{Information minister tells Al Jazeera the country’s army have decimated Boko Haram’s ability to launch big attacks.}<\/p>\n
Nigeria is on top of its security problems and Boko Haram has been hobbled ahead of elections in the oil-rich River State region, according to information minister Lai Mohammed. <\/p>\n
Mohammed said the army had significantly reduced Boko Haram’s ability to carry out big attacks, just days after a suspected suicide attack by the group on a mosque left 22 worshippers dead in the northeastern Maiduguri city.<\/p>\n
“The government is on top of the situation in terms of security and I think Nigeria has done really well,” Mohammed said in an interview with Al Jazeera on Saturday.<\/p>\n
“The Boko Haram insurgency has been massively decimated to the extent that it is no longer in the position to carry out spectacular attacks.”<\/p>\n
Referring to the attack in Maiduguri, Mohammed said there was a difference between lone-wolf attacks and large-scale ones.<\/p>\n
“Before these villagers (in Maiduguri) were under the control of Boko Haram insurgents … today they have been dislodged, now they’re attacking soft targets, which is what happens with a insurgency on its way out.”<\/p>\n
Oil crisis<\/p>\n
Mohammed also told Al Jazeera that his government saw the current low oil-prices as an opportunity to diversify its economy. Nigeria has proven oil reserves of more than 37bn barrels and a daily output of more than 2m, according to OPEC.<\/p>\n
In February, it entered talks with the World Bank for a loan to shore up its finances after oil prices fell to below $30 a barrel.<\/p>\n
The current price of per barrel stands at just above $40, still significantly lower than average prices in 2014 of above $110.<\/p>\n
Mohammed became information minister after President Muhammadu Buhari won elections last year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{Information minister tells Al Jazeera the country’s army have decimated Boko Haram’s ability to launch big attacks.} Nigeria is on top of its security problems and Boko Haram has been hobbled ahead of elections in the oil-rich River State region, according to information minister Lai Mohammed. Mohammed said the army had significantly reduced Boko Haram’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[2474],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-24027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-al-jazeera"],"bylines":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24027\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24027"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=24027"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=24027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}