Boko Haram Raids Monguno Barracks In Maiduguri

NAIJ- Reports just reaching us from Maiduguri, Borno State capital reveals that, members of the radical Islamist sect, Boko Haram has overwhelmed the 243 battalion of the Nigerian Army stationed at Monguno Barracks.
Sahara Reporters said a top military official confirmed that the extremist on Sunday killed an undetermined number of soldiers and wounded the brigade commander of the Brigade as well.
The military officer further revealed that soldiers who tried to repel the invading insurgents were killed, a situation that resulted to other soldiers fleeing to different directions. The source said no ewer than 1,400 soldiers were stationed at the barracks at the time of the attack, saying the Nigerian military authorities does not know the exact whereabouts or how many of them had been killed. “We still don’t know what has happened to them [soldiers], but we know that Boko Haram now controls the barracks and Monguno town,” one officer based in Abuja confirmed,” he said. Meanwhile, the Nigerian Defense Headquarters has hinted that the military was conducting air raids around the attacked barracks, explaining that soldiers needed to tactically withdraw from the town because of the injuries the brigade commander and others sustained in the attack. However, this recent information is contrary to the one earlier reported that Nigerian troops had overcome attacks on the barracks, but sources claim that the barrack had fallen into the hands of the terrorists. “They [Boko Haram] have gained full control of the barracks, together with all the weapons there,” a senior military source revealed on phone.
Another source within the military in a statement said the terrorists killed many soldiers and a huge number of civilians in Monguno town.
Monguno town which is about 85 miles from the state capital has reportedly been under attack since last night. It was gathered that Monguno and Maiduguri were sacked simultaneously but Nigerian troops succeeded in repelling the Islamist from Maiduguri after a fierce gun fight that lasted for several hours.
It was reported that the Nigerian troops were able to repel the terrorists attack as they allegedly killed no fewer than 100 Islamist fighters during the offensive.
It would be recalled that several people were reportedly killed as Boko Haram insurgents continued their attacks on communities in Adamawa State, especially those in Michika Local Government Area of the state.
Meanwhile, this recent attack is amazing as the insurgent group had earlier freed 200 kidnapped captives, who had returned to their community in Yobe state.

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Police arrest Boko Haram suspect, foil bomb attack in Lagos Airport (PHOTOS)

There was anxiety at the Murtala Muhammed Airport , Lagos on Monday as security officials arrested a disabled young man suspected to be a bomber.
He was allegedly found with improvised explosive devices as he attempted to gain entrance into a facility near Centrex unit of the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency ( NAMA).
According to sources, the disabled young man was reportedly moving suspiciously along the airport road leading to the international wing of the airport , when private security officials on guard arrested him.
 interrogation, the suspect was found with alleged improvised explosive device.
Worried over the trend , the private security officials handed the suspect over to the Nigeria Police .
Confirming the incident , the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) has clarified that a suspected suicide bomber was arrested at one of the agency’s facilities at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos on Monday.
In statement , the general manager public affairs NAMA, Mr Supo Atobatele said: “The basic truth however, is that the said suspect was on the ground making phone calls along the airport road close to CENTREX, an annex office of NAMA when the agency’s security personnel accosted him of his presence.
” His incoherent explanation exposed him to the security personnel who later found on him with some devices suspected to be explosives.
” He was subsequently handed over to the Airport Police Command for further investigation.
” The managing director, Engr. Ibrahim Abdulsalam in a reaction commended the security personnel for their vigilance and prompt arrest
of the suspect.”
A source said the suspect was subsequently moved to the headquarters of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport Command, at Beesam junction along the Airport Road where he is still under interrogation .
A source close to the police said the device found on him are wired cables , which could be converted into explosives.
Officials of the Explosive Ordinance Department of the Nigeria Police are still examining the devices found on the young man , which has been allegedly diffused.
An eyewitness said the alleged explosive device, which has been diffused was hung on the neck of the suspect around the airport which attracted passers by including staff of aviation agencies .
Sequel to the arrest of the suspected bomber, security has been beefed up around both the domestic and international terminals of the Lagos Airport.
Many workers, contractors and others that passed through the main entrance into the headquarters of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria( FAAN), NAMA and other offices were subjected to intensive search .
They were requested to submit their bags for check before gaining entrance into the offices.
Workers of aviation agencies gathered in groups to discuss the implication of the threat to security around the airport.
At the Beesam junction headquarters of the police command, detectives, intelligence personnel and anti bomb specialists were on hand to carry out intense interrogation on the suspect.
The commissioner of police, Airport Command, Waheed Salau declined to comment on the development .
When The Nation visited his office at the third floor of the Lagos International Airport, officers on ground refused to confirm the development.
The Nation

60 females, 31 boys abducted in northeast Nigeria

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (AP) — Witnesses say Islamic extremists have abducted 60 more girls and women and 31 boys from villages in northeast Nigeria.

