Boko Haram dares military, kills 10 in liberated towns

• Fani-Kayode accuses APC of hiring foreign media against Jonathan

Boko Haram insurgents on Wednesday dared the Nigerian Armed Forces when they attacked liberated Gamboru and a remote community in the Borno State border area, killing 10 people. The terrorists who were frustrated and desperate, according to a military source in Maiduguri, attacked Nigerian border town of Gamboru and Foyi, its adjoining village, shooting sporadically, the source, who is not authorised to speak, said.

Military authorities in Maiduguri neither confirmed nor denied the attack, but residents of Gamboru, who are taking refuge in Fotokol, a Cameroon town, three kilometres from the Nigerian border, said they heard heavy gunshots on Wednesday by 4.45pm and that it lasted for nearly about an  hour.

“Some Cameroonian soldiers at Fotokol were on the alert, some of them were firing into Gamboru. Some engaged the Boko Haram men in battle and gunshots continued till about 5.30pm,” Ali Kaomi said by phone.

Also, one of the residents who did not want his name in print, said he visited Gamboru Tuesday afternoon to assess the state of his house following the military recapturing of the town three weeks ago. He said he left the town only to hear shooting again on Wednesday evening.

“Thank God, the soldiers have driven them away. The Boko Haram people fled and there is calm now, but we learnt they killed more than 10 people in Foyi. We don’t know if there is also casualty among our people that returned to Gamboru and Ngala (few metres away) on that day. Nobody is telling us anything,” he stated.

Twin towns of Gamboru/Ngala in Ngala Local Government located in the central senatorial zone of Borno State were seized by Boko Haram last August in a wave of attacks that saw at least 15 local governments being captured by the insurgents. But the Nigerian military backed by regional troops have so far liberated at least 13 local governments including Gamboru/Ngala.

Meanwhile, the Director of Media and Publicity of the Peoples Democratic Party Presidential Campaign Organisation (PDPPCO), Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, said yesterday that the All Progressives Congress (APC) is unhappy with the victory of the military over Boko Haram.

In a statement he issued in Abuja yesterday, Fani-Kayode said: “What is really giving the APC headache is its failed expectation that Jonathan’s government would be unable to subdue the deadly Boko Haram insurgents in the north-eastern part of the federation.

“The APC had a field-day attacking the government on the issue of insurgency, hardly aware of the determination by our candidate, President Goodluck Jonathan to end the problem once and for all. So far, the Nigerian military, in collaboration with the West African forces, have been recording unprecedented successes in the campaign against Boko Haram insurgents.

“The military had turned up surprises in their anti-Boko Haram campaigns so far with the ability to recover all the territories hitherto lost to the insurgents in Adamawa and Yobe with only a couple or communities more to recover in Borno State,” he said.

Fani-Kayode accused the APC of planning to hire foreign journalists and media houses to discredit and disparage the achievements of the military and the Federal Government. According to him, “this is to bring to the notice of the good people of Nigerians that the APC is now engaged in a last minute effort to hire foreign writers to discredit and disparage the government of President Goodluck Jonathan and the achievements he has so far recorded as we march towards March 28 presidential election.

“It has always been the stock in trade of the APC to run to the international media for support after failing to convince Nigerians that it has the credibility and capacity to withstand our presidential candidate in the coming election.

“Past efforts by the APC to use the international media against our President had failed and will continue to collapse like a pack of cards. This latest move by the APC is coming against the backdrop of the general disenchantment against the party and their leaders caused by the broadcast TV documentary –Unmasking the Real Tinubu – which exposed how their National Leader, Bola Tinubu, used his office as governor and the office of his successor, Babatunde Fashola, to amass monumental wealth in Lagos.

“Until the TV documentary, the opposition had a field-day denigrating the PDP, using the mantra of corruption as a tool. By now, Nigerians are properly schooled on which party holds the banner of corruption in the most sordid and absurd manner. To cover up for the shame of being de-robed and stripped naked on acts of corruption, the APC spin doctors suddenly realised that turning to foreign hack writers is a good deal for diverting the attention on the real issue on the ground just to save face,” Fani-Kayode said.