Nigeria’s commander who has been leading the fight against militant Islamist group Boko Haram Maj Gen Ibrahim Attahiru has been sacked by the country’s military.
No official reason was given for his removal but his redeployment to an unspecified post follows a string of attacks by the insurgents, including the killing of at least 50 people in a mosque last month.
Maj Gen Ibrahim Attahiru was given a deadline in July to deliver Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau dead or alive within 40 days by the Army chief Gen Tukur Buratai.
At least 20,000 people have been killed and thousands more abducted since Boko Haram launched its insurgency in north-eastern Nigeria in 2009.
About seven months after President Muhammadu Buhari took office in 2015, he declared that Boko Haram had been “technically defeated” after the army recaptured most territory that had fallen to it.
However, Boko Haram has continued carrying out bomb and gun attacks in the north-east.
More than 40 people, including soldiers and an oil exploration team, died in July during a military operation to free people who had been ambushed in a convoy by the militants.
Maj Gen Attahiru Ibrahim, who was appointed to lead the offensive against Boko Haram in the north-east in May this year, has been replaced with another general, Nicholas Rogers, who led a special military and police force to tackle ethnic clashes in the volatile central region.