Security forces denied the kidnappings. Nigeria's government and military have been widely criticized for their slow response to the abductions of more than 200 schoolgirls who were kidnapped April 15.

There was no way to safely and independently confirm the report from Kummabza, 150 kilometers (95 miles) from Maiduguri, capital of Borno state and headquarters of a military state of emergency that has failed to curtail near-daily attacks by Boko Haram fighters.

Aji Khalil, of a local anti-Boko Haram group, said Tuesday the abductions took place Saturday in an attack in which four villagers were killed.

Boko Haram has been demanding the release of detained members in exchange for its hostages.

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Eight People Feared Dead as Explosion rocks Kano's School of Hygiene!

Eight persons have been confirmed dead in a blast at the School of Hygiene in Kano, the Kano State capital in northern Nigeria.

The blast, which occurred on Monday, is suspected to have been from an explosive device.

Briefing reporters in Abuja, the coordinator of the National Information Centre, Mr Mike Omeri, said “several others who sustained several degrees of injuries are receiving medical attention at various health centres across the state.

Mr Omeri also announced the death of a notorious terrorist, Mallam Husseini, who died in an encounter between members of the Boko Haram sect and a Military convoy along Jos-Bauchi high way.

The ‎spokesperson of the Kano Police, Magaji Majiya, who earlier confirmed the blast, told reporters that officers were on their way to the scene of the blast.

He said the area had been cordoned off and that the commissioner would address the media at the scene.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack but a terrorist group, Boko Haram has carried out similar attacks in Kano and states in Nigeria’s northeast region.

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Kidnapped Chibok Girls Plead For Release In New Video.

LAGOS—President Goodluck Jonathan has reportedly seen a new video released by Boko Haram, where the abducted school girls of Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State, spoke about their ordeal in the hands of the insurgents for the first time and pleaded with him to secure their release.
The girls were reportedly ill and are in camps located in Chad, Niger and Cameroon, with one of them nursing a broken wrist.
The footage, not released publicly but seen by the London-based The Mail on Sunday was taken in a jungle clearing a month after their abduction.

A screengrab taken on May 12, 2014, from a video of Nigerian Islamist extremist group Boko Haram obtained by AFP shows girls, wearing the full-length hijab and praying in an undisclosed rural location.

