What if the Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeri­a is ‘programmed’ to continue in perpetuity?

Federal Court of Appeals in the United Arab Emirates, which sits in Abu Dhabi, has sentenced to jail six Nigerians for transferring $782,000 from Dubai to Boko Haram in Nigeria.

More than one thousand members of Boko Haram have surrendered to the Nigerian army in recent weeks, along with hundreds of women and children that presumably made up their family units. The Cameroonian authorities, too, have announced that at least eighty-two Boko Haram operatives have surrendered or defected, also with their families.

On January 20, the electric company serving Maiduguri, capital of Borno state, publicly stated that Boko Harm attacks on transmission lines and infrastructure had cut electricity service to the city on January 17, removing Maiduguri from the national grid. The electric company had promised to restore power soon.

A new report shows that the quantities of lethal materiel seized by Boko Haram from state stockpiles are astonishingly high, and the range of weapon systems lost is worryingly extensive. The diversion of contingent-owned equipment (COE)—that is, government-owned materiel—from the four Lake Chad Basin countries participating in and alongside the Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF) has occurred on a level unprecedented on the African continent.