• Military repels sect’s onslaught on base with fighter jet
President Goodluck Jonathan Friday held an emergency meeting with service chiefs in Abuja in response to the failed attempt by the Boko Haram sect to overrun Nigeria army’s 202 Tank Battalion in Bama, Borno State in the early hours of Friday.
It was gathered that the sect members attacked the 202 Tank Battalion with improvised explosive devices and petrol-bombs but were repelled by the military who in the process killed several members of the outlawed group.
Miffed by the attack yesterday, Jonathan who was billed to preside over the decoration ceremony of 48 newly promoted Major Generals in the Army, Navy and Air Force, had to suspend preparations for the event and went into the meeting with the service chiefs.
Also in attendance at the meeting held in the Command Officers’ Mess in Asokoro was the Inspector General of Police, Muhammed Abubakar.
At the meeting, Jonathan bemoaned the perilous times the country was facing, saying the situation required the effort of all Nigerians to ensure lives and property are protected.
After the meeting with the service chiefs, Jonathan told the newly promoted officers: “It is a very challenging moment. I remember when I came in, I had a meeting with the Service Chiefs and Inspector General of Police because of what happened in Bama yesterday. It is a very challenging period in this country.
“For those of you who have been so decorated as full two-star Generals, we expect that you will bring your experience to bear. We must work together as a team to make sure that the armed forces are able to protect lives and property of Nigerians. If we cannot do that, the reputation of the country will continue to go down.
“A number of issues are being raised in the media; there is so much of challenge in the Armed Forces and other security agencies in the country. All of us collectively must stand up for our own responsibilities and go the extra mile to see that as a nation, we overcome these challenges.”
He urged the newly promoted officers to justify their new positions by working extra hard to save the country from the security challenges.
Major General Nimyel who spoke on behalf of the newly promoted officers pledged their loyalty to him and the armed forces while assuring that they would rededicate themselves to service of their fatherland.
At the end of the Boko Haram attack on the 202 Tank, residents of the town revealed that three innocent civilians and several other suspected terrorists were killed as it took the fire power of a military fighter jet bombardment to dislodge the insurgents.
Eyewitnesses told journalists that the hoodlums tried to gain access to the barrack through the Cameroonian border road of Gulumba.
Bama is 78 kilometres southeast of Maiduguri, where several attacks which have claimed many lives and property had been launched by the sect this year.
Garba Jibrin, a motorist, who had to make a U-turn at Konduga town to Maiduguri when he got wind of the attack on the Bama Barrack said he saw troops and their patrol vehicles and equipment moving towards the barracks in the morning.
“I was already at Konduga town, when a Good Samaritan told me that the Maiduguri-Bama road was not safe to travel. When I asked further, he told me that Boko Haram gunmen came to attack the army barracks in Bama, but they were killed by the soldiers.
“Based on what I was told, the insurgents came in the afternoon on Thursday and settled to strategise on Gulumba Road. One of the residents of Bama went and informed the military about the presence of suspected insurgents on the road. This helped the soldiers to ambush the insurgents before they could attack the barrack as they did in Maiduguri on December 2, 2015 at the Nigerian Air Force base.”
Confirming the incident yesterday in Maiduguri, the acting spokesman of 7 Division of Nigerian Army, Captain Aliyu Danja said the army repelled and crushed the insurgents. “The soldiers were able to kill several members of the Islamist sect.”
He said several arms and vehicles of the insurgents were also destroyed in the aerial bombardments that followed.
Danja however did not reveal the actual number of casualties, insisting that details would be made available to journalists later when the troops return from the field.
Source: Thisday
