Boko Haram appears to have been weakened by a sustained regional fight-back but there are growing fears the group could target vulnerable people displaced by the violence, as elections approach.
More than 13,000 people have been killed in the bloody six-year insurgency, with some 1.5 million more forced to flee their homes within Nigeria and abroad.
Security analysts have warned that with the Islamists hit hard by the coalition of Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon and Chad, the group will revert to guerrilla tactics of bombings and suicide attacks.
Now, it is feared that internally displaced people (IDP) could be next, after Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau vowed to disrupt this Saturday's elections, which the group views as "un-Islamic".
Explosives Found
Last Monday, the head of Nigeria's electoral commission INEC, Attahiru Jega, said 20 per cent of the estimated one million IDPs were in camps and arrangements had been made for them to vote.
Yet even here safety is an issue, with the discovery on March 14 of three explosive devices at the Yerwa Primary School camp.
A fourth explosive device has yet to be located, as the suspects forgot where it was planted, said Ari Butari, a local civilian vigilante involved in camp security.
"We are really apprehensive about our security since the discovery of the explosives," said Babakura Kyarimi, who lives in the camp.
The discovery backs up previous claims about the danger of Boko Haram infiltrating the camps, including from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Maiduguri last August.
In January, troops detained as a precaution thousands of people who left the garrison town of Monguno on the outskirts of Maiduguri to establish whether rebel fighters were among them.
The Kano state government also shut a camp it had opened for people displaced from the town of Mubi in Adamawa, after a Boko Haram insurgent was uncovered.
Political motives for the discovery of explosives in the IDP camps cannot be ruled out, with Nigeria's northeast an opposition stronghold.
"One cannot dismiss the political element in the Boko Haram insurgency and the planting of bombs in an IDP camp could be a ploy by politicians averse to holding elections in camps because it doesn't favour their political interest," said Wase.
"It could be intended to instil fear in IDPs ahead of the elections to leave the camps, now that it's clear elections are to be held in camps."
No Return
Debate about whether IDPs should vote in camps or return to their home towns and villages has been a major point of political debate between Nigeria's two main political parties.
But with infrastructure non-existent and communities devastated by the violence, the Borno Elders Forum of retired senior civilian and military officials has warned against any premature return.
Last week, scores of Boko Haram killed 11 people in the Borno town of Gamboru after Chadian troops withdrew, in a clear sign that the militants still have the capacity to attack.
"We think it is too early to even start talking about anyone going back to any of these reclaimed territories," the body's chairman, Usman Gaji Galtimari, said in a statement last week.
"I think it will be irresponsible on our part as a government to hurry our citizens back to liberated communities now mainly to go and vote," added Borno state governor Kashim Shettima.
"We all know that these liberated communities are still not fully safe and habitable."
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