The Federal Government has again debunked rumours of Boko Haram insurgents establishing a Caliphate in some parts of Nigeria. Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, who was reacting to a recent publication by The Economist of London, noted that contrary to the report, Boko Haram has no Caliphate anywhere in Nigeria.
While admitting that Nigeria was still facing security challenges, he noted the nation has made a lot of progress in tackling insecurity.
According to him, prior to the dislodgement of Boko Haram in 2015, the insurgents did establish their “so-called Caliphate in Bama, Borno State, where they hoisted their flag, collected taxes as well as installed and removed emirs at will. Today, Boko Haram has no Caliphate anywhere in Nigeria.”
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He expressed worries that the erroneous report was coming at a time that Boko Haram and ISWAP were taking on each other “in a mutually-destructive lockstep, and terrorists were surrendering in droves as a result of heavy pounding by the military.
“It is wrong to say that jihadists are carving out a Caliphate in the North-East,” he stressed. While describing The Economist’s report as patently wrong and badly-researched, the minister lashed out at the Nigerian media for adopting same report, stressing that the idea of the Nigerian media, especially the traditional media adopting everything published by its foreign counterpart was antithetical to its reputation of independence and vibrancy.
“Nigerian media does itself a great disservice by turning itself into an echo chamber of the foreign media. When The Economist reported its patently wrong and badly researched story, it was immediately amplified by the local media without interrogating its content.
This is totally unconscionable,” the Mohammed said.
