Showing posts with label Borno. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Borno. Show all posts

Wednesday 19 June 2019

Wednesday 20 March 2019

Boko Haram Landmine Kills Eight in Borno, NE Nigeria

No fewer than eight people were reportedly killed in Borno State, northeast Nigeria, near the border with Cameroon on Monday when a vehicle hit a roadside mine, security sources told AFP.

Monday 4 March 2019

Boko Haram Insurgency: UN, Others Concerned Over ‘Forced Return’ of Nigerian Refugees To Rann

Tens of thousands of Nigerian refugees are being forced to return to a remote town repeatedly attacked by Boko Haram, despite lacking security, food, water and shelter, aid agencies said Friday.

Tuesday 15 January 2019

Boko Haram Insurgents Attack Damasak, Rann Villages, Borno State

Reports reaching PREMIUM TIMES from credible military sources say that Boko Haram insurgents last night carried out yet another attack on two Borno villages.

Wednesday 26 December 2018

13 Soldiers, Police Officer Killed In Boko Haram Ambush in Borno

The Nigerian Army says Boko Haram terrorists have killed at least 10 soldiers and one police officer in an ambush in Borno State, Northeast Nigeria.

Thursday 9 August 2018

Breaking: Boko Haram Insurgents Attack Military Base in Borno, Kill 17 Soldiers

No fewer than 17 soldiers were killed in a fresh Boko Haram attack on a military base in the Borno, military sources told AFP Thursday, the third assault on three different bases in less than a month.

Sunday 17 June 2018

Breaking: Multiple Suicide Blasts Kill 31 In Borno, NE Nigeria

Suspected Boko Haram jihadists killed at least 31 people in a twin suicide bomb attack on a town in northeast Nigeria, a local official and militia leader told AFP on Sunday. 

Thursday 5 April 2018

Nigeria’s Troubling Counter Insurgency Strategy Against Boko Haram

The kidnapping of 110 schoolgirls from Dapchi last month is the latest event to cast doubt on the Nigerian government’s claims that Boko Haram has been technically defeated. Unfortunately, the attack should have come as no surprise. Since 2015, the jihadist group has lost significant territorial control and no longer holds major cities. But as I saw during my fieldwork in Nigeria in January, the jihadist threat is far from gone, and counterinsurgency policies continue to be troubled and troubling.

Thursday 7 September 2017

Analysis: Boko Haram – The Fear, Conspiracy Theories, And The Deepening Crisis

The fear is palpable in northeast Nigeria as Boko Haram intensifies its war on civilians. The military’s regular claim that the jihadists are on the run is patently false, and provides no comfort to anyone.

Instead, this is the reality.
– Since January, there have been at least 83 suicide bombings by children – a figure four times higher than last year.  
– Of the four roads leading out of Maiduguri, the main city in the northeast, only the Maiduguri-Damaturu-Kano road is adjudged safe.
– In rural areas, people are not able to venture more than four kilometres out of the main towns in each local government area because of insecurity.
– In Maiduguri’s mosques, people now pray in relay. As one group prays, another keeps watch to guard against suicide bombers.
The death tolls are startling. In the last two months, high-profile Boko Haram raids have included:
– An attack on oil workers and soldiers prospecting in the Lake Chad Basin in which more than 50 reportedly died.
– The shooting and hacking to death of 31 fishermen on two islands in the Lake Chad Basin.
In response to the rising tempo of attacks, acting President Yemi Osinbajo ordered the deployment of all his military chiefs to Maiduguri in July. It hasn’t stopped the violence.
The insecurity has undermined farming in the northeast, resulting in serious food shortages in pockets of the region. Boko Haram has taken to seizing food and goods from communities in Damboa, Azir, Mungale, ForFor, Multe, Gumsiri – to mention just a few.
The military are also accused of threatening communities that do not vacate their villages and move to the poorly serviced internally displaced persons (IDP) camps.
Those that stay behind risk not only being plundered by Boko Haram, but also the confiscation of their goods and produce by the army, on the grounds that they are in league with the insurgents.
In the Lake Chad Basin in particular, Boko Haram is moving into the traditional fish and bell pepper trade. It not only helps finance their insurgency, but muddies the identification of who is a combatant.
Nowhere seems safe – even Maiduguri. In recent months there have been bomb blasts at the Dalori IDP camp, Maiduguri university, a general hospital, and a major coordinated gun attack on the city itself.

