Africa's Caliphate

"The primary aim is to not let Buhari come to power because everybody knows that this is the one person who has no fear of jailing the whole lot of them."
"To them, this is an existential threat."
Folarin Gbadebo-Smith, managing director, Center for Public Policy Alternatives, Lagos

"This caliphate is very strong and dislodging it is very difficult."
Abubakar Shekau, leader, Boko Haram

"Public perception is that an additional six weeks is unlikely to yield a significant improvement in the security outlook."
"If another poll delay occurs, the chances of social unrest turning highly disruptive will significantly increase."
Manji Cheto, vice-president, Teneo Intelligence consultancy, London

Nigeria's national security adviser has convinced the electoral commission of Africa's largest and most populous country divided between the Muslim North and the Christian South, that it would be better to postpone presidential and legislative elections until March 28, from February 14. That the Nigerian military should be given that six-week period to defeat Islamist Boko Haram and remove its presence permanently from Nigeria. (Obviously it helps to have a grim sense of humour.)

In the south the emerging middle class and Nigeria's oil wealth have attracted investment, but that happy confluence of good fortune has been horribly eroded of late in the wake of the country's dismal failure to meet the threat of Islamist rampages through northern villages, abducting girls, slaughtering people, and taking civilians hostages for sale as slaves. Last year alone Boko Haram killed over 4,700 people in deadly raids.

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan and his corrosively corrupt administration through the People's Democratic Party, is trying to convince the electorate that he deserves more time in office. A surge in popular support for his main opponent, a northern Muslim, 72-year-old Muhammadu Buhari is even gaining support in the predominantly Christian south, fed up with inaction on the part of the current president's administration to suppress the deadly insurgency clamouring for their caliphate.

"Any act of violence can only complicate the security challenges in the country and provide further justification to those who would want to exploit every situation to frustrate the democratic process in the face of certain defeat at the polls", said Mr. Buhari, candidate of the All Progressives Congress, who expressed "disappointment and frustration" at the voting delay. A former president between 1983 and 2985, Mr. Buhari is seen by many Nigerians as a viable future president.

He has an earned reputation for being able to rout out corruption, and being tough on military incompetence. And if anything characterizes the Nigerian military it is most certainly both corruption and military incompetence. Neighbouring countries have had to assign their own militaries to challenge the cross-border raids by Boko Haram, and have as well entered Nigeria to fight the Islamist group there.

"It's in the interest of the ruling party to see if they can reclaim more territory and score some political points", observed Freedom Onuoha, research fellow at the National Defence College in Abuja, the capital of Nigeria. Endemic corruption, lack of equipment, desertion and low morale beset the military in Nigeria, facing off against a well-armed insurgency, as described by research group Chatham House, based in London.

"There are some signs of change, partly with the deployment of more effective Nigerian units, who have been re-taking towns in Adamawa and Yobe in recent weeks. But mostly with an apparent shift in attitude in neighbouring states, and Chad in particular", advised Antony Goldman, head of risk advisers PM Consulting out of London.

STEPHANE YAS / AFP/GETTY IMAGES   Cameroon's soldiers patrol near a tank in the Cameroonian town of Fotokol, on the border with Nigeria this week.

And then, of course, there is the African Union which has pledged to help Nigeria rid itself of its internal menace to government stability and national peace and security. The African Union which has just recently voted Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, its chief....

What is beyond amazing is that Boko Haram has an inner core of between four to six thousand fighters. Yet neither the Nigerian military in its numbers, nor the combined efforts of its neighbours has seen success in obliterating the menace.

But wait ... the African Union will march in volunteer units from member-states and peace and calm will prevail ... right?