Former Vice President of Nigeria, Atiku Abubakar, has addressed renewed public discourse on the origins of the Boko Haram insurgency, stating that while the extremist sect emerged in 2002 during his tenure in office, the administration of President Olusegun Obasanjo, under which he served, swiftly dismantled its early operations within weeks.
“Yes, Boko Haram started in 2002 when I was in office. But we crushed them within a few weeks. We identified their cells, acted decisively, and there was no trace of them for years. What we saw later was a resurgence due to policy missteps and inaction in subsequent years.”
The former Vice President emphasized the importance of timely intelligence, cohesive governance, and a coordinated security approach as key to the government’s early success in handling the sect. He further noted that the brief existence of Boko Haram in 2002 was largely underestimated by many at the time, but that the Obasanjo administration took no chances.
Atiku expressed concern over how the insurgency was allowed to re-emerge and metastasize into a full-scale humanitarian and security crisis in later years. He reiterated that early warning signs in any security challenge must never be ignored.