Despite suffering heavy casualties and dislodgement from its North-East strongholds, Boko Haram still boasts “about 6,000 fighters ready to fight to the finish,” a Nigerian Senator who investigated the group’s activities has revealed.

Senator Babafemi Ojudu, who was part of the delegation of the Senate Committee on Defence, Army and Intelligence that recently toured the North-East, made the startling disclosure yesterday while delivering a lecture in Lagos.

He said military authorities informed them that documents recovered from camps vacated by the fleeing insurgents revealed that they still have about 6,000 fighters ready to continue with the war to Islamise Nigeria.” Some of the members are hiding at the Sambisa forest far away from Maiduguri, the Borno State capital,” Ojudu said at a lecture commemorating the 70th birthday of Ropo Sekoni, a retired Professor of Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies.

“We were told by the military that the sect members are moving into Ogere in Ogun State, Lagos and Port Harcourt. The military said they are trying to flush them out, but we don’t know how much they have succeeded,” the journalist-turned-politician further said.

“The Boko Haram issue,” according to him, “is the biggest problem before us but we are not tackling it with urgency. We are busy talking about 2015.”

He revealed that his team’s five-day official assignment ended abruptly on the third day because the atmosphere in the area was “not conducive.”

•Photo shows a group of Boko Haram fighters.