Major General Chris Olukolade
A telephone signal that is probably meant for the dreaded Islamic militants, Boko Haram, has been tracked to neighbouring Niger, suggesting they may have been directed from there, says a top Military officer attached to the 7th Division of the Nigeria Army in Maiduguri, Borno State.
A top official of the USA surveillance team who also spoke with our Correspondent from Niger Republic, stressed that, it was difficult to say who exactly the phone signals were meant for.
“But the telephone signal were very strong and was also coming from Niger Republic and directing to the North Eastern part of Nigeria, precisely Chibok, part of Borno State.”
Brigadier General M.Y. Ibrahim, the new General Officer Commanding, the 7th Division of the Nigerian Army located at Maimalari Barracks, Maiduguri, confirmed the development but declined details.
The Commanding Officer used the opportunity to dismiss the report in some section of the media that angry soldiers on Thursday stormed his office to demand that he pay their allowances and reinstate motorbikes to transport them and members of their families within the barrack. He said there nothing like that.
Maj. General Chris Olukolade, the spokesperson of the Nigerian Military, had earlier described the alleged second mutiny as fabrication.
The source added that security at the Boko Haram compound, if there is such a place, is apparently exceedingly poor and American espionage has been able to unload their camp.
The Commanding officer added that late Saturday night at about 3.15am, suspected Islamist Boko Haram gunmen had attacked three villages in northern Nigeria, killing 28 people and burning houses to the ground in a pattern of violence that has become almost a daily occurrence.
“The most deadly was in the town of Kerenua, near the Niger border. Scores of militants opened fire on residents, killing 20, and burned houses”, police said
He added that there was another attack in the small village of Kubur Viu, a few miles from Chibok, a resident Simeon Yhana said. The police source confirmed the attack and the death toll.
He added that, the attackers were repelled before they could cause severe havoc, with over 15 members of the sect killed by soldiers.
Separately, a suicide bombing that was meant to happen at the TV screening of a football match in the central Nigerian city of Jos on Saturday killed three people before the bomber reached the target, a witness told Reuters.
The bomber approached the Jos Viewing Centre while people were watching Real Madrid play Atletico Madrid, but he failed to get there before his car exploded, a local journalist at the scene, Mohammed Shittu, said.
The three attacks on villages took place on Thursday in remote parts of Borno State, the epicentre of Boko Haram’s increasingly bloody struggle for an Islamic kingdom in religiously mixed Nigeria.
One took place right next to Chibok, by the Cameroon border, from where more than 200 schoolgirls were abducted last month.
Since the girls’ abduction on 14 April at least 450 civilians have been killed by the group, a count by Reuters shows.
A spate of bombings in northern and central Nigeria has killed hundreds of civilians, including two attacks in the capital Abuja and one in the central city of Jos on Tuesday, in which 118 people died.
“They killed five people. This place is right next to Chibok. The military is supposed to be protecting this area but we fear these people [Boko Haram] are coming back,” Yhana said.
Militants shot dead three more people in an attack on the village of Kimba, the police source said.
The President, Goodluck Jonathan, was in South Africa on Saturday to discuss ways of tackling Islamist militancy across the continent with other African heads of state, his office said. Nigeria and its neighbours say Boko Haram which has killed thousands of people in its five-year-old insurgency in Nigeria, Africa’s top oil producer threatens the security of the entire region.
The insurgents initially attacked mostly security forces and government officials after they launched their uprising in northeast Borno state’s capital Maiduguri in 2009. When Jonathan ordered an offensive a year ago to flush them out, civilians formed vigilante groups to help, making them targets of the militants.
Last week Nigeria accepted help from the United States, Britain, France and China last week, and about 80 US troops were arriving in Chad to start a mission to try to free the schoolgirls, who are still in captivity.
