Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo said Yesterday Monday that despite what his administration might want people to
believe, former President Goodluck Jonathan was never committed to
ending the Boko Haram insurgency during his tenure.

Osinbajo said this in a lecture titled,
“The unraveling of Boko Haram and the rebuilding of the North-East of
Nigeria” which he delivered at the Harvard University’s Weatherland
Centre for International Affairs, United States.

The Vice-President’s media office made the speech available to journalists on Monday.

While attributing his position to many
factors, Osinbajo said it was politically convenient for the then ruling
Peoples Democratic Party to claim that the Boko Haram sect was
sponsored a northern-Muslim political elite to discredit the
government led a Christian.

He recalled that when the All
Progressives Congress was formed, the then ruling party was also quick
to paint it (APC) as the political wing of the Boko Haram sect.

He said it was not until President
Muhammadu Buhari who was then the leader of the opposition, was nearly
killed in an attack in Kaduna that the false narrative began to lose
credibility.

The Vice-President added, “Secondly, the
ruling party also somewhat cynically seemed to have considered that
since BH attacks were actually in the heartland of the opposition it was
not necessarily an unwelcome development as it could only weaken the
opposition.

“Third, extensive corruption in arms
procurement estimated at about $15bn, ensured that the military remained
poorly equipped and demoralised.

“A number of well-publicised mutinies occurred and troops involved were taken through widely unpopular court-martials.

“As the government dithered and
equivocated BH proceeded to realise the objective of occupying territory
and  establishing Islamist states in Nigeria and in the Lake Chad
basin.

“In Borno State alone, it occupied and
hoisted its flag in 20 of the 27 Local Government Areas that constituted
the state. In Adamawa State,  BH took Mubi and some villages in Yobe
State.”

Osinbajo said it was not until the
abduction of more than 200 secondary schoolgirls from their dormitories
in Chibok that public outrage against Jonathan’s government’s inept
handling of the insurgency reached its peak.

He added that the government then
incurred widespread anger when it denied that an abduction took place
and suggested that the opposition had simply invented the story.

Osinbajo, however, said Buhari’s assumption of office changed the tide.

He said the strongest reasons for
Buhari’s victory in the March 2015 presidential election was the
expectation that going his reputation as a no-nonsense soldier, he
would defeat Boko Haram and restore peace to the North-East.

True to type, he said within six months
of Buhari’s Presidency, the sect had been effectively dislodged from all
the local governments they once held and had retreated into the Sambisa
Forest and the northern border towns and villages.

He said the terrorists’ military capacity had been severely degraded and their supply lines effectively blocked.

Osinbajo said the ability of Boko Haram to get willing suicide bombers remained a mystery.