By Rafiu Ajakaye

LAGOS, Nigeria

At least 100,000 persons have been killed in the violent insurgency waged by Boko Haram in Nigeria, the governor of northeastern Borno state said Monday.

Borno has been the epicenter of an ongoing campaign launched by Boko Haram in 2009.

“While it took South Africa’s apartheid 46 years to take 21,000 lives, it took Boko Haram only seven years to cause the murders of 100,000… innocent people, largely women, children and old people in Nigeria,” Gov. Kashim Shettima said.

His spokesman Isa Gusau told Anadolu Agency the death toll included killings outside Borno state.

Shettima said that, as of December last year, around 2.1 million people had been displaced by the violence, nearly 55,000 widowed and around 52,000 children orphaned.

The conflict had been fuelled in its early stages by official laxity and the government’s initial willingness to believe the terror campaign was supported in the Muslim-majority northeast, Shettima added. The president at the time, Goodluck Jonathan, was a southern Christian.

He was speaking at a memorial in Abuja for former military ruler Murtala Mohammed, a hero of the liberation struggle in South Africa.