Know your enemy

The military not only appears powerless, but lacks the operational intelligence to thwart the attacks. That lack of awareness – over both the nature of the threat and how to deal with it – led the army’s head of public relations, Brigadier General Sani Usman, to accuse parents of “donating” their children to Boko haram as suicide bombers.
The raid by the military on the UN’s headquarters in Maiduguri in August was another example of woeful intelligence. The army said it was conducting a cordon and searchoperation for high-value Boko Haram suspects, and did not know it was entering a UN building because there was no insignia.
But the incident does point to the level of distrust over the work of humanitarian agencies. The word on the street in Maiduguri the morning of the raid was that the leader of one Boko Haram faction, Abubakar Shekau, was in UN House - along with a secret store of ammunition.

Conspiracy theories abound and aid workers are implicated. A common allegation is that they provide food, fuel, and drugs to Boko Haram under the guise of delivering humanitarian aid.
An additional gripe is that what aid is being delivered to the needy is not enough. The World Food Programme suspended food handouts in Borno this week after IDPs in Gubio camp rioted, destroying five vehicles belonging to International Medical Corps. They were protesting, they said, that they had not received rations in two months.
And then there are the grievances over aid agencies not employing enough locals, and that foreign aid workers do not respect local norms and traditions in what is a conservative society.
It’s an unhappy relationship. The overriding perception here is that the surge in aid agencies to the northeast is not what is required – people want security first, and then they can take care of their own needs.

Guarding the guards

But arguably the biggest problem is that the military are far from uniformly trusted to provide that security.
The most enduring conspiracy theory is that behind the eight-year war are conflict entrepreneurs in the military high command and the political class. They are accused of perpetuating the violence to feather their own nests, at the expense of the lives of Nigerian citizens.
Although there has been a series of major weapons purchases, from attack helicopters to an extremely expensive deal for ground-attack planes from the United States, it doesn’t seem to have added to the fighting capability of the military.
The confusion over who’s who is also exemplified by the tension between the army and the vigilante Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF). It is the CJTF that has been the military’s eyes and ears, the first responders manning the roadblocks in towns and villages. Armed with little more than traditional weapons, 680 of them have been killed so far in the conflict.
Yet the military distrusts them, believing that within their ranks are Boko Haram Fifth Columnists (which is probably true, along with criminals and other miscreants). But the CJTF see themselves as community defenders. They receive little or no remuneration for their work, and no insurance cover.
The atmosphere of suspicion over the enemy within extends to the tension between IDPs and those who remained in their communities when Boko Haram arrived. As IDPs return to those areas adjudged safe, it’s easy to label those that stayed behind as collaborators, brainwashed by the insurgents’ ideology.
As the counter-insurgency campaign stumbles on, Boko Haram clearly believe it now has the momentum, after being on the ropes last year – driven from all the towns they controlled.
The propaganda war certainly seems to be going their way.
Since the beginning of the year, Shekau has released 11 videos. The more low-key Boko Haram faction led by Abu Musab al-Barnawi (who publicly shuns indiscriminate attacks on civilians) has now stirred and published two videos in the space of a month.
There was once talk of ceasefires and negotiations – that seems very distant right now.
Culled from: IRIN


Thursday 18 May 2017

Female Suicide Bomber Kills 2 Nigerian Soldiers In Borno NE Nigeria

A daredevil female suicide bomber has killed two soldiers at a military camp behind the Internally Displaced People's Camp in Mashimari town of Konduga Local Government Area of Borno State.

Wednesday 19 November 2014

Senators Reject Emergency Rule Extension In Borno, Adamawa and Yobe

A cross section of Senators on Tuesday disagreed with the fresh request by President Goodluck Jonathan to extend the emergency rule in the three North – Eastern states of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe, over the insurgency situation in the region.

Monday 17 November 2014

FG Extends State of Smergency Rule In Borno, Adamawa, Yobe

The National Security Council, NSC has extended the state of emergency rule in Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe States because of the continued violence in the states occasioned by the activities of Boko Haram insurgents.

