Abuja/Maiduguri/Toronto — Just as Boko Haram continued its guerilla attacks in North-eastern Nigeria yesterday, President Muhammadu Buhari met with the service chiefs at the Defence House, Abuja, where the insurgency and security situation in the country was reviewed.
Topmost on the agenda at the meeting was the Islamist terror group, the success recorded in the war against the sect, as well as strategies on sustaining the tempo against the terror group.
According to sources, another issue that featured during the meeting was incessant crude oil theft in the Niger Delta. At the end of the meeting, which lasted for over two hours yesterday, the Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Usman Jibrin briefed State House correspondents on what transpired between them and the president.
Jibrin said: “Since he (Buhari) was inaugurated as our Commander-in-Chief, this is the first time that we are formally meeting him to give a general security briefing on the country, and that went very well; we have been able to provide insight into the security situation in Nigeria.
“On Boko Haram, we briefed him on the level of successes that have been recorded, as we want to maintain the tempo and sustain that until they are routed out.”
On when the Command and Control Centre of the Defence Headquarter (DHQ) will be relocated to Maiduguri following Buhari’s directive, the CNS said: “On the command centre, we are the ones to go back and work on the modalities. Soon it will be carried out, it is a presidential directive, it must be carried out and we must do that as quickly as possible.”
Jibrin also called on all Nigerians to continue to support the military and provide it with the needed intelligence to help them in their task to defeat Boko Haram.
“You know as we continue to put pressure on them in the Sambisa Forest area, they will try to run away from there and then create further problems, using improvised explosives devices (IEDs),” adding that the group was becoming more daring and desperate in its tactics to destabilise Nigeria.
Those in attendance at the meeting were the Chief of Defence Staff, Air Chief Marshal Alex Badeh; Chief of Army Staff, Lt-General Kenneth T. J. Minimah; Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal A. N. Amosun; Jibrin; National Security Adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki; and Inspector General of Police (IG), Solomon Arase.
Following the meeting with the security chiefs, the president is scheduled to leave for Niger this morning where he will spend the night and proceed to Chad tomorrow to hold security meetings with their leaders.
Buhari to Attend G7 Summit
Shortly after his return from Chad, Buhari is also expected to attend this weekend’s G7 summit in Germany in his first major international meeting as Nigeria’s president.
“The president has accepted the invitation to attend the G7 summit. He’s expected to depart Nigeria on Sunday for the summit. It’s going to be a two-day trip,” his spokesman, Shehu Garba said yesterday.
According to AFP, his office said on Saturday that Britain’s Foreign Minister Philip Hammond told Buhari at a meeting in Abuja on Friday that Prime Minister David Cameron urged him to come to the summit with a “wish list”.
Buhari met Cameron for private talks in London the week before his inauguration, where the British leader pledged help in a number of areas such as fighting extremism and African migration. Cameron also sought Buhari’s backing for “free trade” between the European Union and Africa, a suggestion which had the support of a number of countries, the president’s office said in a statement.
Boko Haram Attacks Maiduguri
But as Buhari departs for Germany at the weekend, the unending attacks by Boko Haram will be uppermost on his mind, as the sect continued its guerrilla warfare yesterday in Maiduguri, the Borno capital.
According to reports, there was no reprieve for residents of the troubled city, where they were compelled to keep vigil at night and got attacked during the day by a suicide bomber.
First, residents of the town barely slept when gunshots and explosion were heard throughout Monday night, and just as they thought everything was over and were going about their activities, a bomb exploded at one of the markets in the town, killing not less than 17 persons and injuring several others.
The sounds of explosions and gunshots were heard at 12.45 am and lasted till about 2 am of Monday night. The night raid virtually kept everyone in the town awake, as gunshots and explosions echoed all over the city.
Speaking to THISDAY on the attack by the sect last night, spokesman of the youth vigilante group, Mr. Jubrin Gunda said: “Just like a few days back, the insurgents tried to invade the town via the same spot – Ajilari Cross – but they were repelled by the military.
“The insurgents who seemed determined to invade Maiduguri were driven back by the battle-ready soldiers.” According to him no casualty may have been recorded during the night raid, adding, “There was exchange of gunfire but the insurgents quickly fled when they saw that the military was alert.”
