Following a relentless onslaught by the Nigerian Army, many members of the Boko Haram sect have begun to surrender voluntarily. Some of them submitted themselves and their weapons to the leadership of the troops in Konduga during a further campaign at the weekend.
The Defence Headquarters tweeted that, “As the heat on the terrorists continues, five terrorists surrendered on Saturday (September 20, 2014) with all their weapons to troops at Konduga, pleading for mercy.”
Other captured terrorists who refused to surrender have also been giving useful information on the plans of the group, in an apparent offer to cooperate.
In the last few days, the insurgents have made several desperate attempts to gain entry to Konduga, which the military in the area have continued to foil. Checks showed that the move by the insurgents was aimed at recovering the bodies of their prominent fighters who had died in the previous encounters in the area.
Meanwhile, the Nigerian Army has recovered more weapons during mop-up operations, while some of the insurgents’ vehicles have been destroyed.
Boko Haram: FG vows to restore power in Borno
The federal government has said that it was doing everything possible to restore power supply in Borno, following an outage of power for about three months, caused by attacks on power facilities by the Boko Haram sect.
Minister of State for Power, Alhaji Mohammed Wakil gave this assurance after inspecting some of the facilities in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital.
“Mr President commends the patience of the people of Borno over the long power outage. This unfortunate incident has never happened in the history of the state.
“The federal government has taken all necessary measures to secure power installations, not only in Borno, but across the North East. I wish to appeal to our people to cooperate with security agencies for the protection of power infrastructure in the state,” the minister said.
He further said that government had approved the upgrading of the Baga road power substation, to improve its output.
“I want to assure you that work on all ongoing power projects in the state is being fast-tracked. Just few days ago, an approval was given for a new transformer to complement the Baga road substation, which is now over-loaded and aged.
“This is the first addition to the transmission capacity in Borno since Maiduguri station was commissioned several years ago,” he said.
‘We know those behind the killing of innocent Nigerians’
The council of Imams and Ulamas, National Council of Muslim Youth Organisations and the Muslim Students Society of Nigeria (MSSN), Northern States, yesterday said that with recent developments in the country, it was now clear who those behind the killing of innocent Muslims and Christians in the North in the name of Boko Haram were.
The text of a joint press conference, signed by the vice chairman of the Ulamas Council, Sheikh Ibrahim Nakaka and the chairman MSSN, Yusuf Yakubu Arrigasiyyu reads: “You could recall that 9.3 million US Dollars was smuggled into South Africa for the purpose of purchasing weapons, which we believe would have ended up in the hands of either the Boko Haram insurgents or the deadly Niger Delta militants.
“Two Nigerians and a Jew were said to be involved as Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor was implicated, and when the information spread all over the world, shamelessly the Presidency tried to cover up the story to legitimise the scandal and exonerate the CAN President, whose private jet was used for the smuggling of the weapons.
“The Federal Government position was not only ludicrous, laughable and untenable but a shame to the collective integrity of all Nigerians, but let Mr President be informed that by this scandal, we now know those behind the killings of our innocent Muslims and Christians in the north in the name of Boko Haram.”
The Muslim groups said that this possibly was why the presidency had refused to equip the Nigerian military to substantially fight and end the insurgency.
“Let it be clear to Mr President that not only Muslims but all patriotic Nigerians will no longer have confidence in him again and therefore cannot trust him. We call on the security agents as a matter of urgency to apprehend Pastor Oritsejafor to face the full wrath of the law.
“We also advise the peace loving Christians to relieve Pastor Oritsejafor of his position as the President of the CAN for lacking the integrity and for deviating from the path of his predecessors, like Cardinal John Onaiekan who has been known for his peace loving and good interfaith relations.”
Another Shekau allegedly killed
Nigerian troops might have scored a strategic victory in the current battle against terrorists operating in the north east as military sources claim that the man who claimed to be the spokesman of the Boko Haram may have been killed on September 17.
The sources said that during a desperate attempt to capture Konduga in the insurgents’ delusion to eventually march on Maiduguri and capture the city, the man who had been mimicking the late Abubakar Shekau in recent videos might have been killed.
It is widely believed within military cycles that the real Shekau had been killed in one of the clashes between the troops and the terrorists but few months later, another sect commander came out claiming to be Shekau.
“It is getting more certain that the terrorists’ commander who has been mimicking Shekau in those videos is the one killed in Konduga on September 17, 2014,” senior military and intelligence sources said yesterday.
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The security sources said the suspected demise of the Boko Haram leader may be responsible for the scattering of the sect members in different locations in neighbouring countries, especially in Cameroon, as noticed in recent days.
The security sources, however, cautioned that “the process of confirming that the dead body we have is the same as that character who has been posing as Shekau is ongoing. He is definitely a prominent terrorist commander.”
Another high ranking military source insisted that the resemblance is too striking to be a coincidence. They cited his facial marks, beards and teeth, apart from the recovery by the Nigerian troops of some of the armoured vehicles and Hilux jeeps that had featured in the videos of the said Shekau.
The officers gave the assurance that the Defence Headquarters would soon address the nation after full investigation into the latest discovery.
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