(Bloomberg) -- Nigeria, with Africa’s biggest economy, is relying on poorer neighbor Chad to spearhead the battle against the Islamist militant group Boko Haram so it can put in place the security it needs to hold delayed presidential elections next month.

Chadian forces began an offensive last month against Boko Haram, intervening in neighboring Cameroon and clearing rebels from the northeastern Nigerian town Gamboru. They’ve arrived with a reputation for desert-combat prowess after fighting Islamist insurgents alongside French troops in Mali in 2013.

“The Chadian army is now coming in with momentum, coming in on the back of their experience in Mali, and having dealt with the rebels in the east of Chad,” Murtala Touray, senior Africa analyst at IHS Country Risk in London, said by phone.




The army in Nigeria, which spends almost $6 billion a year on its security forces, or about half the value of Chad’s economy, has fared less well. The electoral commission delayed presidential and legislative elections from Feb. 14 to March 28 after President Goodluck Jonathan’s national security adviser said the military couldn’t ensure a peaceful vote.

Nigeria’s population of 170 million is 14 times bigger than that of Chad, which is home to about half the number of people who live in Lagos, the commercial capital of Africa’s biggest oil producer. The gross domestic product of Nigeria is about $522 billion and its people, measured on a purchasing power parity basis, are almost three times richer than those of Chad, according to International Monetary Fund data.

Escalating Conflict

“It’s a sad fact that this is bound to emphasize some of the limitations of the Nigerian military, and there are now plenty of people inside the army who can see how bad all this looks,” James Hall, a former U.K. military attache to Nigeria, said by phone on Tuesday.


“It’s a sad fact that this is bound to emphasize some of the limitations of the Nigerian military, and there are now plenty of people inside the army who can see how bad all this looks,” James Hall, a former U.K. military attache to Nigeria, said by phone on Tuesday.

Boko Haram, which roughly translates as “western education is a sin,” has been fighting for the past six years to set up a self-styled caliphate and is sucking the region into an escalating conflict.

At least 1,600 people died in Boko Haram attacks in January, Bath, U.K.-based risk consultancy Verisk Maplecroft, said in a Feb. 11 report. The militants killed more than 4,700 last year, double the number in 2013, according to the consultancy.

A suicide bomber killed at least seven people and wounded 15 after she set off explosives at a busy market in the northeast town of Biu on Thursday, Yau Mohammed, a witness who helped take victims to the hospital after the blast, said by phone.




Nigerian Initiative

Nigerian military spokesman Chris Olukolade denied that Chad was leading the fight against Boko Haram.

“It is the Nigerian forces that planned and are driving the present onslaught against terrorists from all fronts not the Chadian or other forces as propagated by the Western and some local media,” he said Wednesday in a text-message response to questions. “The Chadians are however keying very well into and working in concert within the overall plan for an all-round move against the terrorists.”

President Jonathan said Wednesday in a live interview on NTA, a state-owned television channel, that he expects Nigerian and regional forces to deal Boko Haram significant defeats in the coming weeks.

Intensifying Campaign

“It seems unlikely that they’re going to be able to decisively defeat Boko Haram in six weeks,” Alex Thurston, an assistant professor at Georgetown University who specializes in Islam in Africa, said by phone on Tuesday from Washington. “Even though the elections have been postponed, I think when the elections take place it will occur in a climate of continued insecurity.”

The growth of Boko Haram and its intensifying campaign of violence is a result of the government’s failure to respond to the insurgency, former President Olusegun Obasanjo said late Wednesday.

“That can only be as a result of inadequate action, both in terms of stick and carrot,” Obasanjo told reporters in London at an event to promote his memoirs.

Many Nigerian soldiers are ill-equipped and demoralized, highlighting what many critics say is endemic corruption sapping the army, according to analysts such as Touray. They try to avoid postings to the northeast, where they come up against highly mobile, heavily armed and motivated Boko Haram militants, he said.

Soldiers Mutiny

A military court in December sentenced 54 soldiers to death by firing squad for “conspiracy to commit mutiny.” It followed a guilty verdict against 12 soldiers in September for staging a mutiny in the northeastern state of Borno, Boko Haram’s stronghold.

“There is a complete disincentive for them to fight,” Touray said.

Nigeria, Chad, Benin, Niger and Cameroon pledged this month to build an 8,700-strong force to fight Boko Haram and base it in the Chadian capital, N’Djamena.

Chad’s involvement carries risks.

While Chad’s army won praise for its role in Mali, it withdrew from the multinational force in Central African Republic after complaints by local residents about its use of violence, Marielle Debos, a professor at the University of Paris, said by phone. Chad denied allegations by the United Nations that its troops fired on civilians in Bangui in March.

‘Desert Warriors’

“The Chadian army has always benefited from a certain image of being hardened desert warriors,” Debos said. “But this shouldn’t hide the violence they have often been accused of, and the impunity that their leaders benefit from.”

