Army retakes mubi

Army, Retake
Mubi Now
Category: Page3Comment Published on Sunday, 02
November 2014 05:00 Written by . Hits: 5955
Nigerians were breathing more easily last week,
having been assured that government had signed a
ceasefire deal with the deadly Boko Haram sect. We
were even assured that the more than 200 school
girls abducted from Chibok, Borno State will soon be
released under the terms of the ceasefire deal.
What we got instead was a sneak Boko Haram
attack that overran Mubi, the second largest town in
Adamawa State, quickly followed by a deadly bomb
blast targeted at a motor park in Gombe that killed
two dozen people.
The attack on Mubi happened on Wednesday
morning. The city with an estimated 200,000 people
was overrun by insurgents that drove in 14 trucks,
according to fleeing residents. Within hours this
town, the most important commercial hub of
northern Adamawa State was a smouldering ruin as
the insurgents set fire to sections of the market and
looted many shops. They also looted banks,
engaged in random execution of citizens and
occupied the palace of the Emir of Mubi. Among
those killed were a son of the district head of Mubi
as well as a lecturer and his entire family. They then
went round the town proclaiming that a new
government based on Islamic law had been
established.
Hours before the attack on Mubi, Boko Haram had
attacked Uba village, forcing most of its residents to
flee to the mountains. From Mubi the insurgents
also attacked nearby Vintim, home town of Chief of
Defence Staff Air Chief Marshal Alex Badeh. A
witness said hundreds of insurgents took part in
attacking Vintim, though most residents had already
escaped before their arrival.
The sacking of this major commercial city and its
surrounding communities quickly caused a
humanitarian catastrophe in Adamawa State during
the week. Tens of thousands of people fled Mubi in
various directions. Thousands of people were
reported to have been stranded in the bush along
Mubi-Maiha-Pella road, with others crossing into
Cameroon through the border town of Zumo, about
30 kilometres from Mubi. One man said he passed
at least 6,000 people on the road including the sick
with bandages and plasters on their arms and legs,
all of them trekking to Maiha. Another fleeing
resident said he saw many dead bodies in the bush
as well as many injured people lying on the ground,
especially children and women. Hundreds of still
other people trekked to Hong, over 50 kilometres
away. A witness said “the entire road was covered
with human beings herding out to Hong like a group
of sheep.” In the melee, many children were
separated from their parents.
The question on many lips as last week ended was,
was the army lulled to sleep by the ceasefire
announcement when the situation called for the
highest vigilance in case it all turned out to be a
hoax? In the weeks leading up to the ceasefire
announcement, the military had appeared to be
turning the tables on Boko Haram, repelling a series
of attacks on Konduga and liberating parts of Yobe
State from the deadly sect. In northern Adamawa
State too, the military launched attacks to retake
the occupied towns of Michika and Gulak though it
was not clear if they succeeded in doing so. In fact,
most observers thought that it was the military’s
gains that forced Boko Haram to make a deal, which
now turned out to be a hoax.
Some fleeing residents of Mubi actually wondered
how the insurgents were able to push the army out
of Mubi and overran an army battalion barracks
when all they deployed was a ragtag force of
teenagers mostly armed with AK-47 rifles and a
few grenade launchers. A fleeing man who saw
retreating soldiers converge about 60 kilometres
away said they had lots of vehicles and armoured
personnel carriers, much more than the attackers
could muster.
Hot on the heels of Mubi’s capture came the bomb
blast at Gombe. Improvised explosive devices
planted at the Gombe Line motor park in the heart of
the Gombe State capital on Friday morning killed an
estimated 24 passengers and commuters while 46
other people sustained varying degrees of injuries.
The bombs, suspected to have been planted by
Boko Haram, also destroyed many vehicles in the
park.
The episodes at Mubi and Gombe spoke loudly
enough that the ceasefire deal which the Federal
Government claimed to have negotiated with the
help of Chadian president Idris Deby was dead in
the water. On Friday evening, Boko Haram’s
mercurial leader Abubakar Shekau added insult to
injury by releasing another video posting. He said
there never was a ceasefire deal and that the man
who claimed to have signed it for the group was
unknown to it. He also debunked reports that the
Chibok girls will soon be free, saying they had
already been married off to sect members.
What all these mean is that the Boko Haram war is
alive and well and there is no hope at this time of
making a negotiated peace deal with the insurgents.
Since the military has been promising for many
months that it will turn the tide against the
insurgents with its recent acquisition of weapons,
the time has come to prove it. We expect the sect’s
military and territorial gains in the past week to be
speedily reversed. Mubi, Vintim and the other
occupied communities must be liberated
immediately so that the hapless residents could
return to their homes.
The time has also arrived to fully put in place the
international security agreements reached between
this country and its neighbours under the aegis of
the Lake Chad Basin Commission and Benin
Republic. From villages in northern Borno State
down to the Lake Chad shores, to Gwoza, Bama,
Sambisa Forest, eastern pockets of Yobe State all
the way to northern Adamawa State up to the
borders of Cameroon and Chad, Boko Haram now
controls a territory larger than most Nigerian states.
This is a shame. Urgent steps must be taken to
reverse the situation immediately.