The deadly attack on the 157 task force battalion stationed in Metele left scores of soldiers dead while some are still missing.

TheCable reports that, Some estimates put the casualty figure at over 100, but the army while commenting on Friday, failed to divulge the death toll.

The army’s statement read: “The attention of the NA has been drawn to several social media, print, electronic and online publications about the recent attack on 157 Task Force Battalion at Metele. Whilst it is true that there was an attack on the location on 18 November 2018, it has however, become necessary to correct several misinformation being circulated with regards to this unfortunate event.

“It is important for the public to note that the NA has laid down procedures for reporting incidents that involve its personnel who fall casualty in action. Out of respect for the families of our gallant troops, the NOKs are first notified before any form of public information so as to avoid exacerbating the grief family members would bear, were they to discover such from unofficial sources.

“Furthermore, it suffices to observe that several social media, print and online publications have been brandishing false casualty figures as well as circulating various footages of old and inaccurate BHT propaganda videos and alluding same to be the attack on 157 Task Force Battalion. Whilst it is understandable how such misinformation can spread in this era of social media frenzy, the spurious circulation of some of these videos only contribute to further propagate the propaganda intent of the terrorists; to misinform the populace and portray themselves as what they are not. So far, the situation is that the location is under control as reinforcing units have been able to repel the terrorists and stabilize the situation.

“The NA sincerely wishes to thank the various arms of government, MDAs and sister security agencies that have stood with her in these trying times; by commiserating with the families of the fallen heroes who have paid the supreme price for the defence of our dearly beloved country. The necessary support being given the NA by the Federal Government and the goodwill of the Nigerian populace will undoubtedly continue to spur the NA towards the ultimate defeat of the highly degraded BHTs.”

Following the latest attack, President Muhammadu Buhari dispatched Mansur Dan-Ali, minister of defence, for an emergency meeting with Chadian President Idris Deby.

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On his twitter page, he wrote “I am sad to hear about the death of aid workers killed in the overnight attacks in Rann, Borno StaRann, Borno Statete. Everyday, aid workers sacrifice their comfort in other to care for the most vulnerable in our society. The least we can do is spare their lives.

“Even as I convey my deepest sympathy to the families and loved ones of the victims, I am gladdened by the commitment of the institutions in standing with us at this most challenging time.”

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The suspected Boko Haram attack followed Saturday night’s assault on a military base in neighbouring Yobe State where five soldiers were allegedly killed, with 30 others missing.

The incident occurred around 5:00 a.m., as worshippers observed prayers.

The North East Zonal Coordinator of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Bashir Garga, said: “I can confirm to you that there was an attack in Gambouru Ngala, where 15 people were killed. A male suicide bomber carried out the attack. Some of our officials, the State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA), the military and the police assisted in the evacuation of over two dozen wounded persons to different medical formations in the town.”

Major General Rogers Nicholas, Theatre Commander of Operation Lafiya Dole, however, disclosed only five fatalities. “Our ground troops have already neutralised a suicide bomber at Rann, the council headquarters of Kala/Balge in Borno State.
“Yes, but only five (were) killed and another suicide bomber neutralised in Rann,” he said.

But a resident of the town, Yakubu Isa, insisted NEMA’s account of casualty figures was credible. “The suicide bomber hailed from Gambouru town. He disowned his parents and joined the insurgents in the bush. He entered the mosque, blew himself into pieces, and killed 15 persons including his biological father,” Isa said.

Garga added: “Another suicide bomber yesterday detonated an explosive behind the Dalori displaced person’s camp in Maiduguri, killing only himself.”

He urged members of the public to be “very alert and conscious as ever with strangers who come close to them.” He also said his team was “working on safety tips that we are going to distribute to people on the new trends of suicide bombings in the North East.”

Gambouru, a commercial hub on the border with Cameroon, is 145 kilometres northeast of Maiduguri, the Borno State capital.

The army denied it suffered any casualties in the Yobe attack. “Yes, there was an attack on our troops by Boko Haram terrorists. It was, however, repelled. Our soldiers are in hot pursuit of the fleeing insurgents,” Col. Kayode Ogunsanya, the spokesman of 3 Division, Nigerian Army, had said in Damaturu.