Monday 4 August 2014

"Boko Haram Effect": Real Estate Prices At All Time Low in Parts of Nigeria

The unrelenting violence perpetrated by the Boko Haram insurgents has taken its toll on the real estate sector in most states in northern Nigeria, where the prices of properties have significantly been crashed.

Prices of properties have drastically falling to an all time low, THISDAY investigations have revealed.
Besides crashing the prices of property, especially in the North-eastern states, public property worth billions of naira have gone down the drain through the
destructive acts of the terrorist group.

Governor Kashim Shettima of Borno State told THISDAY recently that more than 900 schools had been reduced
to rubble by the sect in his state.
The destruction of private and public buildings in the region has led to an all time crash of property prices, as has never been experienced in the North-eastern part of the country.

Mr. Mohammed Aliyu, an indigene of Edo State, who relocated to Abuja with his family from Maiduguri last year, spoke to THISDAY, while counting his losses.
He said: “I had a four-bedroom bungalow, with all the appurtenances in a choice area in Maiduguri, going for
N500,000 per annum, yet no buyer has come up for it.
It is that bad. There are many vacant houses and apartments in the city without occupiers. This is what
the insurgency has done to me.”

Mr. Femi Stephen Alao, a Kaduna-based architect and estate developer, said there was no doubt that insecurity has had an adverse effect on the property
market in Kaduna city and adjoining towns.

At Tundun Wada, Kawo and Kabala west, an upscale area in Kaduna city, prices for three-bedroom homes
have nosedived to as low as between N60,000 and N200, 000 per annum. In the past the apartments used to go for between N400,000 and N600,000, he
explained.
“In all of these areas, real estate businesses have ground to halt. You cannot find developers on site
working now,” he said.

However, Alao said that the southern parts of Kaduna, like Gonigora, Bana-Wa, Chikun, Angwua and several
areas of that state were experiencing a hike in rent because a majority of non-indigenes in these zones believe that the areas are safe havens.

A plot of land in Angwua now sells for N1 million, whereas it used to sell for less than N500,000 per plot
a few years back.
Corroborating Alao’s assertion, the Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Benue State Investment and Property Company Limited (BIPC), Mrs. Brigid Sheidu, said the security challenges in the north had affected the company’s revenue from its property unit in Kaduna State.

“This has affected our guest house facility in Kaduna township. Unlike in the past, business was booming but
because of the insecurity, we have lost most of our clientele as not many people patronise like they used to in the past. But we hope that things will change for the better,” she said.

Speaking in the same vein, the National President, Real Estate Development Association of Nigeria (REDAN),
Mr. Emmanuel Olabode Afolayan, acknowledged that insurgent activities in the North-east and other states in
the north had done unquantifiable damage to the real estate sector.
He said: “I can tell you authoritatively that nothing is presently ongoing in some parts of the north, except a
few states like Sokoto, Kebbi and Gombe States. In other states, where there is a serious security upheaval,
construction and building activities are at their lowest ebb; this is a big problem for all of us.

“For instance, in Borno and Adamawa States, our members are not building at all. In fact, no bank is ready to provide them facilities in states where there
are security challenges. No workmen are even interested in working in those areas, so transactions in the real estate sector are today almost non-existent.”

On how much has been lost to insurgency especially in the areas affected, he said: “Honestly, it will be pretty difficult to roll out figures now as we are still counting the losses, but what I can authoritatively tell you is that
most of our members have not really lost their building.

However activities are practically at a low ebb." Vice-President, REDAN, North-central, as well as the Managing Director of AIS Ltd, Mr. Sunday Idachaba, said the level of activities as far as the built sector was concerned had no doubt been affected by rising insecurity especially in the North-east.

He explained that the real estate industry involves the movement of various categories of workers like
engineers, masonry foremen and other artisans but when an area is undermined, it would be difficult to go
there to work.
“No matter the amount of money you offer workers, they will be reluctant to work in an insecure environment. So certainly the real estate sector has
nose-dived for now in those areas. People are not willing to buy homes in a place where there is insecurity.
“Property prices have crashed in cities like Maiduguri and Yobe. People are willing to sell, yet nobody is
willing to buy. This is the challenge that we are facing at the moment,” he added.

