Boko Haram Kidnaps 50 More Women, Several Children

Boko Haram insurgents

•  WAEC results of Chibok girls ready, says Shekarau 
•  Amosu: Bad weather hampering search for missing jet, rules out sabotage

Muhammad Bello, Senator Iroegbu, Jaiyeola Andrews in Abuja and Daji Sani in Yola

Locals of Michika and Gulak communities in Adamawa State monday raised the alarm over the abduction of over 50 women and an undisclosed number of children by Boko Haram insurgents.

The news of the latest abduction coincided with the revelation by the Minister of Education Ibrahim Shekarau that the West African Examination Council (WAEC) results of the more than 200 schoolgirls kidnapped by members of the sect in April has been released.

The girls were taking their school certificate exams when they were kidnapped from Government Secondary School, Chibok in Borno State.

Also, the Chief of Air Staff (CAS), Air Marshal Ademola Amosu, has stated that the Nigerian Air Force (NAF) has a fairly good idea of where its missing Alpha jet is, but bad weather in the North-east is hampering its search and rescue efforts to locate the aircraft and its two pilots.

On the abduction of the women and children, a resident in Husra village in Michika, Adamawa State, who identified himself as Mallam Musa Yaro-Uba Musa, revealed that hundreds of people including women and children in the northern part of Adamawa State were languishing in the custody of the insurgents.
A security source who confirmed this to THISDAY, said the sect members had called women last Saturday to collect food items from them at Gulak, the secretariat of Madagali Local Government Area, following which they selected some of them and took them away.

Also, a politician in the area, Mr. Maina Ularamu, said: “The information I have is that they selected some women and locked them in the local government secretariat.”

Another resident of Gulak, who escaped from the area, said at least 50 young women were seized by the insurgents from Gulak town on Saturday after the victims were assembled at a prayer ground.

Boko Haram members have been running amok in Madagali, Gulak and Michika despite efforts by the Nigerian military to flush them out.

A resident, who identified himself simply as Tija, said he got the news of the abduction when he was trapped in a village near Gulak before his subsequent escape to Yola, the Adamawa State capital, on Sunday.

He revealed that the victims, including married women, were loaded on to trucks and taken away despite passionate pleas to the insurgents to spare them.

“Some women brought the news that Boko Haram forcibly took some of them away including a sister-in-law of a friend of mine. The situation is getting worse by the day, our hope is that this problem will end one day,” he stated.

However, a source said old men and sick persons who are incapacitated and unable to escape due to their conditions were left to the whims of the sect.
He claimed members of the sect had been feeding them on a daily basis and had assured them of maximum security, adding that his father was among the old men still in the custody of the sect.

He said everyday, the sect members allow his father to call him on the phone, assuring him that he is well taken care of by the insurgents and he need not worry about him.

Also, Musa, the Michika resident, disclosed that able-bodied youths were being conscripted by the terrorists, after attempts at indoctrination by the insurgents to recruit new members had failed to get them as volunteers.

Musa said members of Boko Haram had carried out several preaching sessions in the recent past to convert and recruit new members into the sect which had proved unsuccessful, hence the decision to conscript youths into the sect.

“The insurgents conducted preaching sessions to attract converts to their midst but people only listened out of fear. They next day, they asked if anybody wanted to join them but there was no response, so they selected many healthy-looking young men and asked them to go with them.

“One of the victims is my relative who did body building exercises regularly,” he stated.
However, in response to the humanitarian crisis in the North-east, President Goodluck Jonathan has ordered the immediate release of relief materials worth N1.5 billion to the three states worst affected by the insurgency.

A member of the Presidential Special Committee on Relief Materials for the North-east, Alhaji Salihu Yunusa Belel, who made the disclosure during a conversation with newsmen in Yola yesterday, said the president had ordered that N500 million of relief materials shall go to Adamawa, Borno and Yobe States each.
Belel further explained that the materials would go round the 21 local government areas of Adamawa State.

He said the purpose of establishing the committee was to ensure that all internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the North-east gets some reprieve.
He said the relief materials to be provided are in three categories comprising food items, clothing and building materials to accommodate the varying needs of the IDPs.

Chibok Girls’ WAEC Results Released

But as the federal government rolled out measures to cater to the IDPs in the North-east, emotions ran high yesterday when the education minister told the House of Representatives Committee on Education that the WAEC results of the 219 Chibok girls kidnapped by Boko Haram last April were out.

