President Muhammadu Buhari is disheartened over the latest bomb blast that killed at least 18 persons on Wednesday in Maiduguri.
18 people were reportedly killed Wednesday when a suspected female suicide bomber detonated her explosives in a taxi close to a camp housing displaced people in northeast Nigeria.
The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) added that 15 persons were injured and taken to the hospital.
President Buhari, in a condolence message to the families of the victims, said he is disheartened by the news of the blast.
“Unable to hold territory, the severely degraded terrorist group now occasionally resorts to cowardly attacks on soft targets.
“I commend our military for their unflagging efforts. This attack has further strengthened our resolve to completely neutralize Boko Haram.” Buhari said on his twitter handle.
A sustained counter-offensive has seen the Nigerian military retake swathes of territory from Boko Haram insurgents.
But Boko Haram still poses a security threat to civilians and has attacked vehicle convoys in recent months.
Last month, six people were killed in an ambush on a commercial convoy under military escort in the Sanda district of Borno state, while earlier this year a UN humanitarian convoy traveling by road from Bama to Maiduguri was ambushed.
At the height of the jihadist insurgency some two years ago, many roads were closed for safety reasons but have been reopened following a string of strategic victories over the group.
Boko Haram’s seven-year insurgency has left at least 20,000 people dead in Nigeria and border areas of neighbouring Niger, Chad and Cameroon, and made more than 2.6 million homeless.
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