Nigerian lawmakers on Thursday approved a request by the country's president to prolong emergency rule in the restive northeast by a further six months to try to quell a bloody Islamist insurgency.
Senators in the upper house of parliament voted unanimously in favour of Goodluck Jonathan's request and agreed "to extend the state of emergency in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states on the same terms and conditions", the approved motion read.
Emergency rule was declared in the three states in May as part of government efforts to curb attacks by Boko Haram fighters and saw thousands of additional troops flood into the area, supported by air power.
Jonathan said in a letter to lawmakers on Wednesday that the army had achieved "considerable successes" in containing the militants but "some security challenges still exist".
As a result, emergency rule should be extended for a further six months from November 12, he added.
Jonathan's claims of considerable success against Boko Haram is not so clear cut, however, as experts point to the continuation of attacks that have claimed hundreds of civilian lives across the northeast in recent months.
Senators also called for more clarity about the effectiveness of military operations, requesting briefings from armed forces chiefs.
"It looks like more people have been killed under the emergency than before the emergency," said Kyari Mohammed, a Boko Haram expert at the Modibbo Adama University in Yola, the capital of Adamawa.
He added that while the continuing massacres around Borno and Yobe may provide political justification for the extension, there was little evidence that the strategy over the last six months had been effective.
Attacks appeared to have partly shifted out of major cities into more remote areas but the number, scale and brutality of strikes blamed on Boko Haram militants have remained unchanged.
In Borno state, the mobile phone network remains switched off, a move the military said would stop the Islamists from coordinating attacks but which critics say has stopped residents from sounding the alarm when attacks begin.
Source: Yahoonews
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