More than 250 girls were taken in a raid on their school in Chibok on April 14 by Boko Haram terrorists.
However, Cameroon’s military reportedly killed about 40 Boko Haram militants in the country’s northwest last weekend, a government radio reported yesterday, a day after Nigeria labelled the Central African nation the weakest link in its fight against the extremist sect.
The clashes leading to the killing occurred in the town of Kouserri, which borders Nigeria and Chad.
Cameroon, a clog in the wheel
The Federal Government regards Cameroun as not cooperative as Niger and Chad in the fight against Boko Haram.
After a security summit in Paris two weeks ago, Cameroon said it deployed 1,000 troops to its border to help contain the increasingly deadly group.
A series of suspected Boko Haram attacks in four villages in Nigeria’s restive North-East killed several people, residents said Sunday, in the latest violence blamed on the Islamist insurgents.
The military was not immediately available to comment on the raids in Borno State, the hardest hit area during Boko Haram’s five-year extremist uprising, which has killed thousands.
All of the targeted villages are in the Gamboru Ngala district near the border with Cameroon, where Boko Haram killed hundreds in a gruesome attack earlier last month.
The video, according to The Mail of London, indicated that the girls looked healthy, as eight of them, dressed in their home-made school uniforms of pale blue gingham, pleaded for release while standing courageously in front of the camera.
They were reportedly clearly scared, upset and trying to be brave, with each walking in turn to a spot in front of a white sheet fixed to a crude frame between the trees.
According to The Mail, four of the girls can be heard clearly in Hausa language stating that they were taken by force and that they were hungry.
The video indicated that a tall girl, aged about 18, said tearfully that “My family will be so worried”, even as another spoke softly, saying ‘I never expected to suffer like this in my life.”
Similarly, a third girl was captured in the video as saying ‘they have taken us away by force’, while the fourth complained of not getting enough food.
Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau, reportedly released the new video of the kidnapped girls praying after their conversion to Islam.
The video, taken by an intermediary on May 19, has been shown to President Goodluck Jonathan and was intended to serve as ‘proof of life’ for the girls and to encourage the President to accede to the terrorists’ demands.
Two earlier videos showed the girls seated on the ground, dressed in hijabs, reciting the Koran,with Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau, declaring he would sell them into slavery, or marry them off to their kidnappers, if members of his sect were not released from prison.
The Mail said pressure from the international community and criticism of the President’s slow response to the kidnapping have led to a series of contradictory pronouncements from his government. Ministers have declared they will not negotiate with Boko Haram, or consider the release of prisoners, while official spokesmen have said ‘the window is always open for dialogue’.
At a Paris peace summit, several West African countries neighbouring Nigeria vowed to join in ‘outright war’ against the terrorists. Britain, France and America pledged their support and have sent teams of military experts and advisers to the region. Intelligence sources have told The Mail of several rescue attempts, one  involving the release of suspected low-level Boko Haram members detained without charges or trial.
Two attempts were aborted at the last minute when the terrorists took fright while delivering a group of girls to a safe location.
Last week, Chief of Defence Staff, Alex Badeh said the government knew the location of the girls and claimed that police and military had been ‘following them’ since the abduction. He refused to divulge details, saying it would put the girls in further danger.
The Mail claimed that Badeh’s announcement may have been the result of government officials seeing the new, unpublished video and may have been able to persuade Boko Haram’s intermediary to provide details of the location. It is believed the hostages have been split into at least four groups.
The report said one Dr Stephen Davis, an Australian who has advised three Nigerian presidents on how to negotiate with the country’s militant groups, has spent the past month trying to help free the girls.
Most Chibok girls not held in Nigeria
‘The vast majority of the  Chibok girls are not being held in Nigeria,’ he said.
‘They are in camps across the Nigerian border in Cameroon, Chad and Niger. I say the “vast majority” as I know a small group was confirmed to me to be in Nigeria last week when we sought to have them released.’
Saying the Federal Government has been engaged in negotiations with Boko Haram’s spiritual leader Abubakar Shekau in a bid to secure the girls’ release, the report quoted the Australian describing how fraught the negotiation process has been.
‘One of that small group of girls is ill and we had hoped we might convince the commander of the group holding her that she should be released so we could give her medical treatment,’ Dr Davis said.
‘There are other girls who are not well and we have come close to having them released but their captors fear a trap in which they will be captured in the handover process.
‘One girl has what I assume is a broken wrist as they demonstrate to me how she holds her hand. I have been told that others are sick and in need of medical attention.’
A military source said: ‘This has been a race against time from the minute they were captured. As soon as the girls left Nigerian soil, it was always going to be more difficult.
‘The government made no attempt at a rescue until a month after they were taken. Now the situation gets more serious by the day.
‘Any sort of attempt to get to them would have to be cleared by the  governments of the other nations.’

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Bomb Explosion At A Drinking Joints Kills Over Forty...

A Bomb Explosion targeting fans at a football match being screened in a Bar(drinking Joint) near a military base in Mubi, Adamawa State, residents and police said killed no fewer than 40 people yesterday.

According to a report “There has been a bomb explosion at a football  field this evening and so far more than 40 people have been killed,” said a officer.

Adamawa Police Command and the Army Brigade confirmed the bomb blast, but could not confirm the casualty figure.
 The Command‘s spokesman, Mallam Othman Abubakar, said the blast occurred at about 6p.m. last night.
He said the blast occurred at a popular relaxation centre, Kabang.

#Bringbackourgirls: F.G, US slam Chief Of Defence

ABUJA—The United States said, yesterday, that it does not have information to support the claim by the Nigerian military that it knows the whereabouts of the more than 200 kidnapped schoolgirls.

The Chief of Defence Staff, Air Marshall Alex Badeh said on Monday that the military knew the location of the schoolgirls, abducted by the Boko Haram Islamic sect on April 14.

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters, yesterday, that, “we don’t have independent information from the United States to support that statement. We, as a matter of policy and for the girls’ safety and wellbeing, would not discuss publicly this sort of information regardless.”Badeh’s claim has also reportedly incurred the wrath of the Presidency.

