Monday 18 February 2013

Boko Haram's Many National Embarrassments


Boko Haram will never stop to embarrass Nigeria. The Islamists jihadists will never end to shock the international community.  Boko Haram terrorists have continued its deadly attacks despite declaration of ceasefire.

On Sunday 17th February, 2013 gunmen suspected to be Boko Haram insurgents stormed the premises of a Lebanese construction company SETRACO, in Jama’are Local Government Area of Bauchi State, killing a security guard and kidnapping eight foreigners. Among those kidnapped were a Briton, an Italian, a Greek, and five Lebanese workers, including a woman and a child.

Apart from confirming the incident, the Bauchi Police Commissioner, Mohammed Ladan said that the gunmen attacked a police station and a prison overnight before storming the construction company’s premises.

“We repelled the attack on the police station and the security men at the prison yard repelled the attack, but they burnt two vehicles in Jama’are Police Station”, Ladan disclosed. “They then attack SETRACO Construction, killed a security guard and succeeded in kidnapping people”, he confirmed, but declined to disclose the identity of the people kidnapped, adding that he will only give details of the kidnapped workers of the company after investigations.

The Chairman of Jama’are Local Government Area, Alhaji Adamu Aliyu, revealed that the eight people kidnapped in SETRACO Construction Company are expatriates.

Speaking to pressmen in Bauchi on the incident, Aliyu said, “Among the workers kidnapped were one from Britain, one from Greece, one from Italy, while the remaining five are Lebanese”.

Earlier this month, nine polio vaccinators were shot dead at two health centers in Kano State; one at the Kauyen Alu Primary Health Care, Unguwa Uku in Tarauni Local Government Council and Hotoron Haye in Nasarawa Local Government Council of the State. The suspected Boko Haram terrorists who rode on a tricycle popularly known as “Keke NAPEP” simultaneously opened fire on the health workers, killing nine of them, mostly women, and injuring six others.
 

On Monday, 18th February, 2013 gunmen invaded Konduga Local Government Area of Borno State, killing a number of policemen and burning down the Divisional Police Headquarters.

 

The attack was reported to have started at about 6.30p.m when the armed terrorists stormed the town and took the policemen on duty by surprise, shooting and throwing some Improvised Explosive Devices (IED) into the police station. They sacked the police station, set the Kondugal Divisional Police Headquarters ablaze and killing an inspector and two others. The report also disclosed that the official vehicle of the slain police inspector alongside several other vehicles at the station were burnt. Although there has not been any official confirmation of the incident and the details of the casualty, the development is as worrisome as it is embarrassing. The report that the Divisional Police Headquarters ran out of ammunitions with which to repel the attacks tells much of the sorrowful state of our police in the face of rising terrorists operations in the country.

On Tuesday, 19th February, 2013, the Boko Haram fundamentalist group also kidnapped seven French citizens, all members of the same family on holiday in the Cameroon village of Dabange near Nigeria border. Those kidnapped include a couple, their four children aged 5, 8, 10 and 12 years and an uncle employee of GDF Suez, a French utility giant based in Yaoundé, the Cameroon capital.  

The French president, Francois Holande blamed the Al Qaeda allied Boko Haram fundamentalist group based in Nigeria for the kidnapping of the seven hostages taken from Cameroon’s far north close to the Waza National Park and Lake Chad – both popular tourists’ attraction sites.

Holande disclosed during a visit to Greece that “They have been taken by a terrorist group that we know and that is in Nigeria”. He emphasized that, “I see the hand of Boko Haram in that part of Cameroon”.

The Boko Haram’s continual attacks in northern Nigeria proceeding the 28 January, 2013 unilateral ceasefire declaration has put a big question mark on the group’s sincerity and preparedness to end hostility.

On the other hand, close observations revealed that, perhaps, both the press and the authorities are conniving to exonerate the Boko Haram terrorists group from the ongoing atrocities in northern Nigeria.  Not Boko Haram then who? What is the difference between JAMBS and Boko Haram? Is it not the same Islamists fundamentalist group masqerading with both names? Or, who are these so-called “unknown gunmen”? The truth must be told. These ongoing attacks are the handiwork of Boko Haram insurgents and not mere criminal gangs as some of us would want to infer. Except Boko Haram’s leadership proves otherwise.

Furthermore, the attacks are replica of Boko Haram’s – multiple attacks in succession; attack on law enforcements (such as the assault on police station and burning of vehicles and attack on prison yard), and kidnapping of expatriates – all revealed traces of Boko Haram’s modus operandi.        

These recent attacks coming few days after the ceasefire declaration are not only embarrassing to Nigeria but shocking to the international community who we will want to believe that there is ceasefire and perhaps ongoing dialogue to end hostility for good.  

No comments:

Post a Comment