But just when everything appeared to have returned to normal, a suicide bomber struck again yesterday afternoon at Kasuwan Shanu, a meat abattoir in the centre of the town. Following the bombing, however, the authorities gave conflicting figures on the casualties, with the police stating that five persons died when the bomb went off at the abattoir.
The Commissioner of Police in the State, Aderemi Opadokun, said this when he spoke to journalists in Maiduguri. According to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Opadokun said the attack occurred at about 11.30 a.m. “A suicide bomber, who was shouting “Sai Buhari”, and dancing in the abattoir, detonated an improvised explosive device strapped on his body when people had gathered around him.
“Five people, including himself, died, while eight others sustained injuries,” he said. Opadokun added that policemen were mobilised to the scene to evacuate the corpses and to convey the injured to the hospital, adding that investigation into the blast was ongoing.
However, when THISDAY spoke to the spokesman of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Northeast zone, AbdulKadir Ibrahim, he said not less than 17 persons were killed in the bomb attack at the abattoir.
Ibrahim said: “Our men working to evacuate the dead corpses have revealed that not less than 17 persons were killed in the explosion.” Ibrahim who spoke at about 4 pm yesterday, said he could not give an estimate of the number of injured persons, as the officials from NEMA with other humanitarian agencies were still involved in taking the injured to Umaru Shehu General Hospital, Maiduguri.
But in yet another conflicting statement, the spokesman of the International Community of Red Cross in Borno, Mallam Umar Sadiq, said 13 persons were killed and 24 others were injured. He said the injured persons were rushed to the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospitals and State Specialist Hospital, Maiduguri.
Sect Releases New Video
Meanwhile, Boko Haram, in a video released yesterday which did not feature the group’s leader, Abubakar Shekau, rejected claims from Nigeria’s military that it has been routed by a four-nation offensive.
The unidentified speaker called Nigeria, Cameroun, Chad and Niger, who have been battling the Islamists, “the lying coalition partners”. “Most of our territory is still under our control,” said the speaker, whose face is not shown in the 10-minute message posted on YouTube. The video bears the logo “Islamic State in West Africa” and followed the Nigerian militants’ pledge of allegiance in March to the IS group, that has overrun large parts of Syria and Iraq. The message is the first video released by Boko Haram since February, when Shekau was shown in high definition footage and vowed to disrupt the elections. He had featured prominently in most of the group’s videos over the last three years and his absence in the latest message will likely stir further debate on his whereabouts or possible death.
Nigeria’s military has previously claimed to have killed Shekau and described him as a composite character, with the role of “Shekau” filled by various similar-looking insurgents at different times.
The speaker in the new message appeared in front of two pick-up trucks, with four other gunmen visible in the background. He spoke in Hausa language with Arabic and English subtitles shown below.
An AK-47 rifle rested on his chest as he sought to rebuke the claims of successes made in recent weeks by the coalition. “The armies claim through the media that they captured our towns and that they assaulted Sambisa (forest) and defeated us,” he said. “I swear by Allah that I am talking right now from Sambisa… Here in Sambisa you can travel more than four to five hours under the black flag of Islam by car or by motorbike,” he added.
The latter parts of the video included depictions of gruesome violence, including executions of apparent civilians and one man in a police uniform who were shot at close range. “President of Nigeria Jonathan” is mentioned, referring to Goodluck Jonathan.
Niger President: Multinational Force Ready Soon
But as Boko Haram appears to be enjoying a resurgence after suffering crippling losses to the coalition in recent months, Niger’s president, Mahamadou Issoufou, said yesterday that the multinational force being set up to combat the sect in the Lake Chad region is expected to be operational in the coming weeks.
Approved in March by the African Union, the 8,700-strong force drawn from the Lake Chad countries of Niger, Nigeria, Chad, Cameroun as well as Benin, will be financed partly by the international community, according to Reuters.
“We have discussed the situation on our southern side with Boko Haram rampaging in the Lake Chad zone,” Issoufou told reporters outside the Elysee Palace in Paris after a meeting with French President, Francois Hollande.
“We think that in the coming weeks, with the new administration settling into place in Nigeria, we are going to be able to launch the mixed multinational force, to which all of the countries of the Lake Chad basin contribute,” he added.
An Elysee statement said Hollande told Issoufou that France would “continue its logistical support and intelligence to the countries neighboring Lake Chad” to combat the terror group that has killed thousands of people in its quest to create a caliphate in North-eastern Nigeria.