ThisDay Newspaper

Thursday 31 July 2014

Boko Haram Bent On Seizing Kano, Kaduna, Niger, Kogi And Nasarawa States - Intelligence Source

A high-level Nigerian security source told SaharaReporters that Nigeria’s intelligence agencies have received “credible reports that Boko Haram has
developed an ambitious plan to overwhelm and take over Kano, Kaduna, Niger, Kogi and Nasarawa states.”

The source said the Islamist terrorist group plans to carry out its design by intensifying its bombings and choosing locations that would yield high casualty
figures.

“Their move is to encircle [Nigeria’s capital city of] Abuja and increase the level of political instability in the
country,” our source revealed.
The high-level intelligence agent disclosed that the shape of the terror group’s plans have emerged from
the confessions of some Boko Haram insurgents who were captured recently.

“We have also acquired a lot of
information about their [Boko Haram’s] plans through our interrogation of Aminu Sadiq Oguche.” Mr. Oguche,
who was recently extradited to Nigeria from Sudan, is accused of masterminding some of the recent high-
profile bomb blasts in Nigeria, including explosions at a bus station in Abuja that claimed more than 100 lives.

In addition, security agents have gleaned “significant and useful intelligence” from interrogating one
Mohammed Zakari, described as “the chief butcher” of Boko Haram. Mr. Zakari was recently arrested in Bauchi, capital of Bauchi State.

Our source said that Nigeria’s security agencies are stepping up counter-insurgency measures to forestall Boko Haram’s plans to spread its tentacles to the states they are targeting.

“Apart from information we have gathered from interrogating suspects, we are also tracking critical
conversations by the group’s hierarchy and examining sensitive documents recovered after recent raids on their bases in Bauchi, Jigawa and Borno states,” the source said.

Our source added that President Goodluck Jonathan and a few other government officials had been briefed
about the new threats by Boko Haram as well as the outline of the plans to counter the group’s ambitious push.

A senior Islamic scholar in Northern Nigeria, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said his group was
cooperating with the government to defeat Boko Haram. “We discussed with President Jonathan when we met during the end of the Ramadan fast and told him that we are ready to help stop Boko Haram. But we also told him that this is something the government must take action on. We’re doing our own, but we have limitations,” he said.

SR

Tuesday 29 July 2014

Nigeria Has Failed At Fighting Terrorism – United States

The United States government yesterday said that the Federal Government of Nigeria has failed in its fight against terrorism, adding that the failure was a result of the inability of the Goodluck Jonathan-led administration to adequately equip and train security forces to contain violent extremist groups in the north who attacked religious freedom.

Making this known in the US International Religious Report for 2013, which was released in Washington, DC, yesterday, secretary of state John Kerry said that the federal government did not act swiftly or effectively to prevent or quell communal or religious-based violence and only occasionally investigated and prosecuted perpetrators of that violence.

“The government also failed to protect victims of violent attacks targeted because of their religious beliefs or for other reasons,” the report a copy of which was sent to our correspondent in New York said.

Citing instances, the report said legal proceedings against five police officers charged in 2011 with the extrajudicial killing of Boko Haram leader Mohammed Yusuf did not resume during the year, adding that the court was not in session on continuation dates set in February, March, May, and June after the presiding judge transferred to a different jurisdiction in 2012.

It stated further that there were no indictments or prosecutions following three fatal attacks on high-profile Muslim leaders in late 2012.

It pressed further that local and state authorities did not deliver adequate protection or post-attack relief to rural communities in the northeast, where Boko Haram killed villagers and burned churches throughout the year.

The report also berated reported discrimination and a systematic lack of protection by state governments, especially in central Nigeria, where communal violence rooted in decades-long competition for land pitted majority-Christian farmers against majority-Muslim cattle herders.

It added that federal, state, and local authorities did not effectively address underlying political, ethnic, and religious grievances leading to this violence.

“Recommendations from numerous government-sponsored panels for resolving ongoing ethno-religious disputes in the Middle Belt included establishing truth and reconciliation committees, redistricting cities, engaging in community sensitization, and ending the dichotomy between indigenes and settlers. Nationwide practice distinguished between indigenes, whose ethnic group was native to a location, and settlers, who had ethnic roots in another part of the country.