Five U.S. and European security officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said they had no credible information on the location of the girls and were skeptical that the Nigerian government knew where they were. The five officials said the United States and some European allies had provided technical intelligence, including information from spy aircraft and satellites, to Nigerian authorities, who lack such intelligence capabilities.

But the officials said that as far as they knew, technical intelligence systems had not produced precise or credible information establishing the girls’ location.

The five officials said that if the Nigerians had obtained such information from informants on the ground, it has not been shared with U.S. and allied agencies.

One impediment to finding the girls, the officials said, was that since their abduction, they had been divided into small groups. Boko Haram is also believed to be hiding them in densely forested terrain where it would be hard for modern technical intelligence systems to gather information.

Presidency angry with CDS

Meanwhile, Chief of Defence Staff, CDS, Air Marshal Alex Badeh, has reportedly incurred the wrath of the Presidency over his claim that the military has sighted the 270 schoolgirls seized from their dormitories in Chibok, Borno State by Boko Haram terrorists last month.

President Jonathan, it was learnt last night, was unhappy with the claim by the defence chief, which he considered as a breach of military tactics capable of hindering the move to free the children, who have been in the kidnappers’ den since last month.

Meanwhile, Air Marshal Badeh declared, yesterday, that the military was now fighting a bigger battle with the international terrorist organisation known as Al Qaeda with networks in North and West Africa, noting that the ongoing counter terrorism and counter insurgency war has gone beyond Boko Haram

A top Presidency source told Vanguard last night that Jonathan considered the CDS’ claim on the missing schoolgirls as an unnecessary outburst, which could frustrate ongoing efforts by the multinational team currently in the country to rescue the girls.

Counter-productive

The source, which did not want to be quoted, said President Jonathan was still at a loss as to why Badeh made the statement at a time he was expected to be more cautious over the contentious issue, which is generating interest across the globe.

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Four Chibok Girls Released By Boko Haram

Four out of the over 200 schoolgirls abducted from Government Girls’ Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State,  have been released by the Boko Haram.

The Chairman, Chibok Local government Council, Mr. Bana Lawan, said on Wednesday that the girls fell ill and were released by their captors.

The News Agency of Nigeria reports that Lawan gave the information in Abuja at a one-day stakeholders’ meeting for validation of draft humanitarian response plan for the abducted girls.

The meeting was organised by the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA).

He said the girls were released on Tuesday to bring the number of those that had regained their freedom to 57.

Lawan commended Nigerians for showing concern and support for Chibok people, saying the support had restored the hope and aspiration of the people for the return of peace to the community.

He also praised the Federal Government’s prompt intervention through the provision of relief items for the people.

He urged the government to resuscitate the facilities destroyed by the insurgents and improve security in the affected school to boost the morale of the students.

Lawan explained that boys were encouraged to attend GGSS in Chibok because of the lack of education facilities in the area and appealed for the construction of boys’ hostels in the school.

He said the construction of the hostels would reduce the hardship faced by the students, who attended school from afar.

Dear Readers, do you think Boko Haram has a soft spot to have released the girls who were sick and by that action are willingly to have a Peaceful negiotiation with the Federal Government?

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#bringbackourgirls: Ebonyi Youths Invokes Divine Forces To Assist In The Rescue.

The Youths from Ebonyi State has indicated its wiliness to assist in rescuing abducted the Chibok girls.

The group, the aegis of Ebonyi Volunteers which recently ended a prayer and fasting session on the isssue, said they are ready to provide whatever necessary assistance is required to tackle the security situation.

The Leader, Mr. Sunday Ogodo Ogbodo, in a press conference in the state capital Abakaliki, said as volunteers who have no formal training on security, they had through the fasting and prayers invoked divine forces that could guide them.
He said the major problem in the efforts to tackle the security challenges in Nigeria is that some security personnel were leaking information to the Boko Haram sect.
 “There is no doubt that these boys would have been long crushed, but for the assistance they get from some security personnel. The abduction of our fellow youths, more so, girls, must be fought from all fronts”, he said.

It will be recall that  on the night of 14–15 April 2014, approximately 276 female students were kidnapped from the Government Secondary School in the town of Chibok in Borno State, Nigeria. The kidnappings were claimed by Boko Haram, an Islamic Jihadist and Takfiri terrorist organization based in northeast Nigeria.