The troops of the Seventh Division on Sunday averted what would have been a brutal Boko Haram siege on the Maiduguri, the Borno State capital by arresting a top commander of the deadly sect who would have attacked the city.
The Media Coordinator of Operation Lafiya Dole, Col. Tukur Gusau, said in a statement on Monday that the suspect identified as John Trankil, was arrested with eight others at Kasuwar Shanu in Maiduguri on Sunday.
He said that Trankil confessed during interrogation that the nine insurgents sneaked into Maiduguri with a Toyota Hilux vehicle to carry out attacks in selected parts of the city.
According to him, each of the terror suspects, armed with AK 47 assault rifle, also had 20 Improvised Explosive Devices prepared for detonation in selected areas of Maiduguri during the planned siege.
He quoted the Theatre Commander of Operation Lafiya Dole, Maj. Gen. Yusha’u Abubakar, as having commended the troops for their vigilance.
Abubakar was also quoted as having called for increased vigilance in checkpoints, markets, worship centres, motor parks and schools.
Gusau stated also that the troops of the 21 Brigade and the fighter pilots of the Nigerian Air Force discovered and destroyed IEDs and rockets along Bama-Gonin Kurmi near Bama.
According to him, the military recovered ‘gas cylinders, welding machines, pipes and poles, locally-made rocket shells, large quantity of assorted chemicals, unprimed IEDs and various technical and laboratory equipment suspected to have been stolen from schools’ laboratories around Bama by members of Boko Haram.
The Acting Director, Army Public Relations, Col. Sani Usman, told our correspondent on the telephone on Monday that the military would come out with the real identities of the terrorists involved in the foiled attack on Maiduguri.
When asked why a Boko Haram insurgent would be identified as John, he said, “Sometimes, the name they give will not necessarily be their real names. This is just the preliminary investigation. Further investigation will be made. The full investigation will reveal his true identity and those of his colleagues.”
Meanwhile, Nigeria and three other countries fighting the Boko Haram insurgency in West Africa’s Lake Chad region should unite behind a broader strategy to ease poverty and climate change that are spurring millions to migrate to Europe, a United Nations’ official said on Monday.
Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Cameroon have joined forces in the past four months to recapture some territory from the radical Islamist Boko Haram, UN Assistant Secretary-General Toby Lanzer, told a news conference in Geneva.
But all four states should also invest more in health, education, and social services and attract more foreign investment to expand regional trade and encourage development, which would undercut the appeal of migration, Lanzer said.
There is increasing recognition that Boko Haram is a symptom of underlying economic and social problems and that a “one-pronged” effort to wipe out the group would not work, said Lanzer, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for the Sahel, an arid region stretching across West Africa from Senegal to Chad.
“There needs to be a strategy for the Lake Chad region … drawn up by the four governments, and it needs to address the development issues, how to resolve abject poverty, how to provide opportunities for the youth,” Lanzer said.
“The population in the Sahel will increase by 150 million people in the next 30 years. That’s a very compelling reason not to allow this region to become any poorer or more marginalised or affected by climate change because at the end of the day, if people are poor or persecuted they will walk.”
“European governments needed to be aware of the risk of a surge in migration from the Sahel, where Lake Chad is drying up, 25 million people already suffer from food shortages and 700,000 children die each year from malnutrition,” he said.
