MILITARY analysts fear that Boko Haram may resort to the increased use of suicide bombers to attack soft targets like civilian population centres in their bid to thwart Nigeria's forthcoming elections in response to battlefield loses.

Over recent weeks, the terrorist sect has suffered severe losses as a result of a new military offensive mounted by the regional Multi National Joint Task Force (MNJTC). Made up of troops from Chad, Cameroon, Niger Republic and Nigeria, the MNJTC has succeeded in driving Boko Haram out of several of its strongholds lately.

Boko Haram had threatened to disrupt Nigeria's forthcoming elections but its capacit5y to do this is increasingly diminishing after it has been driven out of the areas it occupied in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe States. Analysts now fear that the sect may step up bomb attacks in towns and cities to cause mayhem.

Ryan Cummings, the chief Africa analyst at Red24 Risk Consultants, said: "I think it’s safe to say that as multi-national counter-insurgency operations continue in the northeast, Boko Haram will intensify its urban terror campaign. Boko Haram will know that it lacks the resources or capacity to engage the Nigerian Army and its allies in conventional warfare, so its retributive attacks will increasingly focus on asymmetric warfare, which is resource-light but nevertheless damaging.”

At least 86 people were killed in explosions this week alone, all of them at crowded bus stations across northern Nigeria. These attacks using either explosives left in bags or suicide bombers has prompted the government in Abuja to issue a warning for increased vigilance at soft targets.

Mark Schroeder, from political and security risk analysts Stratfor, said the recent bombings in Kano and the central city of Jos, raises a new security threat. He added that the battlefield losses will just prompt Boko Haram to relocate its operations elsewhere.

Mr Schroeder said: “The Nigerian military, with renewed government backing, may achieve the easy steps of a counter-insurgency of asserting control in remote urban areas of the northeast but stopping Boko Haram from counter-attacks against civilians elsewhere is very difficult. You could say Boko Haram is merely being displaced while the Nigerian government publicises gains in Baga and elsewhere.”

 Boko Haram, which has invigorated its propaganda campaign with slick, Islamic State-style videos, will no doubt claim that such attacks put paid to government claims that it is being defeated. Mr Cummings said he fears that the return to guerrilla tactics in towns and cities could stretch security resources.

Abdullahi Bawa Wase, a Nigerian security analyst described the bombings as desperation on the part of the militants. He noted that such attacks had not stopped during the change in tactics to seize territory but were now taking place in tandem with hit-and-run strikes, to show that Boko Haram still has the capability.

“We are only going to see an intense increase of this bombing in the next weeks, which could possibly force another postponement in the election," Mr Wase added.