“Indigenes and settlers often belonged to different religious groups. Local authorities granted indigenes certain privileges, including preferential access to political positions, government employment, and lower school fees, based on a certificate attesting to indigene status. The federal government did not implement any recommendations despite ongoing calls by political and religious leaders to do so” the report read.

Furthermore, the US report noted that the Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati Wal-Jihad, or “people committed to the propagation of the prophet’s teachings and jihad” continued to commit violent acts in its quest to overthrow the government and impose its own religious and political beliefs throughout the country, especially in the north.

“Boko Haram killed more than 1,000 persons during the year. The group targeted a wide array of civilians and sites, including Christian and Muslim religious leaders, churches, and mosques, using assault rifles, bombs, improvised explosive devices, suicide car bombs, and suicide vests.

“An attack on the Emir of Kano in January was widely believed to be an attempt by Boko Haram to silence the anti-extremist Muslim leader, although the group did not officially claim responsibility. On September 28, Boko Haram killed at least 50 mostly Muslim students at a technical college in rural Yobe State. After this and other incidents, security forces faced public criticism for arriving at the scene hours after the assailants had fled.

“Government attempts to stop Boko Haram were largely ineffective. Actions taken by security forces under the state of emergency, declared in May in the three northeastern states of Borno, Yobe, and Adamawa, often increased the death toll, as bystanders were caught in crossfire during urban gunfights, security forces committed extrajudicial killings of suspected terrorists, and detainees died in custody,” the report noted.

Leadership Newspaper

Monday 21 July 2014

Boko Haram Abducts Politician’s Wife and Two Children in Borno State

Suspected members of Boko Haram have kidnapped the wife and two children of Alhaji Zaraye Mala Sheriff, a Councillor in Borno state who is reported to be a cousin of former Borno state, governor, Ali Modu Sheriff.

A source told Daily Trust that the men stormed the Ngala town residence of the politician in the early hours of Friday July 18th.
“The insurgents stormed the house of the councillor around 12:30am on Friday and asked the wife about her husband. They also asked her for the money he kept at home but she kept quiet.
Luckily enough, Zaraye was at the other side of the house and when he heard the conversation, he fled,” a source from Ngala said.
He said angered by her silence and the absence of their target, the sect members took her and her two children away.
“Up till now, nothing has been heard of the woman and her kids. We have not heard anything about the two businessmen either,” he said.

Two other politicians, Alhaji Annur Mohammed and Liman Alhaji Hussaini were also reportedly kidnapped by the sect men.
Meanwhile there are reports that Maiduguri metropolis and its environs have been without power in the last
three weeks following the destruction of electricity installations around Damboa town, 85 kilometers away from the state capital.

A senior official of the utility firm supplying the state with power, the Yola Electricity Distribution Company
(YEDC) said the attack by Boko Haram members in the last three weeks around Damboa caused “huge damage” to their 33KVA installations.
“The problem is aggravated by the security situation around Damboa which makes it difficult for our men to
effect repairs. The truth is that it will take time before electricity would be restored in Maiduguri and environs,”
he said.

Courtesy:
Nollywood Magazine

Monday 26 May 2014

Kidnapped Chibok Shoolgirls in New Danger as 'Prisoner Swap Deal' is Scrapped at 11th Hour

More than 200 kidnapped schoolgirls held hostage in Nigeria came agonisingly close to freedom before government officials called off a deal to swap them for jailed Islamist terror suspects, The Mail on Sunday has been told.

A Nigerian journalist trusted by both the government and extremists from Boko Haram acted as go-between, risking his life on a one-man mission to enter the gunmen’s lair and broker an agreement, according to security sources.

But last Saturday, at the 11th hour, officials scrapped the exchange in a telephone call from a crisis summit in Paris where Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan met foreign ministers including those from Britain, the United States, France and Israel.

Abubakar Shekau is said to be enraged by the broken deal

President Goodluck Jonathan
It was agreed there that no deals should be struck with terrorists and that force should instead be used against them.

