TROUBLE started at about 8.00 a.m. on Monday following bomb blasts at Dala Alemderi ward of Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, where an unconfirmed report put the death toll at six, following sporadic gunshots immediately the blast occurred.
Fleeing residents of Alemderi who spoke, said that the blast shattered the patrol vehicle of the Joint Task Force on Operation Restore Order in Borno, living an army officer dead.
According to the man who identified himself as Mohammed Sani, “immediately after the blasts, we could not tell exactly whether it was an exchange of fire between the JTF and Boko Haram members, or it was the military that were firing, but people were killed, shops were burnt and several cars also were damaged. The military went mad because it affected one of them as such we had to flee the area because we all knew what would happen next.”
The JTF spokesman, Lieutenant-Colonel Mohammed Hassan, told Nigerian Tribune that the bomb was planted near a high tension cable on the road heading to Dala Kabamti (the local beer joint where hundreds of people were massacred by unknown gunmen).
According to Lieutenant-Colonel Hassan, the sect planted the bomb targeting the JTF which unfortunately got at them, adding that there would be a news release from the JTF to that effect and that they would explain everything later.
But when contacted the Field Operation Commander, Colonel Victor Ebhaleme, he said that the blasts ripped apart the JTF vehicle killing a NAF officer.
He explained that this was what the JTF had been fighting and nobody was spared by the sect members. “We would get them and they would definitely face the music,” he added.
Also, an elderly woman, who spoke in Bullumkuttu, Abuja ward, said she took some people to work on a farm and while coming home, she saw people running and those who knew her asked her to go back as soldiers had cordoned off the area.
According to her, she left her grandson at home who was still sucking, because the mother left him with her to go and write her examination at the university. “They said ‘Mama, go back, there is shooting’ and I told them it was not possible. I left my grandson at home, I had to go and see him no matter what. When I got home, soldiers were in front of my house; some of them were shouting and asking people to go back. I saw them beating somebody, I think they took him away because when my last born came to open the gate, we saw them beating people, but they didn’t talk to us as I entered my house and closed the gate,” she explained.
At the time of filing this report, several attempts to get the Borno State Police Commissioner, Mr Simeon Midenda, to speak on the issue did not yield result as his phone kept ringing without response.
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