that the new date of the general election, March 28 and April 11, will not be moved again and that all known camps belonging to the Boko Haram sect will be destroyed before the rescheduled polls.
“All known Boko Haram camps will be taken out. They won’t be there. They will be dismantled,” Col. Dasuki told the AFP news agency.
“Those dates will not be shifted again,” Dasuki said when asked if the polls, initially scheduled for February 14, could be pushed back further.
The NSA said he believed the new military cooperation agreed two weeks ago between Nigeria and its neighbours – Cameroon, Chad and Niger – will prove decisive against the insurgents.
Dasuki had urged election officials on Saturday to postpone the polls on the grounds that the military could not provide nationwide election security because all available resources were being deployed to the northeast to fight Boko Haram.
His justification for the delay was widely criticised in part because the military is not primarily responsible for election security in Nigeria. Troops have only been called in when police and civil defence units have needed reinforcements.
Dasuki said there was no political motive underlying his call for a delay.
“It’s not everybody who does things for selfish reasons. Some of us have a conscience,” he said.
Dasuki said the postponement could easily help the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) because improved security could boost turnout in the northeast, an APC stronghold.
In a related issue, the minister of interior, Abba Moro, has expressed the hope that Boko Haram would be defeated in the next six weeks before the general election in March.
The minister told the Hausa service of the British Broadcasting Corporation that the recent multi-national force was aimed to halt the insurgency.
“If the military demand six weeks extension for general elections, I see no reason to debunk their request because they can win the war against the Boko Haram,” he said.
“If the February election were to hold, I don’t think the citizens of the country will come to cast their votes due to security challenges,” he added.