Shekarau, who was at a stakeholders’ meeting organised by the committee over the federal government’s directive to resume school on September 22, said the ministry got wind of the result through a message from the WAEC.

According to him, the results were being scrutinised by his ministry because the abduction of some of the schoolgirls made its conduct “haphazard” as some of the girls managed to escape while many of them were still being held.

The minister, who assured the committee that the federal government had not lost hope in its bid to secure the release of the girls, added that efforts were also being made to improve on education for girls generally in the North-eastern zone.
“This morning, I got a message from WAEC that the results of Chibok Secondary School are out.

“We (ministry) have to look at them (results) vis-a-vis the security situation and its implication before the formal release. They are right now in my possession because when the abduction took place, some stayed and completed their examination while some were abducted.

“So the result is haphazard, and we are addressing that this (yesterday) afternoon,” he said.

Since their abduction five months ago, the whereabouts of the Chibok girls have remained unknown despite the global coalition to find and rescue them.
The students were writing their WAEC examination when the sect members truncated their education.

The president, yesterday afternoon, was expected to hold a meeting to address the issue of girls’ education in the troubled North-east zone, Shekarau also revealed, adding that the meeting would be attended by himself and four other persons.

Bad Weather Hampering Search for Missing Jet

Meanwhile, the Chief of Army Staff yesterday explained that the current pool of information regarding the whereabouts of the missing NAF Alpha Jet NAF466 is insufficient.

To this end, Amosu said the military was intensifying search and rescue efforts for the jet, which went missing last Friday after routine military operations in Adamawa State.

The air force chief made the remarks while responding to questions from journalists, after a meeting at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

He clarified that the aircraft was yet to be sighted at the time he spoke with journalists, contrary to claims that some farmers in Adamawa had spotted it.

While commending the public for showing interest in the missing aircraft and its two-man crew, Amosu said the information being passed by the public so far was good but not sufficient to define the area of search.

“But the information we are getting from the citizens is good but not enough for us to define the area of search,” he said.

The CAS gave further insight into what happened prior and after the aircraft was declared missing, adding that bad weather had slowed down the on-going search-and-rescue operations.

He said: “One of our Alpha Jets went on routine operation in the North-east and they lost contact with the control tower and that made us to immediately initiate a search.
“The weather has not been helpful as we have deployed all our surveillance capability. The citizens have been very, very helpful and we have gotten good information from them.”

He pointed out that the air force has a fairly good idea of where the aircraft might be, adding that though the area is Sahelian in nature, which people misconstrue as being easy to navigate, but “it is challenging”.

“Human beings standing may look like trees and again the area we are talking about we have operations going on there and we have limitations as to how low we can fly to conduct the search.

“But I am hopeful that before the end of the day or week, we should be able to provide credible information on the location of the aircraft and the pilots.
“But one thing is clear whatever problem they (the pilots) had, an ejection was contemplated. It is therefore my hope that the pilots are still alive,” Amosu said.

On whether there was the possibility of sabotage, he said: “Sabotage? No, because it is a distance of just from Maiduguri to Yola. We are in full control of the airspace.

“But don’t forget that when you lose radio signal it becomes very challenging. There are so many possibilities but we are working on them.”

Also commenting on the strategy by the air force to use Alpha fighter jets, a top security analyst, Mr. Max Gbanite, yesterday called for the urgent introduction of attack helicopters in the on-going counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency efforts.

According to Gbanite, attack helicopters are better suited to fighting insurgents than the Alpha fighter jets, which he said are more expensive to operate and are old.

He also advised that there should be a new arrangement whereby any attack helicopter should be under the Military Aviation Wing and not necessarily the NAF.

He said: “I think there should be no panic about this missing aircraft. This is the reason the Americans are not using aircraft in the fight against terrorism because the insurgents can hide for hours and you keep flying and burning fuel. There can also be fatigue of the pilot and the Alpha jets are over 40 years old, you can't keep them for too long.

“It’s not that they can't fly, they did well in Liberia. But this is the time we should start thinking of bringing in attack helicopters.

“This is the time to bring them and even when that is done, it should be under the Military Aviation Wing and not necessarily by the air force.”