Another Caliphate Heard From

"There is a copycat element at work here. If ISIS can declare a caliphate, then so can we. Boko Haram want to be seen by their peers as grown-up jihadists. They want to show 'we can control territory, we can control a caliphate'."
"Success, and they have had success, creates a different kind of requirement. You need a place where you can base yourself and keep equipment and supplies and, indeed, captives. It means that you've got to hold territory."
Andrew Pocock, British High Commissioner to Nigeria

And territory is what Boko Haram has created for itself in its proud new caliphate now the size of Belgium where the black flag of jihad proudly waves over towns and villages scattered across Borno and Yobe states. The fishing town of Baga on Lake Chad knows well what it's like to bear the brunt of a Boko Haram attack. The scourge of Nigeria strikes at will, for though there are local militias there is no defence from the nation's military, too busy to be concerned about the plight of thousands of Nigerians who were slaughtered. in the latest attacks.

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  A soldier and government officials inspects the bridge that link Nigeria and Cameroon following an attacked by Islamic militants in Gambaru, Nigeria, May 11, 2014. Thousands of members of Nigeria’s home-grown Islamic extremist Boko Haram group strike across the border in Cameroon, with coordinated attacks on border towns, a troop convoy and a major barracks. Further north, Boko Haram employs recruits from Chad to enforce its control in northeastern Nigerian towns and cities.    Jossy Ola/AP/File

Perhaps the most recent successes in the atrocities taking place in Nigeria have gone to Boko Haram's Emir's head, leading Abubakar Shekau to order his militias over the border into Cameroon. Where they met up against resistance from Cameroonian soldiers who fought in a manner that Goodluck Jonathan's military appears incapable of doing. The reality was the killing of over a hundred Boko Haram jihadists on Monday, the result of attacking a military base near the Nigerian border.  

Issa Tchiroma Bakary, Cameroon's minister of communications stated that the Boko Haram failed assault lost the terrorist group 143 of its fighters. In addition they lost "important warfare equipment made up of assault rifles of various brands, heavy weapons and bullets of all calibers". In the fighting one Cameroonian soldier was killed, and four wounded at the military base in Kolofata, in the far northwest of Cameroon.

So while Nigeria, the most populous, the largest territorially and the most wealthy of African nations is incapable of securing the defence of its population largely out of disinterest and political corruption, its neighbours are more than capable of fending off terrorist attacks. President Goodluck Jonathan cancelled the third of the training sessions between his military and the United States; after all, his country has no need of self-defence capabilities.


The raid last week on the garrison town of Baga in northeastern Nigeria represented a huge success for Boko Harm in terms of numbers of victims, held by local authorities to be as many as 2,000 killed. The Nigerian Defence Ministry claims that the number of those killed at Baga were no more than 150, consolidating their reputation for underplaying such numbers rather than face the reality of having to admit the threat that Boko Haram represents.