A credible security source, however, told The Guardian that about five soldiers were discovered dead and evacuated to Maiduguri, and that about 30 others were missing.

One eyewitness said the attackers arrived in seven vans. “We thought they were soldiers because everything about them was like soldiers, their dressing, their vehicles, everything. They passed through the town but did not touch anybody. They went straight to the military base. Then we started hearing heavy gunshots,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Chief of the Air Staff (CAS), Air Marshal Sadique Abubakar, yesterday expressed the confidence that the Nigerian Air Force (NAF) could defeat terrorists in all parts of the country.

At the CAS Awards Ceremony and Workshop for newly posted field commanders at NAF Headquarters, Abuja, Abubakar said: “We are living in extraordinary times with myriads of problems threatening to shake the foundation laid by the founding fathers of this great nation, and by extension, threatening to erode the labour of our past heroes.

“As Chief of Air Staff, I have had the privilege of commanding men and women who showed courage in the face of terror, exhibited strength where others saw fear, and applied ingenuity where others perceived impossibility. Most importantly, I have enjoyed the honour and rare privilege of serving under the selfless, visionary and resilient leadership of President Muhammadu Buhari.

“This combination of factors imbued us with the courage needed to win at all fronts as a force; be it against Boko Haram, terrorism in the North East or militancy in the South South, or security challenges nationwide.”

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He said the governor exposed the girls of Chibok Secondary School to danger by failing to heed the federal government’s directive to relocate them while writing the West African School Certificate Examinations (WASCE).

Jonathan said this in reaction to Shettima’s claim that he nearly removed him as governor of Borno State in 2014 over the disappearance of Chibok schoolgirls.

In a statement issued on Friday by Jonathan spokesman, Ikechukwu Eze, the former president also described ‘On a Platter of Gold- How Jonathan won and lost Nigeria’, a book written by Bolaji Abdullahi, as “sore grapes and full of lies and gossip”.

THE FULL STATEMENT

Our attention has been drawn to the claims made by the Governor of Borno State, Kashim Shettima on Thursday at a book launch to the effect that former President Dr. Goodluck Jonathan wasted the goodwill he commanded because of bad governance and poor choices in office. He was also said to have accused Jonathan of believing that he was behind the kidnap of the Chibok girls.

As a man who had never seen anything good in the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan on account of party and other differences,  it has remained our considered view that in a democracy, Governor Kashim Shettima and others like him are entitled to their opinion, no matter how jaundiced.

However, it is a sad commentary on the character of some of our politicians that they go to any length to make spurious statements, in pursuit of the sad narrative to remain politically correct.  We cannot be deceived by his crocodile tears and patronizing claim that “Jonathan is essentially a decent man”, which is a ploy he deployed to justify his false allegation of a lost glory.

The man who today speaks of squandered goodwill should be able to tell Nigerians what percentage of the votes Jonathan got in 2011 from Borno State at the height of that his envisaged glory according to Shettima, and what it became in subsequent elections. What was obvious yesterday and has remained so today is that Governor Shettima and those who think like him never liked Jonathan based on some parochial and paternalistic sentiments.

We didn’t expect anything less from Governor Shettima, knowing the ignoble roles he played in frustrating the war waged by the past administration against Boko Haram, even in his own Borno State.

He should be able to tell us if it was Jonathan’s poor choices that led the Governor to expose students of Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok to avoidable danger, in total disregard of a Federal Government directive to the Governors in the three states most affected by Boko Haram to relocate their students writing the West African School Certificate Examinations to safe zones.

The Governor is now denying that he had no hand in the kidnap of the Chibok girls even before anybody accused him of culpability. However, we share the view of those who insist that the Governor had other things up his sleeve when he promised the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) that he would secure the girls, and ended up doing the very opposite, by deliberately abandoning them to their fate, without any security presence in their school.

It is instructive that while other Governors in the zone heeded the security advice, Shettima remained the only one that flagrantly flouted it. Should we also fail to point out that his decision to reward the principal of Chibok Secondary School, who was uncharacteristically absent on the night terrorists stormed the school, with the post of a commissioner, did throw up more questions than answers?

