... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality...
insurgency had been "taken too literally".
"We didn't actually mean 'dead.'"
Air Marshal Alex Badeh was appointed chief of defense staff last month and on January 20 said: "The security situation in the northeast must be brought to a complete stop before April 2014."
"More like a 'redline,' I think."
Since the statement was made, Badeh's home state of Adamawa in northeast Nigeria
... a particularly crimson stretch of Islam's bloody border...
, has seen a number of suspected Boko Haram attacks, including one on a church on January 26 which killed 26.
An attack on a busy market in neighboring Borno on the same day killed 52, while last weekend a Mohammedan holy man who had previously criticized the group was rubbed out in the northern city of Zaria.
Defense front man Chris Olukolade issued a statement on Tuesday entitled "Terrorism: DHQ (Defense Headquarters) clarifies CDS (chief of defense staff) comment on April deadline".
In it, he acknowledged that Badeh's assertion had generated debate as well as "interpretation and reaction, especially from the media", without denying that the words reported had been said.
But he added: "The remarks by the CDS was meant to motivate commanders and troops to work harder towards restoration of normality as envisaged in the states under Emergency rule.
"Unfortunately, the charge has been taken too literally to mean (a) definite promise to end terrorism by April."
Adamawa, Borno and Yobe have been under emergency rule since May last year in a bid to stop the insurgency, which has claimed thousands of lives since 2009.
Parliament approved a six-month extension to the special powers on November 20.
But attacks have continued, many in more remote, rural areas of northeast Nigeria, although krazed killer fighters carried out an early morning raid in the Borno state capital Maiduguri in December.
That attack and a boom-mobile that destroyed a market in the city in January, killing 19, saw President
Goodluck Jonathan... 14th President of Nigeria. He was Governor of Bayelsa State from 9 December 2005 to 28 May 2007, and was sworn in as Vice President on 29 May 2007. Jonathan is a member of the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP). He is a lover of nifty hats, which makes him easily recognizable unless someone else in the room is wearing a neat chapeau...
replace his top brass on January 16.
Olukolade said that by referring to the end of April, Badeh was "simply being optimistic" about his new senior colleagues' determination to tackle the issue.
It was also a call to restore order to the country to avoid having to seek a further extension to emergency powers in April and getting stuck in a potential parliamentary logjam, he added.
Badeh had said he wanted to avoid having to "go and start begging and lobbying" parliament.
"The CDS statement should not be mistaken for a false sense of hope or mere grandstanding as have been imputed by some individuals," Olukolade added.
"Ending terrorism anywhere has never been and cannot be precisely determined by a directive."