Nigeria’s Chief of Army Staff, Lt Gen Tukur Yusuf Buratai, has said that “there is [a] likelihood of terrorism persisting in Nigeria for another 20 years”.

His comments, in a Facebook post, come in the wake of the massacre by a Boko Haram faction of at least 43 people while they were working in a rice field in north-east Nigeria.

The militant Islamist group has been operating in the country for more than a decade.

Saturday’s killings led to politicians calling for Lt Gen Buratai to be replaced. Some governors of states in northern Nigeria, hardest hit by the insurgency, have called for the government to use foreign mercenaries.

The head of the army said there was a “general misunderstanding of what insurgency and terrorism entail”.

He added that “all must cooperate to contain the lingering insecurity. Let there be collective action and responsibility.”

He did not specify what the action should be.