Talking about accountability, perhaps, Shettima should also do well to explain to the good people of Borno State and Nigerians what he did with the over N60 billion Local Governments fund, left by his predecessor, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff.

We understand Governor Shettima and those who spoke like him accused Jonathan of bad governance and poor choices, and we would like to know if it was bad governance that led Jonathan to assemble a-yet-to be matched crop of dynamic cabinet and economic management team made up of tested technocrats like Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala in Finance ministry, Dr. Shamsuddeen Usman in Planning, Mr Olusegun Aganga in Trade and Investments as well as Dr. Akinwumi Adesina leading the charge in Agriculture. The efforts of the Jonathan administration in repositioning Nigeria’s economy remain self-evident and it must have indeed been poor choices at their best for Jonathan and his team to have recorded the following key achievements:

* Nigeria’s Gross domestic Product rose to $503bn in 2013 and became Africa’s largest economy and 26th in the world; from 3rd and 46th respectively.

* Nigeria became the number one destination for Foreign Direct Investment in Africa under former President Jonathan, with the numbers rising from US$24.9 million as at 2007 to over US$ 35 billion in 2014.

* Jonathan Government delivered over 25,000 kilometres of motorable federal roads from just a quarter of that number in 2011.

* The Jonathan Administration resuscitated the railways in the country after about 30-years of hiatus

*Jonathan’s Agricultural Transformation Agenda ended fertiliser racketeering, encouraged more young Nigerians to take to farming, boosted local food production and took the country closer to self-sufficiency in food production by recording more than 50% reduction in food imports. It was as a result of this that the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, for the first time, voted Nigeria the largest producer of Cassava in the world.

* Power generation under Jonathan was boosted to about 5,000 megawatts in 2014 up from 2,000 megawatts in 2011.

* Prices of food and other household items remained stable and inflationary pressure was down to a single digit.

* Under Jonathan, Nigeria controlled clinically Ebola outbreak to the admiration of the whole world,  became Guinea-worm-free and also eradicated polio, with United States billionaire and renowned philanthropist Bill Gates, praising Nigeria’s successes against polio as one of the great world achievements of 2014. Sadly polio has returned to the country with the likes of Shettima in charge of the endemic states.

* Under Jonathan Life expectancy in Nigeria rose from 47 years in 2010 to 54 years in 2015.

*Just before Jonathan left office, CNN Money projected that Nigeria’s economy in 2015 would become the third fastest growing economy in the world at 7% behind China at 7.3% and Qatar at 7.1%.

Was it bad governance and poor choices that reformed the political and electoral processes to the extent that the United Nations is now pleading with the government of the day to strive to maintain the standards established by Jonathan?

Fortunately, Nigerians know where they stand with all of their leaders. All those who are calling Jonathan names today, and accusing him of having become quite unpopular, should simply take a walk on the streets of any Nigerian city as real leaders do. That way, they will accurately gauge their own approval and test their popularity with the Nigerian people.

On the book entitled “On a Platter of Gold- How Jonathan won and lost Nigeria” written by Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress, we have watched for some time as some outrageous fabrications are extracted from its pages day after day by the media. When the publication of the book, with an ominous title was first mooted, we knew it will be full of bile and sour grapes. We didn’t expect truth, sincerity and accuracy of narration, given that the author who was sacked from his ministerial position by the subject of the book, is now the spokesman for the ruling APC.

We will therefore like to dissociate former President Jonathan from the book’s salacious contents, with all the obvious distortions, lies and exaggerations. Its pages are populated with gossip, politically influenced newspaper articles, uncoordinated raw data and unproven claims. Sadly, the author did not help matters, as there was no rigor or indepth investigations towards establishing the veracity of the allegations the book contained. For instance, it is ridiculous for the author to have claimed that the President was forced to sack a certain minister by another cabinet member when the obvious truth known to all key members of the administration was that the President acted based on the recommendation of an internal committee that investigated the matter. This, unfortunately, is the kind of baseless claims and narrative that run through the entire book, and it would be pointless devoting our time towards making a case by case response to all its ridiculous allegations.

We will like to remind Nigerians of what former President Jonathan said earlier in the year when a similar book was published, that only the key actors in his Government and in the 2015 Presidential elections could give an exact account of what transpired, not speculations and conjectures by third party spectators. That time will come someday.

