A rag-tag army of Islamic die hards, Boko Haram, have driven Nigerian troops out of Gudumbali, a town in the northeast of the country. This has thus made nonsense of claims by the government and military that the group had been fatally weakened.
The operation was the terrorists' first successful seizure of a town for two years. In the attack on Friday, eight people were killed and more than 3,000 inhabitants fled.
There was also an attack on a naval base near Baga, on the shores of Lake Chad, where the Nigerian navy had been mounting operations against the terrorists.
Ironically, almost 4,000 residents of Gudumbali who had spent years in camps in Maiduguri, the state capital, were asked to go home weeks ago. Observers say that the motive for the forced return was to help to create the impression that security had been restored to the northeast before elections next year.
75-year-old leader, Mohammed Buhari is standing for re-election in February.
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