Chadian President Idriss Deby may see political benefits in fighting Boko Haram, said Thurston at Georgetown University.

“Idriss Deby has been in power in Chad since 1990 and faced severe rebellions against his rule, particularly in 2006 and 2008, and relied on French assistance to overcome those challenges,” he said. “He’s had an incentive to present himself as someone who is vital to keep peace and stability in the wider region.”








http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-12/african-giant-nigeria-relies-on-poorer-chad-to-fight-boko-haram

......
Comment reserved

Story of our lives,With GEJ.chai.

Nonsense!
Same chad where Boko Haram over ran their village?

Same gamboru through which Boko haram attacked Fotokol in cameroon?

Stupid report.

Okay, they've had their fun but it is time Nigeria turned her back on the childish Western taunts for there's something looming on the horizon we need to keep our eyes on. Nigeria needs to let America and the West heap all the accolade they want on Chad because it is beginning to look like a blind side or else America underestimates Nigeria or has become a ridiculous nation in her own rights with all these pompous utterances. Nigeria needs to do all the things the clever people on Beegeagles blog suggests plus do all the things that the equally competent and clever patriotic Nigerian military hierarchy plans and not be goaded into actions that might lead to our eventual Bankruptcy as our new economic status has led some people in the West to believe the time is ripe to unburden themselves of the cost minus profits Central Africa. We need to modernize our military both technologically and in personnel. We need to do this for the sake of Nigeria and Nigerians and not for pass marks from America. America /Western opinions are not endorsed by gods. If anything their petty prejudices and biases diminishes them. Actually, right now, with events unfolding in Russia they may have a reckoning with the evil gods of retribution.

Forget the Chad issue. If Chad is good militarily then good for them. We should not be phased by regional powers that the Americans declare or subliminally threaten us by only ones that actually are on the ground, defending their territory and projecting power and deterrence. Many of the things unfolding now was obvious a decade ago. It was obvious years ago that Nigeria was undermanned. Indeed when in 2009 Paddylo was making his tribute to Nigeria military i suggested that a Nation of Nigeria's size and importance needed a one million man military. I also suggested two years ago that Nigeria should beware of being drawn into a war that stretched across West Africa to Central Africa. Moreover that we should be weary for if there are any Jihadist, that there would be "pretense" that they want a nation that encompassed parts of Northern Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon up to Sudan. These things arnt difficult to foresee for they're obvious. Nigeria is a Nation that isn't wanted by the world. And if we learned anything from the history of the BLACK experience and understand the nature of the European mind in relation to this then the difficulties that Nigeria faces and will face become obvious.


So another warning. Nigeria is a nation that isn't wanted. Forget our economic importance to world trade, the world can and would continue merrily without Nigeria. In any case, consummate business people can make more money from scraping a car and selling it piecemeal than others would make from selling it whole. See, all those years of demonisation of Nigerians, articles and posts telling you that Nigeria is a shithole, Nigerians are corrupt; Nigerian women are the most promiscuous in the world; Nigerians burn witch children; Nigerians bleach, Nigeria is the shame of Africa; Igbo are crooks and thives, Youroba women are dirty and smelly, Aboki this Aboki that, Nigerian sham weddings; Nigerians are drug pushers in South Africa; Nigerians are kicked in Malasia; Nigerians are prostitutes in Spain; Indians hate Nigerians, 419, etc,etc etc. All these things have contributed to the current situation we find our selves. These things have also soften Nigerians and conditioned Nigerians into overlooking the obvious shithole that is the rest of Africa. Africa is a wasteland of hopelessness on which a few nations including Nigeria stands despite her flaws like a dirty diamond.

In addition to all the other things that were obvious years ago and that i and others mentioned, the condition of Hopeless Africa as constituting a present and continuous danger to Nigeria and a few other Nations, is looming on the horizons sooner than feared. What Nigeria needs to do to stand a good chance of surviving in the coming decades is to consolidate and improve. By this i mean that we need to sort of withdraw and become dense. We need to watch the pennies, make sure, as much as we can, that investments in all sectors including the military is the most for the buck we can get. It means we need to map our nation, and be in control of every inch of our territory. We need, as soon as possible to dissolve this so-called coalition, which ultimately is nothing but a shorthand lazy way of solving the problem of open borders and which outside agencies have a hand in controlling and driving to lead us to possibly bearing the burden of the mess left by the West in Central Africa. We need to modernize our army so that it is fit for purpose. We need to control our borders. If we don't get a grip of our sprawling massiveness and dynamism and know every bit of it, we're going to be destroyed by the sort of trick being employed against us both in the media and the North east right now.



I think I've overwritten and lost the thrust of what i wanted to convey. Oh, well, in the mess above lies the truth someplace