Thecable

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The group’s Chairman, Alhaji Muhammad Hassan, said that the IDPs would want to return and continue their normal activities in view of the prevailing peace in the state.

Hassan noted that about 70 per cent of the reconstruction and rehabilitation projects had been completed in the area, saying that they were tired of living as displaced persons.

“We are in Maiduguri for more than three years without meaningful means of livelihoods. The condition of our people is pathetic.

“The elongation in the process of returning displaced persons to their homes is moving at a snail pace and exposed them to unbearable conditions.

“We could no longer send our children to school; many have died of hunger and starvation. Most of us live in host communities and no one is supporting us,” Hassan stated.

He said that most of them were traumatised, coupled with serious neglect and poor living condition, adding that they are ready to trek back to Bama.

The Police, however, stopped the demonstrators from embarking on the trek and urged them to drop the idea because of safety.

Mr Damian Chukwu, the Police Commissioner in the state, said that the group had not notified the command over their planned return to Bama.

He advised the IDPs to dialogue with the state government and other stakeholders over their demand so that adequate preparations would be made.

“The police have a duty to protect you and we will not allow you to gather people and expose them to danger in the name of home return.

“Also, there is massive reconstruction and rehabilitation works going on in the town, executed by the Federal and State Government under the Bama Initiative.

“We will not allow you to go because of your safety, you better go back and wait for the time when government will permit your return to the town,” he said.

In his reaction, Gov. Kashim Shettima urged the IDPs to cooperate with government to fast-track the completion of rehabilitation projects in the town.

Malam Isa Gusau, the Special Adviser to the governor, Communication and Media Strategy made this known in a statement issued in Maiduguri.

“It is to the government’s advantage if IDPs return home because their return will lessen economic burden of supporting them as displaced persons.

“The greatest wish of the governor is the safe and dignified return of all IDPs to their communities. Much as he wants the IDPs to return, he is also concerned about their safety.

“Gov. Shettima is consistently committed to the ongoing rebuilding of private homes, police stations, hospitals, schools, water facilities, markets, council secretariats and other essential services in communities across 15 local government areas of the state,’’ he said.

Gusau explained that government had constructed 20,000 housing units in Bama and provided modern health facilities, schools and police stations in the area.

He added that the Federal Government was currently training a special Anti-Terrorism Squad and Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF) to be deployed to the town under the Bama Initiative.

The spokesman added that the special squad and the agro-rangers, specifically trained to secure farmers in their farmlands would replace the military.

“We have to ensure that there is full return of civil security before IDPs can return.

“The governor encourages safe and dignified return only after putting the right things in place,” Gusau said.

According to him, the state government had re-built houses and re-settled displaced persons in parts of Kaga, Konduga and Gwoza Local Government Areas of the state.

Newsmen report that thousands of persons were forced to flee their homes when the Boko Haram insurgents sacked Bama town in 2014. Hundreds of people were killed, maimed or abducted while the entire structures in the town were razed by the insurgents.

Courtesy:NAN

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The Centre stated this in a statement on Tuesday, adding that six areas are currently affected in the state, with Muna Garage Internally Displaced Persons Camp on the fringes of the state capital, Maiduguri, as the most affected.

The statement signed by National Coordinator and Chief Executive of the NCDC, Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu, revealed that on August 16, 2017, the NCDC was informed of a possible outbreak of cholera in a camp for IDPs in Borno State.

This was reportedly investigated by the Borno State Ministry of Health, the World Health Organisation, WHO and some other agencies, confirming a cholera outbreak.

The statement reads in part: “The Federal Ministry of Health through its agencies – NCDC and the National Primary Healthcare Development Agency, is working closely with WHO, Medecins Sans Frontieres (popularly called Doctors without Borders), United Nations Children’s Fund and other humanitarian agencies in Borno, to support the state government in curtailing the spread of the outbreak.

“Public health measures that have been initiated include the establishment of a cholera treatment centre in the affected camps and surrounding areas, strengthening access to water, sanitation and hygiene. Partners are working collaboratively to plan a cholera vaccination campaign. Risk communications activities, using both conventional media and door-to-door enlightenment have been reinforced.”

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