Insiders believe that the cancellation of last Saturday’s plan and the ensuing stand-off now puts the girls’ lives in even greater danger.

An intelligence source told The Mail on Sunday: ‘The next video we see from the terrorists could show the girls being killed one by one.’

Sources in the Nigerian capital Abuja described how Shekau had agreed to bring the girls out of their forest camps in the remote north-east of the country in the early morning and take them to a safe location for the prisoner swap.

‘They would have been dropped off in a village, one group at a time, and left there while their kidnappers disappeared. There was to be a signal to a mediator at another location to bring in the prisoners,’ sources said.

About 2,000 Boko Haram members are currently detained.

One hundred non-combatant, low-level sympathisers were to be freed and the two groups brought together in a convoy of buses accompanied by a hand-picked go-between, respected Nigerian journalist Ahmad Salkida.

The plan had been agreed in tortuous negotiations in response to worldwide outrage over a night-time raid on a school in the town of Chibok on April 14 when the girls were abducted from their dormitories.

Mr Salkida was born in the north-eastern state of Borno, where Boko Haram originated. He has known its leaders all his life and has unprecedented access.

Source:
Mail online

Wednesday 21 May 2014

Breaking News: Nigerian Military Sights Abducted Chibok School Girls in 3 Boko Haram Camps

Nigeria’s Special Forces from the Army’s 7th Division have sighted and narrowed the search for the more than 250 abducted Chibok schoolgirls to three camps operated by the extremist Boko Haram sect north of Kukawa at the western corridors of the Lake Chad, senior military and administration officials have said.

“It has been a most difficult but heroic breakthrough,” one senior military official said in Abuja.
That claim was supported by another senior commander from the Army’s 7th Division, the military formation created to deal with the insurgency in the Northeast. The 7th Division is headquartered in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital.

The breakthrough comes at a critical moment for the Nigerian military that has faced cutting criticism over its handling of the kidnapping of the girls more than a month ago.

Nigerian military officials coordinating the search and other officials in Abuja said Boko Haram insurgents split the girls into batches and held them at their camps in Madayi, Dogon Chuku and Meri, all around the Sector 3 operational division of the Nigerian military detachment confronting the group’s deadly campaign.

Another source said there is a fourth camp at Kangarwa, also in Borno State. That claim could not be independently verified.
“Our team first sighted the girls on April 26 and we have been following their movement with the terrorists ever since,” one of our sources said.
“That’s why we just shake our heads when people insinuate that the military is lethargic in the search for the girls.”
The location of the abducted girls – north east of Kukawa – opens a new insight into the logistic orientation of Boko Haram, responsible for thousands of deaths in a five-year long insurgency.
But the details established by the military shows that while the world’s attention is focused on the Sambisa forest reserves, about 330 kilometres south of Maiduguri, the terrorists mapped a complex mission that began at Chibok, and veered north east of Sambisa, before heading to west of Bama and east of Konduga.
With the sighting, officials fear that Boko Haram militants may be seeking to create new options of escape all the way to Lo-gone-Et Chari in Cameroon to its Southeast, Lake Chad to its east and Diffa in Niger Republic to its north, providing a multiple escape options in the event of hostile ground operations against it.

Notwithstanding the sighting, the government is said not to be considering the use of force against the extremists, a choice informed by concerns for the safety of the students.
But with growing local and international pressure, a likely option may be for the authorities to enter into talks with the group, whose leader, Abubakar Shekau, in a May 12 video broadcast, called for dialogue and “prisoner” swap with the government.
The government has ruled out that option in the open but know Defence spokesperson, Chris Olukolade, a Major General, told PREMIUM TIMES he would not comment on the ongoing rescue operation.
“You don’t expect me to tell you that the girls have been sighted or have not been sighted,” Mr. Olukolade said. “I will only say our team are working hard and taking note of every information provided to ensure that our girls are rescued without delay.”
Civic leader Shehu Sani who fired a letter to the Sultan of Sokoto and leader of Nigeria’s Muslim, however told PREMIUM TIMES that what must be done urgently is for the Sultan to summon all the influential Islamic clerics with credibility in the north and use them to reach out to the insurgents to release the girls.

Source:
Premium Times